#the long civil rights movement

[lightdancer1]

Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. is rightly one of the most famous faces of the Civil Rights Movement:

And there are two faces of Doctor King. One is the face beloved by the sanitized white version that makes him a Jesus figure martyred and his movement sanitized into something it never was. The other was the complex exemplar of the role of the Black Church in an age where the Black Church was still one of the main centers of the most ambitious and skillful people in Black culture. His social vision was far more breathtakingly radical than given credit for, it made full use of the new media of the time of television. It deliberately risked people's lives and limbs in the most literal sense, and it did so counting on precisely what did happen.....most of the time.

There were two cities where the local authorities were no less repressive than elsewhere who were smart enough to see this and refused to play their assigned roles and they were the two cities where he failed. Both of them, incidentally, were in the North. It is impossible to understand MLK's brand of non-violent radicalism without the reminder that he was very much a Christian pastor who truly believed in the merits of 'turning the other cheek', to the point of so many of his speeches sharing a motif derived from the words of the Prophet Amos.

"And justice shall roll down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Like many Black preachers his Bible was heavily reliant on both Jewish motifs and the Gospels and somewhat less on the words of the Apostle Paul whom white Christianity tends to favor in its own selective takes. His very religiosity led John Lewis and his SNCC to give him the somewhat less than complimentary nickname of "The Lord". Like Malcolm X he was murdered in the course of his activism and the murders mean both attained a kind of saintly aura, where the surviving movement leaders like John Lewis, James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, and Jesse Jackson have had somewhat more checkered aspects or had this side of their lives papered over in different ways.

[padawan-historian]

when zora told us that if we are silent about our pain they will say that we'd enjoyed it . . . when lewis told us to press on and make good trouble . . . this is what they meant . . .

[goldenstarprincesses]

Honestly, as much as a love the Gilded Age and glitz glamor of the wealth it shows...what has really caught my attention is the plotline unions and mills

I am once again starting my campaign for Hollywood to create a mini series based on the Progressive era

And I want it as dark, gritty, a realistic as possible.

[bpgthoughts]

great film.. movie is about the bus boycotts during the civil rights movement and how one housewife got involved in it..

It is currently streaming on youtube and tubi free of charge.. a worthwhile watch. both actresses (Spacek & Goldberg) did amazing.

[davidtennantpussytulpa]

my mom asking me why the gay website case had to be taken to the supreme court because ‘why couldnt they just go somewhere else’ and ‘what about the reverse? what about the one where they refused to make a cake with the confederate flag on it?’ i need to jump out of this fucking car and just let you run me over

[moocowmoocow]

For All Mankind rewatch

Margo Madison in 2x04 "Pathfinder"

[eiael-thinks]

full twitter thread here

[yamnbananas]

Selma to Montgomery 1965 👊🏿

[zvaigzdelasas]

South Africa’s genocide case has put the spotlight on a deeper fault line in global geopolitics. Beyond the courtroom drama, experts say divisions over the war in Gaza symbolize a widening gap between Israel and its traditional Western allies, notably the United States and Europe, and a group of nations known as the Global South — countries located primarily in the southern hemisphere, often characterized by lower income levels and developing economies.

Reactions from the Global North to the ICJ case have been mixed. While some nations have maintained a cautious diplomatic stance, others, particularly Israel’s staunchest allies in the West, have criticized South Africa’s move.

The US has stood by Israel through the war by continuing to ship arms to it, opposing a ceasefire, and vetoing many UN Security Council resolutions that aimed to bring a halt to the fighting. The Biden administration has rubbished the claim that Israel is committing genocide as “meritless,” while the UK has refused to back South Africa.[...]

As a nation whose history is rooted in overcoming apartheid, South Africa’s move carries symbolic weight that has resonated with other nations in the developing world, many of whom have faced the burden of oppression and colonialism from Western powers.

Nelson Mandela, the face of the anti-apartheid movement, was a staunch supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, saying in 1990: “We align ourselves with the PLO because, akin to our struggle, they advocate for the right of self-determination.”

Hugh Lovatt, a senior policy fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that while South Africa’s case is a continuation of its long-standing pro-Palestinian sympathies, the countries that have rallied behind it show deeper frustrations by the Global South.

