The Poor People’s campaign kicked off 40 days of nonviolent protest on Monday, reviving King’s anti-poverty efforts and demanding action. By Lauren Gambino — Hundreds of low-wage workers, faith leaders, civil rights organizers and liberal activists were arrested in demonstrations in Washington and in cities across the US on Monday as they resumed the work Martin Luther King left unfinished. Fifty years after King launched the Poor People’s Campaign against economic inequality, militarism…
Exclusive: Rakem Balogun spoke out against police brutality. Now he is believed to be the first prosecuted under a secretive US effort to track so-called ‘black identity extremists’ By Sam Levin, The Guardian — Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his…
After the success of the Moral Monday protests, the pastor is attempting to revive Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s final—and most radical—campaign. By Jelani Cobb — At first glance, the crowds of people congregating on a block of Mulberry Street, a stretch of squat brick buildings near downtown Memphis, on the morning of April 4th, might have been there for a variety of reasons. The street venders selling T-shirts and posters…
By Chris Hedges — No leader, no matter how talented and visionary, effectively defies power without a disciplined organizational foundation. The civil rights movement was no more embodied in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. than the socialist movement was embodied in Eugene V. Debs. As the civil rights leader Ella Baker understood, the civil rights movement made King; King did not make the civil rights movement. We must focus on building new,…
These women didn’t stand on ceremony; they accepted the risks of activism and fought for worlds where others might have freedoms that they themselves would never enjoy. By Janet Dewart Bell — During the civil-rights movement, African Americans led the fight to free this country from the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow. Though they all too often were—and remain—invisible to the public, African-American women played significant roles at all…
An interview with scholar-activist Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term ‘insersectionality,’ on gender, race and armed militancy. By Nimmi Gowrinathan — For most American audiences, the female fighter exists in a land far, far away. To consider female militancy in this country, in our movements, requires a reckoning: the need to see police brutality against black women as state violence, checkpoints in school cafeterias as militarization, and the death rates…
By Malkia Cyril — In the wake of revelations that the personal information of as many as 87 million Facebook users was used by data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica in 2016 for…
By Keisha N. Blain — The #MeToo movement in the United States is one of the contemporary expressions of women’s political power and evidence of women’s commitment to dismantling systems of oppression that give rise to sexual harassment and assault. The fact that a Black woman founded the movement is not surprising; especially considering the crucial role Black women have always played in shaping US and global politics. During the 20th century, a dynamic…
Gun control becomes only one part of the larger solution to violence in our communities. By Lori Bezahler — The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have catalyzed a social movement demanding an end to gun violence. While their leadership and moral authority have undoubtedly taken the movement to another level, youth-led activism against gun violence is not, in fact, new. In Florida in 2013, for example…
Naomi Wadler, 11: I Speak for Black Girls Victimized by Guns Whose Stories Don’t Make the Front Page
She was the voice of the voiceless at the March for Our Lives. Hundreds of thousands rallied for gun control in Washington, D.C., today for the March for Our Lives….
It was young people who made possible the largest gun-control rally in a generation. By George Zornick — Sydney Neal was already planning to attend the March for Our Lives in Washington when tragedy struck her community on Tuesday. A student opened fire at the nearby Great Mills High School, killing 16-year-old Jaelynn Willey and wounding another student. On Saturday morning, Neal, the president of the association of student councils…
By Marshall Ganz — This is an extraordinary moment. Tom Hayden once observed: “Change is slow, except when it’s fast.” In fast moments, chickens come home to roost, we confront…