culture
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The Fresh Determination of MLK's 'Dream'
Leonard Pitts Jr., at the Miami Herald, asks pointed questions about race in America as the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. “What have you chosen not to see?” he asks. “What will you do to make it right?” This is “tomorrow.” Meaning that unknowable future whose unknowable difficulties Martin Luther…
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Why Chris Lane and Trayvon Martin Are Not the Same
In a piece at Salon, Alex Seitz-Wald explains why the white conservative media are wrong about Chris Lane being “Trayvon Martin in reverse.” First, the police weren’t forced to arrest anyone after Lane’s grisly shooting death. It’s incredible that in 2013 we’re really arguing about this, but from Henry Louis Gates [Jr.] to Travyon Martin…
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March on Washington 2013: A Scene of Unity
(The Root) — It is difficult to imagine yourself living in a different chapter of history, but I tried this morning while walking among the waves of people on the National Mall. I hummed to myself the spirituals and protest songs I remembered hearing people sing in grainy black-and-white footage from the ’50s and ’60s:…
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John Lewis: I Gave Blood, You Must Fight
(The Root) — In remarks commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, U.S. Rep. John Lewis — who was the youngest speaker at the 1963 march — harnessed his own history of civil rights activism to rally attendees to push for legislative reforms to protect voting rights. Lewis, known…
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What a Difference 50 Years Makes: Holder Rallies Marchers
(The Root) — In his remarks commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Saturday morning, Attorney General Eric Holder addressed minimum wage, voting rights, LGBT rights, gun control and women’s rights, telling the crowd gathered in Washington, D.C., “This morning we affirm that the struggle must and will go…
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Philadelphia Woman Shows Up After Her Own Funeral
When family members attended Sharolyn Jackson’s funeral and burial August 3, some noted that her nose looked thinner, the Associated Press reports. They, however, figured something happened during the embalming process. But they were wrong. The truth is far stranger: The woman they buried that day was not, in fact, their loved one but a…
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Paula Deen: Lawyers Drop Discrimination Suit
Attorneys on Friday agreed to drop a discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuit against Paula Deen, who lost contracts with the Food Network and other partners after she said under oath that she had used racial slurs in the past, the Associated Press reports. A document filed in U.S. District Court in Savannah said both sides…
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Bernice King: Dream Defender
(The Root) — On an historic day in August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered these words on the state of racial affairs in America a century after the Emancipation Proclamation: “One hundred years later the Negro is still not free. One hundred years later the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled…
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The March: Scholars Have Their Say
(The Root) — In the opening line of his “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. predicted that the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom would “go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history…
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The Danger of the Strong Black Woman Trope
People should simply attribute Georgia school bookkeeper Antoinette Tuff’s heroic efforts to her humanity rather than to her being a strong black woman, Tressie McMillan Cottom writes at her tressiemc.com blog. Tuff is an amazing woman who did what we can each only hope to be brave enough to do when so many lives are at…