#civil rights struggle

[ausetkmt]

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

Explodes the fables that have been created about the civil rights movement

The civil rights movement has become national legend, lauded by presidents from Reagan to Obama to Trump, as proof of the power of American democracy. This fable, featuring dreamy heroes and accidental heroines, has shuttered the movement firmly in the past, whitewashed the forces that stood in its way, and diminished its scope. And it is used perniciously in our own times to chastise present-day movements and obscure contemporary injustice.

In A More Beautiful and Terrible History award-winning historian Jeanne Theoharis dissects this national myth-making, teasing apart the accepted stories to show them in a strikingly different light. We see Rosa Parks not simply as a bus lady but a lifelong criminal justice activist and radical; Martin Luther King, Jr. as not only challenging Southern sheriffs but Northern liberals, too; and Coretta Scott King not only as a "helpmate" but a lifelong economic justice and peace activist who pushed her husband's activism in these directions.

Moving from "the histories we get" to "the histories we need," Theoharis challenges nine key aspects of the fable to reveal the diversity of people, especially women and young people, who led the movement; the work and disruption it took; the role of the media and "polite racism" in maintaining injustice; and the immense barriers and repression activists faced.

Theoharis makes us reckon with the fact that far from being acceptable, passive or unified, the civil rights movement was unpopular, disruptive, and courageously persevering. Activists embraced an expansive vision of justice--which a majority of Americans opposed and which the federal government feared.

By showing us the complex reality of the movement, the power of its organizing, and the beauty and scope of the vision, Theoharis proves that there was nothing natural or inevitable about the progress that occurred. A More Beautiful and Terrible History will change our historical frame, revealing the richness of our civil rights legacy, the uncomfortable mirror it holds to the nation, and the crucial work that remains to be done.

“A bracing corrective to a national mythology that renders figures like King ‘meek and dreamy, not angry, intrepid and relentless’…It’s clarifying to read a history that shows us how little we remember, and how much more there is to understand.” —New York Times

[protoslacker]

Sad like 1963

I've been sad reading social media posts in response to police beating Tyre Nichols to death. So many of us are experiencing a profound sense of grief.

This morning I saw a post by a dad who said his biggest worry is for his eight-year old son, that one day some cop will 'fear for his Life' and "murder my boy.” He went on to tell about his son. Children that age are so lovely and hearing this man speak of his son made it impossible not to adore his child.

I was seven-years old in 1963.  And for reasons I am not sure in grieving Tyre Nichols my memories turned to events that year from the perspective of being little then. TV was new to our house, we'd only had one for a year or so. The pictures I remember are from TV.

In April Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was jailed in Birmingham, Alabama were he wrote a famous letter from his jail cell. I didn't read the letter as a boy but I do suspect I heard his name. On May 2nd children who'd been trained in non-violent tactics marched. Hundreds were arrested. "By the second day, Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor ordered police to spray the children with powerful water hoses, hit them with batons and threaten them with police dogs."

The images I saw on TV stunned me, they made me feel sad and worried. I had a sense that I wasn't the only one feeling so. I have seen photographs many times over the years, but the picture that comes to mind is very close to one in the entry on photographer Charles Moore at Wikipedia.

On August 28, 1963 Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. I can't place memories of watching coverage of the March on Washington. However I do remember loving to sing "If I Had a Hammer," one of the songs Peter Paul and Mary sang that day. My favorite part was: "It's the song account love between/ My brothers and my sisters/ All over this land." I have brothers and sisters, but I felt sure that this song extended beyond my home. Thar's the part which seemed so exciting!

On September 15th the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed by a group of KKK members. Twenty-two church goers were injured and four girls were killed in the explosion. Childhood memories can be a bit suspect, nevertheless what I remember is hearing the children’s names read by the TV anchor: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Carol Denise McNair.

President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. My brother is four years younger and was deeply affected by watching President Kennedy's funeral on TV. I was probably at school Anyhow the picture that come to mind first is seeing Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald.

Grief moves through us. That dad worried for his son knows it. I feel sure his son feels some measure of grief over the violent death of Tyre Nichols too. In grief's wake we are changed. The traumatic events of 1963 were shared widely. The protest in Birmingham forced concessions from city leaders and business desegregated. In February of 1964 the Civil Rights Act was signed.  The KKK didn't surrender, of course, and the struggle continues to this day. The song about love between my brothers and sisters inspired hope in me and still does. That inspiration to love was shared  too. We are not powerless we can dream and create better lives for all.

