AIPAC
ACTIVIST ANCESTORS IN CALI: Tracking the history of south Asians’ activism in the San Francisco Bay area—and how they paved the way for later activists. (5/6/22)
Black Lives Matter
MUZZLED: Did the USPS refused to deliver masks to BLM activists?
TWO YEARS AFTER GEORGE FLOYD’S MURDER: A generation has changed, but not the system. (5/25/22)
ACCOUNTABILITY ISSUES: Lincoln police refuse to release videos of police during the 2020 demonstrations. (5/23/22)
★ DID BLM MAKE A DIFFERENCE? Did protests lead to a reduction in the use of lethal force by policy? Hard to tell. Of 18,000 law enforcement agencies in the country, only 30 percent reported data. (5/18/22)
PROTEST AND TERRORISM: BLM and other protests lead to a violent backlash. By 2021, more than half of all domestic terrorist incidents occurred during public demonstrations. (5/17/22)
DID BLM TIP THE BALANCE? A Penn study finds that the summer of protests might have made Joe Biden president. (3/2/22)
THE DATA GAME: Tracking progress on policing and race since the BLM protests. (3/17/22)
BLM AND THE CATHOLICS: Activists priests call for (finally) a reckoning with Black Lives Matter. (3/30/22)
JUSTICE INVISIBLE IS JUSTICE DENIED: Minnesota courts have restricted access to the civil trials for the police in the George Floyd murders. (1/18/22)
BLM’S PROMISE: The 2020 protests activated millions, leading to scattered police reforms in the U.S. Now BLM is developing a more coherent agenda. But have the demonstrators been brought into a longterm movement? (1/18/22)
SHOULDN’T THEY HAVE HAD A PLAN? Actually, Minneapolis and its police did have a plan for dealing with unrest–but they decided to respond on the fly, a new report reveals. (3/8/22)
MONEY PIT? The danger of raising gobs of money in a decentralized, leaderless movement: Lots of it disappears. A case study of BLM. (1/31/22)
HOW GEORGE FLOYD CHANGED BLM: Begun after George Zimmerman’s murder of 2013, BLM surged after Floyd’s murder. Then public support reverted to the mean with the Trumpist backlash. (6/17/21)
HOME RULES: BLM protesters sue over police attacks at demonstrations outside the L.A. mayor’s home. (1/12/22) Meanwhile, protests outside the Boston mayor’s home give some progressives pause. (1/12/22)
WHAT’S NEXT FOR BLM? After bursts of energy and the inevitable backlash, can the civil rights and criminal justice reform movement develop a coherent plan forward? (3/1/22)
BLM’S EVOLUTION: Since its peak of two-thirds support, BLM has reverted to standard of modern American politics 50 percent support, along the familiar red/blue divide. BLM has also become more hierarchical and dependent on corporate and foundation money. (9/8/21)
BETRAYAL: BLS founders buy a $6 million house. Not a crime, necessarily. But what about the movement? (4/27/22)
BLM BOOM: No one knew Black Lives Matter would get so big, its founder says in a new documentary. (1/15/22)
GRIM ANNIVERSARY: Ten years after the killing of Trayvon Martin, the BLM movement has transformed activism. But has anything changed? (2/20/22).
Corporate
BAD APPLE: Activists target the tech giant for failing to address civil rights concerns. (12/22/21)
Crossover issues
CHURCHES ALLY: Kentucky congregations push for action on housing and crime. (5/4/22)
IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID: Every major issue of social justice begins with the environment. (4/27/22) Ditto for the climate crisis.
GOING DEEPER, GOING BROADER: The climate crisis movement has expanded its reach into minority communities, says a Michigan researcher. (3/15/22)
TROPES: How racist depictions of black women intersected with the anti-abortion movement. (2/1/22)
RACE AND DISABILITY: Minorities have a greater share of disabilities than do whites. But the movement on disabilities historically marginalized blacks. Why? (4/20/22)
★ DISPOSSESSION AND DISSENT: New book explores the connections between immigration, gentrification, and homelessness in Spain.