There is “a clear geopolitical context in which many countries from the Global South have been increasingly critical over what they see as a lack of Western pressure on Israel to prevent such a large-scale loss of life in Gaza and its double standards when it comes to international law,” Lovatt told CNN.

Much of the non-Western world opposes the war in Gaza; China has joined the 22-member Arab League in calling for a ceasefire, while several Latin American nations have expelled Israeli diplomats in protest, and several Asian and African countries have joined Muslim and Arab nations in backing South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICJ.

For many in the developing world, the ICJ case has become a focal point for questioning the moral authority of the West and what is seen as the hypocrisy of the world’s most powerful nations and their unwillingness to hold Israel to account. [...]

Israel sided with the West against Soviet-backed Arab regimes during the Cold War, and Western countries largely view it “as a fellow member of the liberal democratic club,” he added.[...]

“But the strong support of Western governments is increasingly at odds with the attitudes of Western publics which continue to shift away from Israel,” Lovatt said.

Israel has framed the war in Gaza as a clash of civilizations where it is acting as the guardian of Western values that it says are facing an existential threat.

“This war is a war that is not only between Israel and Hamas,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told MSNBC in December. “It’s a war that is intended – really, truly – to save Western civilization, to save the values of Western civilization.”

So far, no Western countries have supported South Africa’s case against Israel.

Among Western states, Germany has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The German government has said it “expressly rejects” allegations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it plans to intervene as a third party on its behalf at the ICJ.

An opinion poll by German broadcaster ZDF this week however found that 61% of Germans do not consider Israel’s military operation in the Gaza Strip as justified in light of the civilian casualties. Only 25% voiced support for Israel’s offensive.

But it is in Germany’s former colonial territory, Namibia, that it has attracted the fiercest criticism.

The Namibian President Hage Geingob in a statement on Saturday chided Berlin’s decision to reject the ICJ case, accusing it of committing “the first genocide of the 20th century in 1904-1908, in which tens of thousands of innocent Namibians died in the most inhumane and brutal conditions.” The statement added that the German government had not yet fully atoned for the killings.

Bangladesh, where up to three million people were killed during the country’s war of independence from Pakistan in the 1970s, has gone a step further to file a declaration of intervention in the ICJ case to back South Africa’s claims, according to the Dhaka Tribune.

A declaration of intervention allows a state that is not party to the proceedings to present its observations to the court.

“With Germany siding with Israel, and Bangladesh and Namibia backing South Africa at the ICJ, the geopolitical divide between the Global South and the West appears to be deepening,” Lovatt said.

Traditionally, the West has wielded significant influence in international affairs, but South Africa’s move signals a growing assertiveness among Global South nations that threatens the status quo, says Adekoya.

“One clear pattern emerging is that the old Western-dominated order is increasingly being challenged, a situation likely to only further intensify as the West loses its once unassailably dominant economic position,” Adekoya said.

19 Jan 24

[respecthumanity]

The Iconic Leader: A Tribute to Nelson Mandela

Introduction: Nelson Mandela, born in 1918 in Mvezo, South Africa, is widely considered one of the greatest leaders of modern times. He was a symbol of peace, reconciliation, and human rights, who inspired millions of people around the world with his unwavering commitment to justice and equality. From a young man fighting against apartheid to a global icon, Mandela dedicated his entire life to…

[lightdancer1]

The Black Panther Party suffered very directly from J. Edgar Hoover:

It was in the end a group that adopted both the organization and the phrasing and a great deal of the goals of a standard Soviet-style communist party of the Cold War. In a Cold War context this was all it would have taken to draw the malice of even the most kindly people, of whom J. Edgar Hoover was not. It did not matter that the Black Panthers used the rhetoric that in other societies led to slave labor camps and mass executions to build the infrastructure for free lunches, to Hoover they were the perfect excuse for the kind of abuses he indulged in and to expanding Cointelpro, as well as the most classic examples of the specific places and people targeted by it.

As far as Vanguardist parties go, the Black Panther Party was the kindliest they got. Didn't save them, and it didn't prevent Hoover exploiting divisions and Newton embracing the Stalinist purge logic from causing the movement's collapse.

