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Freedom Rides, 50 years on
Fifty years ago this month, the Freedom Riders put their bodies on the line to test their right to integrated interstate travel and accommodations. Starting tonight, PBS is running a compelling...
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Pete Seeger’s on Wall Street
Ninety-two years old, Pete Seeger walked nearly forty blocks to join Occupy Wall Street and sing. He needs canes to walk these days, but he played the banjo, sang, and brought along Arlo Guthrie,...
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Martin Luther King and dead heroes (King Day again)
Martin Luther King died young enough and dramatically enough to be turned into an American hero, but it was neither his youth nor his death that made him heroic. In his rather brief public life,...
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Presidents, opinion, and activism
Last week President Obama announced that his evolution on gay marriage had culminated in his decision to support it. This statement was a milestone for the gay and lesbian rights movement and for...
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Immigration activists, allies, and targets
President Obama’s shift in administrative policy on immigration has provided some political space for immigration activists pressing for comprehensive reform. Days after the announcement, the White...
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December 1, 1955
Fifty-seven years ago today, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. When local activists learned about her arrest, they organized a city-wide boycott and...
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Lunch counter sit-in anniversaries
There was once a store called Woolworths. It sold dry goods, mostly cheap stuff, including paper and pencils. Many Woolworths also included a cheap restaurant where you could get coffee and a grilled...
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Remembering more of Rosa Parks
At The New York Times, columnist Charles Blow is promoting a new biography of Rosa Parks. Jenane Theoharis’s The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Beacon) extends the story of the civil rights icon,...
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Bloody Sunday and the uses of history
History isn’t just telling stories about the past; for most of us, it’s about making sense of the present. Politicians, pundits, and activists invoke their understandings of the past to try to affect...
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Cesar Chavez birthday, Cesar Chavez holiday
Today, March 31, is Cesar Chavez’s birthday; the holiday was celebrated Friday. In commemoration, I’m reposting some thoughts on the holiday, originally posted 2011. On my campus, we commemorated...
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Zimmerman, Martin, and the Courts
Don’t count on the courts to produce justice, but sometimes it’s disappointment with the legal system that does make change. We expect too much from the courts and we’re constantly disappointed. The...
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Rep. John Lewis, comic book hero
Without cape and tights, Congressman John Lewis is becoming a comic book hero. (He’s already a hero of mine, and some of his exploits have appeared in this blog.) From a piece by Sheryl Gay Stolberg,...
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Thanks to Franklin McCain
Franklin McCain died at the age of 73, another chance for the rest of us to appreciate his commitment and courage, and to say thank you to remind ourselves of what’s possible. McCain was one of the...
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Martin Luther King Day (2014)
(This is a repost of the MLKing Day holiday note, with an added image–at right–from the Mall in Washington, DC. Have a good holiday.) Martin Luther King died young enough and dramatically enough to...
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Mississippi turning
Drawing the line back from Senator Thad Cochran’s narrow victory in the Republican primary run-off to the contentious politics of the Mississippi Project fifty years earlier is a little easier than...
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King Day (2015)
(This is a repost for Martin Luther King Day. Update to follow.) Martin Luther King died young enough and dramatically enough to be turned into an American hero, but it was neither his youth nor his...
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Updates: Martin Luther King Day 2015
We try to take control of the past with current struggles in mind. Martin Luther King, killed less than a half-century ago is a prize for contemporary activists. The civil rights movement isn’t quite...
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#Selma50: Whose history?
The thousands of people who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama this weekend would not be attacked by state troopers, nor face gas or police dogs. Fifty years makes for an...
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More flags
Participants in the flag debate around my campus note that the American flag has been deployed in the service of heroic causes and of less heroic and admirable efforts. The truth is that if you can’t...
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Start with the flag
The tragic racist killing of nine people at Charleston’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, following a year of activism around #blacklivesmatter, drew unusual attention to a range of issues around...
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