Black Lives Matter

Transfers ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 122-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Clare

It has been over forty years since the mostly successful conclusion of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. While some may have thought the election of an African-American president in 2008 heralded a “postracial” America, continued violence and oppression has brought about a rebirth of activism, embodied by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Now that nascent movement is preparing to be part of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Due to open in fall 2016, the NMAAHC will be located at 1400 Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington DC.

Author(s):  
Will Guzmán

This introductory chapter looks at the social and political contexts behind the intertwined histories of Dr. Lawrence Aaron Nixon and the American West. As a Black man in the United States, Lawrence Nixon was exposed to constant cultural conflict merely for being who he was: “unapologetically Black,” which in the minds of some was the antithesis of being an American. The chapter first shows how Nixon's life in El Paso, Texas, illustrates both the Black West's regional distinctiveness and its continuity with the legacy of African American history in the rest of the nation. Nixon's life is also an example of the diversity of the Black past and the existence of multiple African American historical traditions. Next, the chapter places Nixon's contributions to the civil rights movement in a broader context and demonstrates how it paved the way for future resistance.


Author(s):  
Elaine Allen Lechtreck

The introduction includes Bible verses cited by ministers to defend segregation and verses to oppose segregation. There are slices of the history of the United States, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history. The southern states, where white ministers confronted segregation, are identified. The term “minister” is explained as well as the variety of labels given these ministers ranging from “Liberal,” Progressive,” “Neo-Orthodox,” “Evangelical Liberal,” “open conservative,” ‘Last Hurrah of the Social Gospel Movement” to “Trouble Maker,” “Traitor, “ “Atheist,” “Communist,” “N_____ Lover.” Rachel Henderlite, the only woman minister mentioned in the book, is identified. Synopses of the book’s seven chapters are included. Comments by historians David Chappell, Charles Reagan Wilson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Campbell, and Thomas Pettigrew are cited.


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Cottrell ◽  
Michael C. Herron ◽  
Javier M. Rodriguez ◽  
Daniel A. Smith

On account of poor living conditions, African Americans in the United States experience disproportionately high rates of mortality and incarceration compared with Whites. This has profoundly diminished the number of voting-eligible African Americans in the country, costing, as of 2010, approximately 3.9 million African American men and women the right to vote and amounting to a national African American disenfranchisement rate of 13.2%. Although many disenfranchised African Americans have been stripped of voting rights by laws targeting felons and ex-felons, the majority are literally “missing” from their communities due to premature death and incarceration. Leveraging variation in gender ratios across the United States, we show that missing African Americans are concentrated in the country’s Southeast and that African American disenfranchisement rates in some legislative districts lie between 20% and 40%. Despite the many successes of the Voting Rights Act and the civil rights movement, high levels of African American disenfranchisement remain a continuing feature of the American polity.


Author(s):  
Candice Delmas

Chapter 1 surveys the literature on civil disobedience and places the author’s own approach to resistance and principled disobedience within this context. Public understanding of civil disobedience is the product of two different strands: the broadly Rawlsian philosophical conception of civil disobedience and the official narrative of the civil rights movement in the United States. This chapter calls upon history to show how the standard, broadly Rawlsian conception of civil disobedience (though not necessarily Rawls’s own) rests on an unrealistic and objectionable reading of the African American civil rights struggle. It also argues that the official reading of the civil rights movement functions as a counter-resistance ideology, deterring any form of protest against the status quo. It then examines and critiques recent “inclusive” accounts of civil disobedience, proposing instead a broad matrix of resistance that includes lawful acts of resistance and principled—civil and uncivil—disobedience.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 142-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy E. Weiss

The National Museum of African American History and Culture Act authorized the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to establish grant programs for museums of African American history and culture. Through its Museum Grants for African American History and Culture program, IMLS helps these museums improve operations, enhance stewardship of collections, engage in professional development, and attract new professionals to the field. The Act has fostered a national ecosystem that leverages the collective resources of the National Museum and African American museums throughout the United States to preserve and share the strength and breadth of the African American experience.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony J. Harris

The author discusses three historical civil rights movements in the United States—Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; the Million Man March; and the Black Lives Matter Movement (BLM). The author compares and contrasts each movement and event from his perspective as a participant in each and identifies similarities and differences among them. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was born out of a desire and need to end legalized segregation, better known as Jim Crowism, in the south. Strategies included direct action, passive resistance, and redress of grievances through the judicial system. The Million Man March, which occurred in 1995 in Washington D.C., brought together more than a million Black men from across the United States. Moreover, it was an extension of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. Whereas the latter was established as a response to legalized racial segregation in the south, the former was designed to instill a sense of responsibility and accountability among Black men as leaders in their communities. In addition, the Million Man March attempted to bring greater awareness of the unkept promise of racial equality. The BLM Movement provided an opportunity for multiple generations from multiple ethnic, cultural, and racial groups to coalesce around the issue of police brutality. Following the death of Trayvon Martin in 2013 and continuing to the present time, the BLM platform has become the principal venue through which outrage is expressed over the deaths of innocent, unarmed Black men and women by law enforcement and White vigilantes.