[padawan-historian]

[a-typical]

If your powers of imagination are great enough to enable you to place yourself in the position of a Negro baby born and brought up to physical maturity in Birmingham, you would picture your life in the following manner:

You would be born in a Jim Crow hospital to parents who probably lived in a ghetto. You would attend a Jim Crow school. You would spend your childhood playing mainly in the streets because the “colored” parks were abysmally inadequate. When a federal court order banned park segregation, you would find that Birmingham closed down its parks and gave up its baseball team rather than integrate them.

If you went shopping with your mother or father, you would trudge along as they purchased at every counter except one, in the large or small stores. If you were hungry or thirsty, you would have to forget about it until you got back to the Negro section of town, for in your city it was a violation of the law to serve food to Negroes at the same counter with whites.

If your family attended church, you would go to a Negro church. If you attended your own Negro church and wanted to play safe, you might select a church that didn’t have a pastor with a reputation for speaking out on civil rights. If you wanted to visit a church attended by white people, you would not be welcome. For although your white fellow citizens would insist that they were Christians, they practiced segregation as rigidly in the house of God as they did in the theater.

If you wanted to contribute to and be a part of the work of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, you would not have been able to join a local branch. In the state of Alabama, segregationist authorities had been successful in enjoining the NAACP from performing its civil rights work by declaring it a “foreign corporation” and rendering its activities illegal.

If you wanted a job in this city—one of the greatest iron-and steel-producing centers in the nation—you had better settle on doing menial work as a porter or laborer.

If you were fortunate enough to get a job, you could expect that promotions to a better status or more pay would come, not to you, but to a white employee regardless of your comparative talents.

If you believed your history books and thought of America as a country whose governing officials—whether city, state, or nation—are selected by the governed, you would be swiftly disillusioned when you tried to exercise your right to register and vote. Your race, constituting two-fifths of the city’s population, would have made up one-eighth of its voting strength.

You would be living in a city where brutality directed against Negroes was an unquestioned and unchallenged reality. One of the city commissioners, a member of the body that ruled municipal affairs, would be Eugene “Bull” Connor, a racist who prided himself on knowing how to handle the Negro and keep him in his “place.” As commissioner of public safety, Bull Connor, entrenched for many years in a key position in the Birmingham power structure, displayed as much contempt for the rights of the Negro as he did defiance for the authority of the federal government.

You would have found a general atmosphere of violence and brutality in Birmingham. Local racists intimidated, mobbed, and even killed Negroes with impunity. One of the more vivid examples of the terror of Birmingham was the castration of a Negro man, whose mutilated body had then been abandoned on a lonely road. No Negro home was protected from bombings and burnings. From the year 1957 through January 1963, while Birmingham was still claiming that its Negroes were “satisfied,” seventeen unsolved bombings of Negro churches and homes of civil rights leaders occurred.

In Connor’s Birmingham, the silent password was fear. It was a fear not only on the part of the black oppressed, but also in the hearts of the white oppressors. Certainly Birmingham had its white moderates who disapproved of Bull Connor’s tactics. Certainly Birmingham had its decent white citizens who privately deplored the maltreatment of Negroes. But they remained publicly silent. It was a silence born of fear—fear of social, political, and economic reprisals. The ultimate tragedy of Birmingham was not the brutality of the bad people, but the silence of the good people.

In Birmingham, you would be living in a community where the white man’s long-lived tyranny had cowed your people, led them to abandon hope, and developed in them a false sense of inferiority. You would be living in a city where the representatives of economic and political power refused to even discuss social justice with the leaders of your people.

You would be living in the largest city of a police state, presided over by a governor—George Wallace—whose inauguration vow had been a pledge of “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” You would be living, in fact, in the most segregated city in America.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.

[vaspider]

An important definition of terms:

As far as I'm concerned, an assimilationist is someone who believes that queer people must assimilate in order to advance the cause of queer rights. An assimilationist creates a dress code for marches like the Mattachine Society did, fights against queer self-expression at Pride because "it holds back the movement," and believes that the only way for us to move forward is for all queers to live as cishet people do, but with little rainbow flags taped on.