★ MONOPOLISM AND RACE: Makes sense: Who would better understand monopolism’s brutality than black women? (4/20/22)
Campus
COMMIES ON CAMPUS: New findings about China’s influence campaign at American universities (7/27/22)
Culture
THE TWISTED POLITICS OF RACE IN OVERTURNING ROE: Is this part of an effort to promote white population growth? A revival of eugenics? (6/28/22)
HOW THEY FELL: The stories behind the takedown of Confederate monuments. (2/28/22)
Democracy and voting rights
HUNGER STRIKE FOR VOTER RIGHTS: Students at Arizona State University stage a hunger strike to pressure Senator Sinema and President Biden. (12/20/21)
DEMOCRACY REQUIRES VOTING: On the anniversary of 1/6, the Congress must restore the greatest victory of the civil rights movement: voting rights for all. (1/4/22)
BREAK GLASS IN EMERGENCY: Democracy hangs in the balance, the Congressional Black Caucus tells the Justice Department. Protect. Voting. Rights. Now. (2/9/22)
EXTENDING THE SPHERE: A primary goal of activism is to expand the sphere of participants in politics. Poof, just like that, New York City has added almost a million people to the ranks of potential voters. (1/9/22)
VOTING RIGHTS STILL MATTER: How actuaries trying to work around the obstructionists in Congress to guarantee voting rights for all. (3/8/22)
WHAT WE LOST: With Jim Crow, thousands of black officeholders were driven from their jobs. A nascent democracy was stillborn. It took decades to restore basic rights. Here we go again… (2/7/22)
Environmental racism
BACK TO FLINT: Remembering the crisis that was the backdrop of the modern civil rights actibvism. (4/19/22)
RACISM AND HURRICANES: The U.S. Civil Rights Commission investigates the Trump Administration’s response to the devastating storms in Puerto Rico and Texas. (12/01/21)
Faith
ABOUT FACE: Faith communities once came together for civil rights and greater democracy. Now it’s all about Insurrection II.
Global action and impacts
GOING GLOBAL: How the American civil rights movement has become part of the dialogue at the U.N. (3/30/22)
RACISM IS GLOBAL: So, then, must be activism against racism. (3/14/22)
Groups
FACING THE MUSIC: Antifa members face charges for attacks on pro-Trump demonstrators in San Diego.(12/9/21)
ANTIFA NOW: Far from the madding crowds, Antifa has continued its fight against incipient fascism. The work is mundane: Sitting in front of computer screens, tracking the online activities of Proud Boys and other alt-right groups. (12/28/21) Also: Portland’s Antifa plays nice.
History
REMEMBERING ARTHUR ASHE: A new documentary reveals the stresses of his activism as he battled racism on the court. (6/25/22)
THE ULTIMATE TEMPLATE: Decades after its peak, the civil rights movement continues to offer inspiration and templates for modern-day activists. (8/13/21)
ACTIVISM IN THE U.S.: A new exhibit on civil rights, the women’s movement, the anti-war movement, and the LGBTQ struggle at the Digital Public Library of America. (ND)
‘OUR HISTORY’: Remembering the movement to bring Latinos into Milwaukee’s public university. (4/3/22)
PEOPLE OF FAITH DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: The Rev. Adam Russell Taylor reflects on the civic responsibilities of Christians with a reminder of Martin Luther King’s challenge “not to be the master or the servant of the state, but the conscience of the state.” (1/5/22)
★ REMEMBERING A.J. MUSTE: The radical pacifist, activist, and mentor shaped the best of 20th century American life. (4/16/22)
REMEMBERING JACKIE: The radical courage of the man who broke baseball’s racist code. (4/16/22) See also this.
