‘This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn,’ Frederick Douglass lamented 13 years before Reconstruction. Since the 19th century, abolitionists, suffragists and civil rights activists have seized the Fourth of July as an occasion to protest injustices sustained by those omitted from the founding fathers’ vision. In the 20th century, the civil rights movement and Vietnam war brought to light legacies of slavery, imperialism and sexism that continue to challenge the narrative of ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. Today, the potency of Black Lives Matter has established civil disobedience as an unwavering American tradition
Continue reading...Category Archives: Civil rights movement
Will justice finally be done for Emmett Till? Family hope a 65-year wait may soon be over
Not a day has been spent in jail nor a penny paid in compensation for the brutal murder of a 14-year-old boy in Mississippi that helped spark the civil rights movement
Thelma Wright Edwards knows this is the last chance for justice for Emmett Till. The next few weeks and months will determine whether there will ever be closure for her beloved cousin “Bobo”, as the family affectionately call the child.
The Guardian has learned that a reinvestigation of the boy’s murder that has been carried out by the FBI over the past three years could be wrapped up in weeks. For Thelma and the rest of the Till family, a decades-long struggle for justice is fast approaching its conclusion.
Continue reading...Joseph Lowery, American civil rights leader, dies at 98
Reverend helped start the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr
The American civil rights movement leader Joseph Lowery died on Friday at the age of 98, his family said.
A charismatic and fiery preacher, Lowery helped the Rev Martin Luther King Jr to fight against racial discrimination and led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for two decades – restoring its financial stability and pressuring businesses not to trade with South Africa’s apartheid-era regime. He retired in 1997.
Continue reading...‘You’ve got to carry on that fight’: strangers swap life-changing experiences
How does it feel to campaign against racism, come out, have an abortion or lose a parent to suicide? People who went through the same things, years apart, share their stories
Sam, 26, and Diane Munday, 88, had abortions five decades apart
Continue reading...Atlanta’s confederate monuments: how do ‘context markers’ help explain racism?
Symbols dedicated to the south’s soldiers have come under debate for not mentioning their roots in racial segregation
Atlanta’s monuments to its Confederate past cannot be taken down by law. But the city is now moving to provide much-needed historical context on the realities of slavery, the civil war and the era of Jim Crow segregation that followed.
Homages to Atlanta’s history crop up in many cemeteries and parks. Little context accompanies those stone memorials with engraved plaques referring to “heroic efforts” and the south’s soldiers’ efforts to “unite” the country after the civil war. There is no mention of racism or slavery and segregation.
Continue reading...Bernie Sanders’ Chicago 2020 speech to focus on fight against racism
The Vermont senator will conclude a two-part launch in the Windy City, harking back to his student days in the civil rights era
With the Chicago skyline around him, Bernie Sanders will on Sunday conclude his two-part presidential campaign launch by emphasizing the role of race and racial discrimination in American society.
Related: Bernie Sanders draws on personal history in 2020 campaign launch
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