Martin Luther King
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America Will Not Stop Until Martin Luther King Jr. Is Completely Rebranded as a Slice of Avocado Toast
America’s progressive distilling, dissolution and dissolving of Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and the accompanying appropriation of his words is truly a wonder to behold. It is like watching someone pour themselves a shot of Jack Daniels—but in a gallon jug instead of a shot glass. And then watching them add more and more ice…
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Episode 2: The Tragic Deaths of Robert Walker and Echol Cole Sparked 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike
Robert Walker, 30, and Echol Cole, 36, woke up on Thursday, Feb. 1, 1968, and went to work for the Memphis (Tenn.) Sanitation Department. They left their families for a long day of collecting garbage with the full expectation of returning home to them. Instead, as their shifts were about to end and heavy rain…
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White Candidate for Georgia Governor Basically Does MLK Blackface
Bless her heart; she’s trying. Can we just begin by pointing out that Stacey Evans, the 39-year-old white lawyer and former Georgia state representative running to be the Democratic nominee for governor, is TRYING HER BEST [insert clap emojis]? She’s trying in that way your sister-in-law from Minnesota tried to make cornbread last Thanksgiving. She’s…
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Viola Davis Slays Her 2018 Women’s March Speech: ‘Nothing and No One Can Be Great Without a Cost’
She came. She roared. She conquered. Actress Viola Davis, who has been thrilling audiences with her passionate, deeply felt words since at least 2017 (or that year she made us all cry at the Oscars), gave no less at the Women’s March 2018 in Los Angeles this past Saturday. Decked out in a leather…
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Yara Shahidi Performing Assata Shakur Is More #BlackGirlMagic Than Our Hearts Can Stand
As media partners for the Blackout for Human Rights-produced MLK Now event at New York City’s Riverside Church on Monday, The Root found a lot to be inspired by this Martin Luther King Day. But at The Glow Up, we were pleasantly surprised to also find #BlackGirlMagic in full effect. From actress Lupita Nyong’o reciting…
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Watch: Patrisse Khan-Cullors on Being Under Extreme Surveillance
As an activist, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors says that her home was first raided by Los Angeles police in 2013. “Surveillance tactics have been used against me,” Khan-Cullors told The Root.While this raid was years before the FBI’s 12-page “Black Identity Extremist” report—which vilifies black activists—was leaked, it’s clear that members of the…
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Watch: Is MLK’s Legacy Under Attack?
In November, President Donald Trump’s administration released declassified FBI documents on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But the release also included a batch of Martin Luther King Jr. documents filled with allegations of “abnormal” sexual behavior and of being a “slow thinker” and a “Marxist” (pdf). The Root spoke with Clayborne Carson, the Martin Luther…
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What Does It Mean to Have a ‘Gentrified’ Martin Luther King Jr. When Some Blacks Are the Gentrifiers?
My first real experience with the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. happened in 1980, just 12 years after his tragic assassination in Memphis, Tenn. I was a 14-year-old freshman at Loyola High School, a prestigious Jesuit all-boys school in Los Angeles built on the philosophy that rigorous academic training would produce the next generation…
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Dressing Coretta: We Honor the Woman Who Helped Mold a Movement as Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter Revisits Selma
In the 50th year since his assassination in 1968, much has and will be said about Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader and icon whose legacy of nonviolent resistance inspired the world—while compelling some to distort and dilute his message of activism. But Coretta Scott King, the great woman consistently behind and beside…