Tag Archives: Civil Rights Movement

Voices

OPINION | ‘Practical Audacity’: On Writing About Black Women and the Future of Human Rights

by Reagan Jackson

As we slide into April, I find myself chafing at the idea that Black history and women’s history should only be relegated to one month. Consider this part of my contribution to uplift Black women’s stories all day every day: I want to amplify the work of someone who has fundamentally shaped my understanding of Black feminism and, generally, the world, my mom, Dr. Stanlie M. James.

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Voices

OPINION | Light a Candle for Pauli Murray

by Reagan Jackson

A note on she/her pronouns: Pauli Murray lived during a time before it was commonplace to use pronouns to denote nonbinary or trans identities. She expressed dysmorphia to an extent where she underwent exploratory surgery hoping for medical confirmation of undescended testicles to prove that though she appeared to be a woman, she felt, thought, and existed within herself as a man. In this article, I will refer to Pauli Murray as she/her because those were the pronouns she used, but with the caveat that in today’s world Murray likely would have chosen to identify as he/him or they/them. 

Pauli Murray is one of the most important figures in modern U.S. history that you might never have heard of — a Black trans lawyer, activist, Episcopal priest, and poet. Often ahead of her time, Murray was a founding member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and went unrecognized for her thought leadership in two court cases that changed the face of this country: Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case that overturned Plessy v. Ferguson and led to integrating schools, and Reed v. Reed, the 1971 case that outlawed discrimination on the basis of sex. 

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Voices

OPINION | Civil Rights Reflection: Medgar Evers Pool and the Naming of Public Places

by Mark Epstein

Over the past 50 years, tens of thousands of people have learned to swim, recreated, and cooled off in the waters of Medgar Evers Pool, located at 500 23rd Ave., just north of Garfield High School. How many of them thought about the name of the pool and its namesake? How many have learned that the pool’s construction was the site of a significant battle in the effort to fight desegregation in Seattle? Why is this important to think about?

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Voices

OPINION | Is This America?

by Lola E. Peters

The most effective speaker and advocate of the Civil Rights Movement was not Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., or Jesse Jackson, or any of the myriad names quoted without end during Black History Month. That honor belongs to a woman whose power was drawn not from her title, status, economic, or educational achievements, but from the roots of her experience.

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Features

Poor People’s Campaign: The Value of the Ballot — Part 2

by Chardonnay Beaver

In 1967, after fighting against Jim Crow segregation and winning many civil rights victories for Black and Brown Americans, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others called for a “revolution of values” in America.

The Poor People’s Campaign marks Dr. King’s philosophical shift from civil rights to human rights — demanding a new consciousness amid the threat of war, poverty, racial discrimination, and white supremacy. This inclusive fusion movement would unite all races through their commonality of struggle, to create solutions that would revolutionize American values.

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Features

Poor People’s Campaign: The Call for a National Moral Revival — Part 1

The Poor People’s Campaign then and now

by Chardonnay Beaver

In 1967, after fighting against Jim Crow segregation and winning many civil rights victories for Black and Brown Americans, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and many others, called for a “revolution of values” in America.

The Poor People’s Campaign marks Dr. King’s philosophical shift from civil rights to human rights — demanding a new consciousness amid the threat of war, poverty, racial discrimination, and white supremacy. This inclusive fusion movement would unite all races through their commonality of struggle, to create solutions that would revolutionize American values.

Continue reading Poor People’s Campaign: The Call for a National Moral Revival — Part 1 →
Voices

Freedom-Dreaming Is What Will Save Us

by Jasmine M. Pulido

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Freedom-Dreamer. 

His dreams spoke to our hearts and minds. His dreams spoke to our imaginations.

“What we have to do is vision-dream … If we imagine what is possible, that imagining can change the way we exist in the present.” —Eddie Glaude Jr.

In commemoration of Dr. King’s 50th death anniversary, Eddie Glaude Jr, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University, discussed Dr. King’s life with actor, comedian, and political commentator, D.L. Hughley on Hughley’s podcast in 2018. As two Black men, they talked not only about what Dr. King accomplished but also about how his ideas were much more radical than what gets taught to us in grade school. At one point, Glaude had the following to say.

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Arts & Culture

Eddie Glaude Jr.’s ‘Begin Again’ reignites the words of James Baldwin

by Joe Martin

(This article was originally published by Real Change News and has been reprinted with permission.) 

It was the height of World War II. James Baldwin was a teenager in New York City when, in 1943, riots broke out in Detroit and in Harlem, Baldwin’s neighborhood. The lack of adequate housing, lack of jobs and hostility of the city’s police had precipitated the unrest in Detroit. In Harlem, a Black soldier had been shot in the back by a white police officer. Simmering anger over ongoing racism and its accompanying urban poverty exploded.

All this had a profound impact on the young, gay, Black man who aspired to be a writer. By 1948, it became apparent to Baldwin that he could not remain in the United States. His personal fury at the rampant injustices he and other people of color were daily subjected to forced him to confront unpleasant possibilities. He might murder someone or be murdered himself. His artistic ambitions could be shattered in the crucible of America’s meanness and contradictions. The situation was untenable. Baldwin left for France and would not return for nine years.

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