segregation

The Ebenezer Baptist Church Has Been a Seat of Black Power for Generations

Jason Oliver Evans

From the pulpit of Ebenezer, King preached some of his more memorable sermons. In one of his sermons published in a collection titled The Strength to Love, King describes racial prejudice as indicative of “softmindedness,” a person’s tendency to uncritically adhere to unsupportable beliefs. In the same sermon, titled “A Tough Mind and a Tender Heart,” King argued, “Race prejudice is based on groundless fears, suspicions, and misunderstandings.”

The Problem of Anti-Blackness in the Latinx Community

Angelo Franco

And so here we are, in the American landscape of race wars, with many of our (mainly older) brethren trying to contend with the fact that here in the U.S. they are people of color, condemning racism while holding racist beliefs, and screaming at the top of their silenced voices that we too are white --please love us, America! We can be almost white-passing if we hide our mestizo and mulatto heritage an ignore the plight of other non-white POCs, while actively repudiating Black skin the way we are already used to doing anyway.

A History of U.S. Media Segregation

James McGrath Morris

Missing among the many reasons given for the enormous and unchanging racial divide regarding the fairness of the American judicial system is the legacy of the long history of media segregation. During America’s Jim Crow years not only did African Americans maintain lives apart from white America but so did their media. “To most white Americans the black press was a voice unheard, its existence unknown or ignored,” explained Enoch P. Waters, an editor at the Chicago Defender.

‘I Have a Dream’: A Mighty Export

Sandip Roy

There is nothing in Dr. King's speech to imply that to be a hyphenated American is to have divided loyalties. When Jindal says American, the non-hyphenated version, he simply means Judaeo-Christian white - a whiteness that might not be visible in the color of the skin, but is definitely there in the content of the character. King's speech needs to be read again and again - not just commemorated or elocuted - to prevent it from being appropriated by the Jindals for their own ends. And not just in America.

Remembering Medgar Evers

Corey Dade

Wednesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers, and the timing couldn't be more significant: Any day now, the Supreme Court could strike down a pair of landmark remedies owed in part to Evers' activism. Uncertainty hovers over observances that began at Evers' gravesite at Arlington National Cemetery last week, as the civil rights community warily awaits rulings that might fundamentally change, if not outright limit, minorities' access to college and participation in elections.

USPS Honors the Legacy of Civil Rights Hero Rosa Parks

Jeanne Theoharis

To honor the centennial of the birth of Rosa Parks on Feb. 4, 1913, the United States Postal Service has issued a Rosa Parks stamp. Last year, a stone carving of Parks was added to the National Cathedral. In 2005, she became the first woman and second African-American to lie in honor in the nation's Capitol and, through a special act of Congress, a statue of her was ordered placed in the Capitol. Yet these tributes to Rosa Parks rest on a narrow and distorted vision of her legacy

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