An assimilationist is not "someone who wants the functions and institutions of cishet society to be available to queer people." It's someone who believes the only way to live is assimilated into cishet society, and anything else "holds us back." It's someone who wants Sylvia and Marsha to march at the back, and who prizes cishet aesthetic over practical liberation.

A liberationist is someone who believes that queer liberation is not contingent upon public performance of identity.

Let me repeat that, so we're absolutely clear: a liberationist believes that queer liberation is not contingent upon public performance of identity. ANY IDENTITY.

That means a sufficiently cishet identity and a sufficiently "respectable" identity, but it also means a sufficiently radical identity. If you actually believe in queer liberation, you don't just believe in liberation for people who look, act, and believe like you. You believe in liberation for people who genuinely want to get married, have babies by IVF and live in the suburbs as well as for people who want to live childfree on an anarchist trans commune/Llama farm.

I hear people use the term "Assimilationist" and "Assimilationist Victories" to dismiss as meaningless those victories that are insufficiently radical for their tastes, and that to me is only proof that those people are not actually liberationists in any meaningful way. In liberation, there must be room for people who actually do just want to get married and live quiet, content lives going to their kid's baseball games.

The difference between Assimilationist thought and Liberationist thought cannot be simply replacing "we need to blend in" with "we need to stick out." It cannot simply replace "we must be integrated into cishet society" with "we cannot ever integrate into cishet society and anything which permits us to do that if we so choose is insufficiently liberationist." That's the organizational equivalent of yelling YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD, and I'm fucking over it, y'all.

My liberation doesn't have to be your liberation. Your liberation doesn't have to look like mine. What matters is that we are helping each other up the mountain and making long-term plans to get to where we can, and that we recognize that every choice we make is going to leave someone behind, and we account for that and plan for that so we don't leave them behind forever.

We cannot regard gay marriage or gays in the military or instituting a nationwide right to transition or any of our future goals as an endpoint. They are only goals part of the way up the mountain.

We don't get to the top until we are all free to live as we choose without government or societal interference or sanction, and without having to perform an identity for those rights and respect. The freedom to be ourselves must include the right to "blue hair and pronouns" but it also must include the right to "your kid's school plays and a duplex in a suburb." The latter is not an assimilationist lifestyle unless you try to enforce it on everyone.

I'm so, so tired of people acting like they're radical thinkers for poo-pooing the civil rights advances that the community has achieved through literally decades of work as "assimilationist victories." That's not clever, cute, or correct. Every. Single. One. Of those victories is written in tears and sweat and blood. Every single one is wrapped in the funeral shrouds of people who died fighting for it. Every single one was achieved not by assimilationists alone, but neither by people who think the only true victories are the ones sufficiently pure in their leftist credentials.

It is extremely possible and indeed likely that if you judge queers by their aesthetic, you will miss partnering with some of the most radical people and shackle your movement to people who cloak regressive politics in radical language. I've heard some truly noxious words come out of mouths framed by snakebites, and I've known extremely radical thinkers who look like your grandma. And I gotta tell you, in those local elections which keep school boards free from Moms For Liberty? The latter are useful people for liberationists to know and have in our camp, those people who think like liberationists but look like your grandma or your auntie.

Enforcement of aesthetic as a condition of liberation is assimilationist thought. It doesn't matter if the assimilation is to pink hair and tattoos or polo shirts and khakis - enforcement of aesthetic and philosophy as a condition of liberation is assimilationist thought. It's just replacing one kind of demanded conformity with another, and when we say "none of us are free until all of us are free," that also means free to be fucking boring if we want to, full stop.

We talk a lot about how much work goes into being disabled, how much work we have to put into making appointments, and fighting bureaucracy, but this is also true of queer life. Freedom comes with ease, with being easily able to update paperwork, with being easily able to find employment and housing, with being easily able to create the family structures we want to live in. When all of us can wake up in the morning assured of security in our beds, food in our bellies, meds in our med trays as needed, and a day ahead of us filled with chosen purpose and chosen meaning, which ends with us back in the bed of our choice at the end of the day, fulfilled in purpose and secure in our homes and chosen families, then we are free, and not before.

You may notice a seeming contradiction in this, in that my liberationist philosophy has room in it for the very people who are currently annoying the fuck out of me by demanding allegiance to a leftist aesthetic over practical liberation (that is, a movement based in harm reduction and long-term strategy over adherence to leftist purity of thought).

