Crosshatch Is Beautiful

2021 ◽  
pp. 64-92
Author(s):  
Blake Scott Ball
Keyword(s):  
American Culture ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Comic Strip ◽  
Culture History ◽  
School Classroom ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Martin Luther King

In 1968, Charles Schulz made pop-culture history when Peanuts became the first national comic strip to racially integrate. This event was a long time in the making. Even in Schulz’s earliest works he experimented with racial commentary. But in 1968 a California teacher and mother wrote to Schulz to persuade him to introduce a black character in his comic strip. Through a series of passionate letters, Schulz finally created Franklin to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. Franklin made a major splash in American culture, especially when he integrated the school classroom. Despite his best efforts, though, Schulz struggled to find a unique personality for Franklin and he ultimately failed to make the lasting difference in Peanuts that some fans had hoped.

Dreams and Shadows

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvester A. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Racial Politics ◽  
Christian Leadership ◽  
Internal Security ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Southern Christian Leadership Conference ◽  
Radical Activism ◽  
Martin Luther King

This chapter explains how the FBI targeted Martin Luther King, Jr. as an exceptional and uniquely dangerous threat to the nation’s internal security. The author demonstrates the numerous efforts by the bureau to oppose the influential activism of King and the organization he led, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The chapter explains the important shifts in American culture that pitted the more radical activism of civil rights leaders against an increasingly strident FBI that was determined to thwart law abiding activists who challenged the nation’s mainstream racial politics. The author argues that the pivotal issue behind the FBI’s repression of King was not personal antagonism between King and Hoover but the politics of race and repression.

Hip-Hop and Trivialisation of Martin Luther King Jr. in Didier Awadi’s “Dans mon rêve”

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-166
Author(s):  
Ives S. Loukson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Black People ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
The United States ◽  
The World ◽  
Martin Luther King

As far as hip-hop is concerned, it is a truism that, Didier Awadi counts as one of its influential leading figures. The famous musician from Senegal takes advantage of hip-hop as medium and participates in disseminating its values in the world. Awadi’s creativity aims at conscientising Black people whose misery, according to him, is due to an internalised negativity about themselves. The artist pursues this objective in “Dans mon rêve” by staging MLK as a historic benchmark and source of inspiration to Africans. My paper attempts to highlight why the use of hip-hop as medium of pop culture does not effectively serve that creditable objective by Awadi. I also review the provocative trope of African pop-artist as a modern griot, raised a decade ago by the United States-based scholars. Theoretically, Stuart Hall’s conception of culture and Guy Debord’s theoretical complexity in his attempt to dismantle the monopoly of the spectacle inform the study.

Cultura Panamericana

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony Macías
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Sense Of Place ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Pop Culture ◽  
Mixed Race ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Expressive Culture ◽  
Culture Industries ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
Pan American

I am writing this analytical appreciation of cultura panamericana, or pan-American culture, to propose a wider recognition of how its historical linkages and contemporary manifestations confront colonialism, honor indigenous roots, and reflect multiple, mixed-race identities. Although often mediated by transnational pop-culture industries, expressive cultural forms such as art and music articulate resonant themes that connect US Latinos and Latinas to Latin Americans, pointing the way toward a hemispheric imaginary. In US murals, for example, whether in the Chicago neighborhood of Pilsen or the Los Angeles neighborhood of Highland Park, pan-American expressive culture offers alternative representations by embracing indigeneity, and it creates a sense of place by tropicalizing urban spaces.

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