Nixon came in part to avoid attending the funeral, but he also brought a check—later lost—for her children’s education, according to a family friend finally telling the story. By Eleanor…
By Greg Palast — It was a Republican, Martin Luther King Sr., who made John Kennedy president of the United States — for JFK’s saving Daddy King’s son, Martin Jr.,…
The “Queen of Soul” died Thursday. By Alex Henderson, AlterNet — The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, has died at the age of 76. Franklin, who had suffered from pancreatic…
Angela Davis, whose bond Franklin offered to post in 1970, says that the singer’s work “helped to shape and deepen a collective consciousness anchored in a yearning for freedom.” By…
In August 1955, Till was beaten, shot and mutilated in Mississippi, four days after it was alleged that the Black 14-year-old from Chicago had flirted with a white woman. By teleSUR — The U.S. government has reopened an investigation into the 1955 killing of Black teenager Emmett Till in Mississippi, saying it had discovered new information in the case, which helped spark the nation’s civil rights movement. The report, sent…
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…
How Kanye’s ignorant comments fortify the most pernicious lies of white supremacy. By Clint Smith — This past week, in an interview with TMZ, Kanye West claimed that slavery was a choice. “When you hear about slavery for 400 years … 400 years? That sounds like a choice,” he said. Much has already been written about West’s recent exploits on and off Twitter. In the past week, he has publicly embraced…
Kanye West wants freedom—white freedom. By Ta-Nehisi Coates — I could only have seen it there, on the waxed hardwood floor of my elementary-school auditorium, because I was young then, barely 7 years old, and cable had not yet come to the city, and if it had, my father would not have believed in it. Yes, it had to have happened like this, like folk wisdom, because when I think of that…
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…