On "Reclaiming" the Civil Rights Movement
This past Saturday, August 28, conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck held a rally in Washington, D.C. at the Lincoln Memorial; it was the forty-seventh anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech. Though Beck said it was an accident that he had scheduled the event on this anniversary, he also said on his radio program that he and his followers would "reclaim the Civil Rights Movement": "We are the people of the civil rights movement. We are the ones that must stand for civil and equal rights, justice, equal justice. Not special justice, not social justice. We are the inheritors and protectors of the civil rights movement. They are perverting it." The Tea Party activists believe that only less government can secure these "civil and equal rights." One attendee, Ron Sears of Corbin, Kentucky, explained their less-government philosophy this way: "The states are supposed to control education and everything having to do with their citizens, except when they need federal help." The Civil Rights Movement, under King's leadership, recognized that it was the states that had deprived black Southerners of their Civil Rights. According to David Garrow's "Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference," King avoided defying federal court orders, even when a federal court barred him from marching. Only the federal government, King believed, could secure civil rights for African Americans. Left to their own devices after Reconstruction ended and the federal government adopted a hands-off approach to the South, white Southerners moved swiftly to deprive black Southerners of basic civil rights, like the right to vote. Whatever the hubris and impropriety of Beck and Tea Party activists trying to "reclaim the Civil Rights Movement," the fact remains that their philosophies could not be more different. Tea Party activists see the federal government as a source of oppression; King and the Civil Rights Movement recognized that the source of racism and discrimination was unrestrained individuals and state governments that could only be reined in by the federal government.On "Reclaiming" the Civil Rights Movement originally appeared on About.com African-American History on Monday, August 30th, 2010 at 10:38:09.Permalink | Comment | Email this

47th Anniversary of the March on Washington
Here is the final image in honor of the 47th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28. Source: Library of Congress (digital id: ppmsca 03128)47th Anniversary of the March on Washington originally appeared on About.com African-American History on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 16:23:52.Permalink | Comment | Email this

Today in African-American History
On August 27, 1960, two groups of teenagers and young adults from the NAACP Youth Council went to the W.T. Grant and Woolworth's department stores in downtown Jacksonville, Florida, and quietly sat down at these two stores' whites-only lunch counters. Like many young African Americans across the country at this time, they were quietly but steadfastly challenging the laws of segregation in the South, and they had been doing so for around three weeks. The stores refused to serve them, but they waited in silent protest, not leaving until the stores closed. The students then exited and saw a large group of white men, numbering around 200, coming towards them. A few were wearing Confederate uniforms, some were carrying baseball bats, and others brandished ax handles with Confederate flags taped to them. The white mob attacked, beating the young protesters and African-American downtown shoppers, until police broke up the violence. Fifty people were injured in the brutal attack. This event stands testament to the brutalities that so many endured to end injustice in the United States. Today is the 50th anniversary of what came to be called "Ax Handle Saturday."Today in African-American History originally appeared on About.com African-American History on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 16:10:45.Permalink | Comment | Email this

W.E.B. Du Bois
I've been re-reading Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963, and I had forgotten this anecdote about W.E.B. Du Bois, the eminent historian. Someone congratulated him on being the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard, and Du Bois replied, "The honor, I assure you, was Harvard's." What a great zinger!W.E.B. Du Bois originally appeared on About.com African-American History on Monday, August 23rd, 2010 at 10:12:00.Permalink | Comment | Email this

Wordless Wednesday
Another image in honor of the forthcoming 47th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28. Participants in the march stand behind a storm fence with police on the other side. Source: Library of Congress (digital id: ppmsca 03191)Wordless Wednesday originally appeared on About.com African-American History on Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 at 15:33:22.Permalink | Comment | Email this

add RSS feeds to any website