Author(s):  
Lee Sartain

The NAACP, established in 1909, was formed as an integrated organization to confront racism in the United States rather than seeing the issue as simply a southern problem. It is the longest running civil rights organization and continues to operate today. The original name of the organization was The National Negro League, but this was changed to the NAACP on May 30, 1910. Organized to promote racial equality and integration, the NAACP pursued this goal via legal cases, political lobbying, and public campaigns. Early campaigns involved lobbying for national anti-lynching legislation, pursuing through the US Supreme Court desegregation in areas such as housing and higher education, and the pursuit of voting rights. The NAACP is renowned for the US Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that desegregated primary and secondary schools and is seen as a catalyst for the civil rights movement (1955–1968). It also advocated public education by promoting African American achievements in education and the arts to counteract racial stereotypes. The organization published a monthly journal, The Crisis, and promoted African American art forms and culture as another means to advance equality. NAACP branches were established all across the United States and became a network of information, campaigning, and finance that underpinned activism. Youth groups and university branches mobilized younger members of the community. Women were also invaluable to the NAACP in local, regional, and national decision-making processes and campaigning. The organization sought to integrate African Americans and other minorities into the American social, political, and economic model as codified by the US Constitution.


2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosanne Waters

Several recent historical works have challenged interpretations of the civil rights movement in the United States as a strictly domestic story by considering its connections to anti-racist struggles around the world. Adding a Canadian dimension to this approach, this article considers linkages between African Canadian anti-discrimination activism in the 1950s and early 1960s and African American civil rights organizing. It argues that Canadian anti-discrimination activists were interested in and influenced by the American movement. They followed American civil rights campaigns, adapted relevant ideas, and leveraged the prominent American example when pressing for change in their own country. African Canadian activists and organizations also impacted the American movement through financial and moral support. This article contributes to the study of African Canadian history, Canadian human rights history, and the American civil rights movement by emphasizing the local origins of anti-discrimination activism in Canada, while also arguing that such efforts are best understood when contextualized within a broader period of intensive global anti-racist activism that transcended national borders.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (Issue 3) ◽  
pp. 62-68
Author(s):  
Nancy Bwalya Lungu ◽  
Alice Dhliwayo

The Transatlantic Slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal and subsequently other European kingdoms were able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the West Coast of Africa and took those that they enslaved to Europe. This saw a lot of African men and women transported to Europe and America to work on the huge plantations that the Whites owned. The transportation of these Africans exposed them to inhumane treatments which they faced even upon the arrival at their various destinations. The emancipation Proclamation signed on 1st January 1863 by the United States President Abraham Lincoln saw a legal stop to slave trade. However, the African Americans that had been taken to the United States and settled especially in the Southern region faced discrimination, segregation, violence and were denied civil rights through segregation laws such as the Jim Crow laws and lynching, based on the color of their skin. This forced them especially those that had acquired an education to rise up and speak against this treatment. They formed Civil Rights Movements to advocate for Black rights and equal treatment. These protracted movements, despite continued violence on Blacks, Culminated in Barack Obama being elected the first African American President of the United States of America. To cement the victory, he won a second term, which Donald Trump failed to obtain. This paper sought to critic the philosophies of Booker T. Washington in his civil rights movement, particularly his ideologies of integration, self-help, racial solidarity and accommodation as expressed in his speech, “the Atlanta Compromise,” and the impact this had on the political and civil rights arena for African Americans.


2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Janko Trupej

The article discusses the reception of the novel and the film Gone with the Wind in serial publications published by Slovenian immigrants in the United States of America. The analysis encompassed relevant articles that appeared in publications with different ideological orientations before the mid-1950s, i.e. until the onset of the modern African American civil rights movement. The reception by Slovenian Americans is compared with the contemporary general reception of the novel and the film in the United States. Taking the historical context into consideration, the article also endeavours to establish the reasons for the differences in the reception.


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