This is not a contradiction.

It is not a bug. It is a feature. My liberationist ideals mean that people have to have the right to be wrong without their liberty hinging on being right, that's all. :)

[stararch4ngelqueen]

I just realized that we've never talked about anything like "morning wood" scene where reader wakes up first and sees her man's cock rising. (i can't choose between jason or simon)

Why not both 🧍🏽‍♀️

I only have strength to do character inclusive before hat man takes me. Please enjoy ❤️✨

🎩 🤺

Time Written - 9:07 p.m

The hour was early, the sun non existent in the skies just yet, but it’s presence would soon accompany the beautiful violet-tangerine clouds merging into dark, dull gray.

Your beloved still has his arm snugly wrapped around your waist, his thumb nudged just underneath the hem of your large shirt, mindlessly rubbing along soft skin. The best parts of waking up in the mornings weren’t just waking up alongside your personal body heater known as your muscly teddy bear, clutching you close like said plush toy.

Half of the time, it’s the not so subtle surprise pressed up against your lower back and rear when your mind pokes out of sleep, making it even more difficult for you to get comfortable again after being painfully aware of it.

Most of the time when it occurs, as does the ache in your lower tummy bloom; a need for him, an eager response of your body towards his.

He’s blissfully unaware of how hard his cock had gotten, too lost in the throws of sleep while clutching you close like a doll. It’s the rare occasion he slept with you a full night instead of coming home in the early hours of the morning or the middle of the night. The rare occasion where civil duties weren’t needed or expected from him, having him all to yourself.

While he appreciates coming home to a hot meal and a warm bed after a long patrol, it wasn’t enjoyable without you in the sheets with him. His body surely expressed just how much he had missed you.

You wondered what he might’ve dreamed of right this very moment. Was it an innocent, mindless walk in the park or the beach with you during a warm sunset? Or, was he living through a fantasy of burying his thick cock in between your plush thighs? Holding your head down against his own pillow while breeding your needy little cunt?

Whatever the cause, it left you quivering with a growing need to find out.

Your natural curiosity had you reach your hand behind you, brushing along bare skin of his lower torso where his tank top had ridden up, resting your fingers along his outer hip. Trailing along his lower waist, you shuffled your hips just a bit until you prod along your desired goal.

He emits a content little groan after a faint hitch in his breath, a soft sound that only lasts for a few moments. Satisfied with the result, your hand gives a soft squeeze along the pleasantly warm length, comfortably hidden from you under thick, navy fabric.

His breathing starts to slow down as soon as you start to move your fingers. Slow, teasing little squeezes just along the blunt tip, massaging down the length of his cock. How it irked you to brush your thumb along his sensitive underside, making your mouth water and your thighs slightly clench.

“Morning, hun.” His voice is hoarse, letting out a short yawn. He still keeps his arm around your middle, burying his face into your sweet hair after you settle with the startle of him waking up without your knowledge.

You turn, your loose shirt slightly twisted by your movements as you face your sweetheart, taking in his adorably tussled hair and sleepy eyes boring into yours.

His smug, little semi smirk lets you know that he might not be entirely surprised by this circumstance. He doesn’t seem embarrassed or ashamed by this either. He seems more amused than anything, especially since his favorite girl could do something about it.

You press a soft kiss against his lips, one that left him confused when he attempted to lean for more before you abruptly pull away. He whispers your name in question, lightly surprised when you kiss the corner of his mouth, down his chin, underneath his sharp, lightly stubbled jaw.

“So it’s that kind of morning, huh?” He questions, his Adam’s apple bobbing after you kiss it, his voice still raspy from sleep.

“Mhm,” you hum, your fingers eagerly slipping just underneath the hem of his sweatpants. He contentedly sighs, letting you have your fun now that he knows you’re in one of your playful little moods.

Kissing down along his chest, following the roadmap of his main scar down towards the rich, dark happy trail that peaked out of his sweatpants.

His breath hitches at the touch of your hands squeezing him through the damn fabric barrier, and he finds it’s a little bit harder to keep his cool at this stage. You can really do that to him, and it’s like nothing can ever compare.