[positivebeatmagazine]

MLK Talks 'New Phase' Of Civil Rights Struggle, 11 Months Before His Ass...

[hussyknee]

History isn't a disparate collection of stories from long ago. It's the necessary context for the present moment and the forecast for the future. All histories are intertwined, and the narratives of power and privilege, oppression and resistance, adversity and triumph are as constant in their patterns as the laws of physics.

[padawan-historian]

“To be African American is to be African without any memory and American without any privilege.” —James Baldwin

[afrotumble]

📷 Malcolm X next to the statue of Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah.

“The total liberation and unification of Africa under an All-African Socialist Government must be the primary objective of all Black revolutionaries throughout the world. It is an objective which, when achieved, will bring about the fulfillment of the aspirations of Africans and people of African descent everywhere. It will at the same time advance the triumph of the international socialist revolution, and the onward progress towards world communism, under which, every society is ordered on the principle of –from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” — Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Berta Joubert-Ceci

Like many Puerto Ricans, Dylcia Pagán was born in New York City. There, within the belly of the beast, as José Martí called the United States, she witnessed firsthand its injustices.

But it was her love for her homeland, the desire for Puerto Rico to finally stop being a colony of that empire, where she lived and witnessed its cruelties every day, that led her to join and engage actively in the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN).

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

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[oldtvandcomics]

I watched X-Men (2000) last evening. Still awesome. But also, it made me think.

Just how much *ehm* point is there in trying to keep bringing these heroes with us forward in time? Wouldn't it be better to leave them as a period piece?

Like, with the Holocaust being such an important part of Magneto's backstory, at least him and Xavier are pretty firmly anchored in time. And of course we can start making up all the excuses about why they are immortal / not ageing, but how much sense does it make? I also seem to be noticing an ongoing trend in newer X-Men media, at least on the big screen, where they aren't allowed to be traditional heroes any more, and instead all the focus is on the genocide. Which, I understand, that is 100% absolutely the direction the story is headed. Also, that post about how with the world being as it is, we can't really pretend any longer that Magneto is not right. So yes, I understand where they are coming from, but also, it isn't fun any more, is it?

Maybe the X-Men would be best as a period piece set somewhere between the 1960's and the early 2000's AT THE LATEST.

[specialmouse]

lgbt people need to stop thinking in terms of black and white and by that i mean stop thinking our oppression as directly analogous to the oppression of black people by white people it's not the same !

[albertayebisackey]

“The time is always right to do what is right.”

— Martin Luther King Jr.

[folk-enjoyer]

Pete Seeger's Rainbow Quest, ep. 5, 1965 "O' Mary Don't You Weep" Pete Seeger, Jean Ritchie, Bernice Reagon

[northern-spies]

Any Americans who don't think the threats to ban contraception are legitimate need to learn about Decree 770, which banned abortion and contraception in Romania in nearly all circumstances between 1967 and 1989. The Ceaușescu episodes of Behind the Bastards touch on it for a start.

[lastcatghost]

I've eaten literal trash in my life, but I've got texture aversion and am picky with certain foodstuffs, and even when taking some strangers leftovers out the trash, I was also picky bout what trash I'd eat lol

The saying beggars can't be choosers is bullshit to a big extent, and even poor people should be able to have preferences like human fucking nature

[masqueradeoftheguilty]

haha hey do you ever think about how fontaine is in direct eye sight of the girdle of the sands and how the hydro archon was killed at the start of conflict bcs it was rukkhadevata who preserved her remains as the harvisptokm and how furina saw all of it go down and watched her predecessor go off to battle only to be killed and was thrust into the position of archon when she's grieving and confused

[gorillaxyz]

good fucking night gang ♥️ wish me luck on my amhis mock tomorrow. im gonna do so bad. i tried revising dates but idk a good way to do itttt i only remember alger hiss case when truman became president when the u2 crisis happened when the korean war started and ended... and orher foreign policy stuff like that. but also when to secure these rights was

i bet you the firsy question tomorrow will be abt the civil rights campaigns during each or both presidencies LOL kill me....... i know all the facts just not the daaaatessssssss😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