civil rights

• 
• SOURCE: WBUR
  1/17/2022
  

  Annette Gordon-Reed: Don't Accept "Cuddly" King Image

  The late leader's opposition to militarism, economic injustice, and white supremacy, which sustained a broad critique of capitalist society, have been sanitized and reduced to platitudes by people who would prefer not to recognize the equality of all people, the historian told the annual MLK Memorial Breakfast. 

• 
• SOURCE: CNN
  1/17/2022
  

  The White Moderates King Warned About

  by Victor Ray

  "By blocking voting reform today, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the White moderates Dr. King warned us about."

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• SOURCE: Zinn Education Project/Teach Reconstruction
  1/12/2022
  

  State Standards are Failing to Teach Reconstruction and Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle

  by Ana Rosado, Gideon Cohn-Postar and Mimi Eisen

  A common thread connecting public ignorance of American history and the politicization of history curricula is the systemic erasure of the history of Reconstruction. This report considers how states currently mandate the teaching of the era and what they could do better. 

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• SOURCE: Activist History Review
  1/13/2022
  

  We Need “CRT” to Understand the Midwest, Too

  by Bradley J. Sommer

  "The continued existence of white nationalist groups came as a shock to many Toledoans. It has likely shocked a lot of Americans in recent years, many of whom thought that Nazis existed only in textbooks and as the bad guys in movies."

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  1/9/2022
  

  MLK's History Lessons

  by Jelani Cobb

  Martin Luther King's use of American history to inform his developing demands for political and economic justice would run afoul fo legislation being passed by a growing number of states to restrict teaching about racism and inequality in the nation's past. 

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  1/5/2022
  

  Homer Plessy's Posthumous Pardon Finally Recognizes His Heroism

  by Keisha N. Blain

  "The decision to pardon Plessy and finally clear his record are the culmination of efforts by Keith Plessy, the great-great-grandson of Homer Plessy’s cousin, and Phoebe Ferguson, the great-great-granddaughter of John H. Ferguson, the Louisiana judge who upheld the state's Separate Car Act."

• 
• SOURCE: DCist
  12/30/2021
  

  Mosaic Theater Is Collecting H Street Residents’ Protest Stories And Turning Them Into Plays

  “We want to be a place where the stories of our community are uplifted and celebrated and given the spotlight — particularly because so many of those residents are African Americans who have seen so much change happen without their input,” says Reginald Douglas, Mosaic’s new artistic director.

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/4/2022
  

  "A Minority of Misguided Senators": MLK on the Filibuster

  “I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting. They won’t let the majority senators vote."

• 
• SOURCE: MSNBC
  12/17/2021
  

  Justice for Unsung Civil Rights Pioneer: Claudette Colvin's Juvenile Court Record Finally Expunged

  by Keisha N. Blain

  "Colvin was one of several Black women and girls in Alabama’s capital who defied Jim Crow laws before Parks did. She was also one of many subjected to the state-sanctioned violence that was required to sustain segregationist laws."

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  12/6/2021
  

  Justice Department Closes Emmett Till Investigation Without Charges

  Historian Timothy Tyson wrote in a 2017 book that witness Carolyn Bryant Donham disavowed her testimony that Till had grabbed her and made suggestive remarks before he was lynched. The DOJ has said that materials given them by Tyson did not corroborate the claim of a recantation. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  11/12/2021
  

  Louisiana Governor to Decide Posthumous Pardon for Homer Plessy

  Louisiana's Avery C. Alexander Act, named for a longtime state House member, calls for pardoning individuals who were convicted of violating laws establishing segregation or discrimination, but has seldom been invoked to do so. 

• 
• SOURCE: Boston Review
  11/16/2021
  

  SNCC's Unruly Internationalism

  by Dan Berger

  SNCC activists' global understanding of the problem of racism, expressed at the height of the Cold War, cost the organization external support, but left a vital legacy for international movements for justice. 

• 
• SOURCE: Hyperallergic
  11/15/2021
  

  Doris Derby’s Searing, Intimate Photos of the Civil Rights Movement

  Doris Derby didn’t just chronicle the movement with her camera; she also actively contributed to its causes.

• 
• SOURCE: KUT
  11/9/2021
  

  "Civil Rights in Black and Brown" Examines Texas's Forgotten Activists

  Todd Moye and Max Krochmal's history of multiracial Texas activism grew out of oral history projects with their students; they realized how much of the grassroots history of civil rights struggle in the state could be lost if it weren't recorded. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/7/2021
  

  White Backlash is America's Most Destructive Habit

  by John S. Huntington and Lawrence Glickman

  The authors endorse the term "counterrevolution" for a repeated pattern of political mobilization among White Americans combining distrust of democracy, apocalyptic rhetoric about the effects of racial equality, and the endorsement of antidemocratic and violent means to halt change.

• 
• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  11/7/2021
  

  Pioneering Chicano Movement TV Show Reemerges after 50 Years in Garage

  On a recent August day, Frank Cruz, now 82, thought to himself as he had dozens of times before: “Pendejo, you better do something about those films. It might be too late.”

• 
• SOURCE: TIME
  10/27/2021
  

  Fannie Lou Hamer's Leadership Shows We Can't Separate Civil Rights and Economic Justice

  by Keisha N. Blain

  The author of a new biography of the Mississippi Freedom Democrat argues that Hamer's legacy shows that inequality erodes both civil rights and democracy. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  10/26/2021
  

  Do Liberal Activists Need to Reconnect with the Religious Left?

  by Julian Zelizer

  The rise of conservatism in Christian political engagement and the increasing importance of Israel to many American Jewish organizations should not discourage liberal activists from reviving the legacy of Rabbi Abraham Heschel and interfaith social justice organizing. 

• 
• SOURCE: Nature
  10/18/2021
  

  How Cigarettes Became a Civil Rights Issue

  Medical Historian Keith Wailoo's new book argues that tobacco companies have systematically targeted Black communities with advertisements for menthol cigarettes and enlisted Black civil rights leaders to oppose regulations on flavored tobacco sales. 

• 
• SOURCE: KSAT
  10/13/2021
  

  Historian: At 100th Anniversary, the Origins of LULAC are in San Antonio

  Cynthia Orozco, Ph.D, professor of history and humanities at Eastern New Mexico University, will discuss how Order Sons of America led to the creation of the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation’s oldest and largest Hispanic civil rights organization.