“What’s gotten into you, sweetheart?” He amusingly murmurs, his voice still soft and husky.

Should be you, soon enough. You wanted to say back, but pursed your lips to prevent saying it. He knew; he beat you to it merely two damn seconds after he asked it.

It would be a shame to make a mess on such cool toned, dark gray silk sheets. Freshly washed, too.

He’s trying to resist as much as he can, but you’re just excitingly relentless when it comes to getting what you want. This morning, it just happens to be him.

“You tryin’ to ruin me already, aren’t you?” He chuckles, a handsome, rugged sound that shoots arousal down your spine.

“Mhmm,” You hum, starting to pull down the waistband just enough. His swollen, eager cock quickly greets you, hot and heavy in your hand, the tip practically weeping for more of your touch. A heavy, glistening bead trickles down the blunt head, perfectly caught along the tip of your tongue to taste him.

Settling perfectly snug against his legs, curled perfectly per comfort, you trail your tongue under the head, lapping along that particular spot that garnered a beautiful reaction outta him. His head tilted back against his pillow, brows scrunched from light ripples of euphoria, fists lightly clenching along blankets tossed aside.

“Shiiit… really ruinin’ me, sweetheart.”

You stop for a second, smiling a bit while rolling your thumb close to the base. “Should’ve specified.”

He lets out a soft snort, expressing his affection through amused chuckles and heart eyes through a heavy lidded gaze.

This morning is already off to a great start. He’s trying to think of a way to one-up you, but he honestly is just too tired for all of that.

You barely had just a bit of him in your mouth, providing such simple kitten licks, and he displayed such heavenly responses that bloomed your ego to wonderfully high levels.

Then again, you seem to be up and about already, so maybe he’ll have to put in some effort after you pamper him. You’ll quickly enact upon what he so eagerly desired to reenact from his dream; properly face fucking his sweetheart. Glossy lips pressed against his pelvis while bullying himself deep down your throat, further fueled by those obscenely filthy chokes he adored so much.

A well deserved throatfuck for such an adorably sassy mouth.

[themilfking]

wait I know why we hate AIPAC but what did ADL do? I thought the anti defamation League was good

The ADL is an Israeli/Zionist advocacy group at its core. It's main priority as an organization is to protect Israel and its mission for a Jewish Ethno-State. This is especially true under Johnathan Greenblatt's leadership who has said "antizionism is antisemitism" It's easy to think that the "Anti Defamation League" has no underlying agenda given its history as a "civil rights organization" but it has constantly used that as a screen for extremely right wing positions on Israel. Some of their greatest hits include: Equating Students for Justice in Palestine, JVP, and CAIR to "white supremacists" simply because they strongly oppose an ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. A leaked ADL memo revealing how ADL plans to "soften" the news to Americans that Israel plans to annex the West Bank. (Source). In this leak Greenblatt recognizes that the annexation is a violation of basic human rights. To me this is a clear indication that they are less concerned with civil rights and more concerned with shaping the public image of Israel, especially in the US. Really urge you all to read this leak! Supported South African Apartheid (surprise surprise) and participated in propaganda against Nelson Mandela and the ANC. They even employed a spy named Roy Bullock to infiltrate the anti-apartheid campaign in the US. They later settled a law suit for this. (Source) That's not even close to the only time they've utilized spies. THIS recent leak of Greenblatt talks about ADL having spies in Jewish Voice for Peace and other organizations. It also talks about how they are having a hard time with the global youth no longer buying into their propaganda. Another source you should give your full attention to. PLEASE listen to that whole thing. It's truly terrifying. You're gonna hear them talk a lot about why Tiktok is a danger to their mission.

HERE is an article about how the ADL has a long history of smearing black activists, working with Police/ICE, and its attempts to demonize the BDS movement. I could go on and on about how terrible and deceitful the ADL is. The sources above are a good start to understanding why we shouldn't trust the ADL but please look into all the other things they've done like working with the FBI to spy on Arab Americans, infiltrating student organizations they find to be a threat to "Israel's image", surveillance, the people who fund/donate to them etc.

The best way to fight orgs like this is to share/spread this info as much as you can. It's clearly working because they're losing global support especially with the youth.