civil rights movement
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MLK Would Never Shut Down a Freeway, and 6 Other Myths About the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter
On Saturday, as protests mounted across the country following the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed explained the large police presence at downtown protests to reporters: “Dr. King would never take a freeway.” Reed’s claim was historically absurd. Martin Luther King Jr. took many a highway—most famously, perhaps, in…
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What a Comic Book Reveals About Why John Lewis Led a Congressional Sit-In
Tuesday was the day that U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and other Democrats went back to Congress to figure out what to do next on gun control. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said that afternoon that he wasn’t going to reward Democrats for their civil obedience. Honestly, when Lewis, the last survivor from the 1963…
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50 Years Ago Stokely Carmichael Called for ‘Black Power,’ Galvanizing a Movement
Fifty years ago this Thursday, the call for “black power” by Stokely Carmichael in Greenwood, Miss., transformed the black freedom struggle. Frightening white citizens while transforming black identity, the black power movement’s call for radical political self-determination challenged liberal frameworks for racial equality in profound ways that continue to reverberate to this day. Black power…