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Civil Rights

Trayvon Martin supporters rally in Times Square while blocking traffic after marching from a rally for Martin in Union Square in New York, on July 14, 2013. George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of Martin on July 13, 2013. Many protesters challenged the verdict.

Black Lives Matter: 5 Years on, What Has the Movement Achieved and Where Will It Go From Here?

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Chantal Da Silva, Jessica Durham and Alexis Wierenga, Newsweek — Black Lives Matter. It has been five years since Patrisse Khan-Cullors, now 34, first shared those three words on Facebook, reminding Americans that black lives do matter at a time when it felt like they did not. News that George Zimmerman, 34, had been acquitted of all charges in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin sent shock waves across the U.S. on…

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Louise Brown, 83, at the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Washington, D.C., on June 23. The movement aims to link a broad array of issues: systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation and the war economy.

The Poor People’s Campaign Is Using Civil Disobedience to Win Back America

By News & Current Affairs

The 50-year-old anti-poverty movement has seen a revival in the era of Trump. By Teke Wiggin, HuffPost — When lifelong civil rights activist Louise Brown took the mic at a Washington, D.C., rally on Saturday, she had a stark message for the thousands of people assembled before her to protest poverty. “I’m 83 years old, and only the strong survive,” she shouted. In a call to arms, she recounted how…

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Kanye West

Wake Up, Mr. West!

By Commentaries/Opinions

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…

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I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye — Article by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Image by Glenn Harvey

I’m Not Black, I’m Kanye

By Commentaries/Opinions

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…

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Martin Luther King - By Mr. Fish

The Danger of Leadership Cults

By Editors' Choice

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,…

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Eluard Luchell McDaniels, Spanish Civil. War Volunteer, Batea, Spain, May 1938. Image Courtesy of the Tamiment Library, New York University

African American Anti-Fascists in the Spanish Civil War

By Editors' Choice

Anti-fascist volunteer Canute Frankson explained his motivation in a letter home in 1937: “We will build us a new society—a society of peace and plenty. There will be no color line, no jim crow trains, no lynching. That is why, my dear, I’m here in Spain.” By Peter Carroll, BlackPast.org — Approximately 90 African Americans fought in Spain during the civil war that engulfed that nation between 1936 and 1939.…

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Diane Nash, right, represented the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the White House in 1963.

The Selfless Servant Leadership of the African-American Women of the Civil-Rights Movement

By Editors' Choice

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…

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