WHAT WE LOST: With Jim Crow, thousands of black officeholders were driven from their jobs. A nascent democracy was stillborn. It took decades to restore basic rights. Here we go again… (2/7/22)
Inequality and opportunity
TRAPPED BY VICTIMHOOD: Both racist and anti-racist movements depict blacks as victims. That’s no way out. (6/30/22)
RACE AND INEQUALITY: With apologies to Sinatra, you can’t talk about one without the other. (2/24/22)
STATS TELL THE STORY: A dangerous gap in education, earning power, and wealth provides the backdrop for the BLM movement. (2/1/22)
A CERTAIN KIND OF ‘EQUALITY’: The kind that says we should not learn about the brutality of racism and its lingering effects. (1/26/22)
Subversion
STING? Were Muslims falsely accused of a plot to blow up the Statue of Livery in 1965. Why were CORE members approached about the job? What does it suggest about government subversion of activist groups? (4/24/22)
Latinx
LATINX RISING: Vignettes of America’s fastest growing group, which make up one fifth of the population. (10/7/21)
Law
ROCHESTER REFORMS: New standards to make protest possible without violence announced by the city in Upstate New York. (4/26/22)
Leaders
★ ACTIVIST ROOTS: Karen Bass, a candidate for mayor of Los Angeles, began as an activist. “We all moved toward pragmatism. This is what I say to the younger people in Congress — do you want to make a point or do you want to make a difference?” (5/29/22)
THE QUIETEST ACTIVIST: Remembering Bob Moses, the brilliant strategist behind Mississippi Freedom Summer and the Algebra Project. (7/26/21)
KING’S LEGACY: At a time of deep divisions, Martin Luther King’s legacy has been obscured and whitewashed. Consider how King’s thinking evolved, why he was unpopular at the time of his assassination, and how the real King still makes whites uncomfortable. Then consider that Alabama uses this date to honor both King and Robert E. Lee.
CLARENCE HENDERSON’S WAY: One of the original sitter-inners in North Carolina reminisces. (2/2/22)
RIP: Clyde Bellecourt (1936-2022) of the American Indian Movement leaves a powerful legacy. His life reveals the greatest truth of activism: It’s “damn hard work” (1/21/22)
FIGHTING SLAVERY: William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass have long been recognized for their role in abolitionism. A new book adds the name of Maria Weston Chapman to the story. (3/25/22)
THE TWO HARRIETS: Harriet Tubman has been sanded down by the Great American Myth Machine. A few thoughts on who she really was, supported with photography. (3/2/22)
Party politics
★ THANKS, SEE YA NEXT TIME: Blacks have bonded themselves to the Democratic Party. But doesn’t that undermine their leverage in the ongoing dance of activist and ordinary politics? (5/1/22)
Police reform
STOP COP CITY: Atlanta activists fight the creation of a police complex that they say would exacerbate the militarization of law enforcement. (12/30/21)
HOLDING COPS ACCOUNTABLE: Austin police officers face arrest for unprovoked attacks on 2020 BLM protesters, who were protesting police officers’ unprovoked attacks on blacks. (2/9/22)
STUNTED POLICE REFORM: In Baltimore, the site of 2015 riots after the acquittal of cops in the killing of Freddie Gray, the movement for police reform has stalled. (1/28/22)
AGAIN: Another unarmed black man killed by police, this time in North Carolina; another case of conflicting accounts by police and eyewitnesses; another round of protests. Will it make any difference? (1/14/22)
AGAIN: Protesters demonstrate against the latest police shooting in Baton Rouge. (4/9/22)
NO CONSEQUENCES: Police in Buffalo cleared in attack on elderly protester in 2020. (4/10/22)
Public accommodations
PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS, ANYONE? Native Americans file class-action suit against a South Dakota hotel that refuses their business.
Research
THE YEAR IN HATE: The Southern Poverty Law Center reports a decline in hate crimes…but at the same time, a toxic new mainstreaming of prejudice and violence. (3/9/22)
THE DATA GAME: Tracking progress on policing and race since the BLM protests. (3/17/22)
THINK TANKS … AGAIN: Conservative think tanks have driven the economic and social battles of the last generation. You can thank the Manhattan Institute for the CRT brouhaha. (2/10/22)
Segregation
CHURCHES AND GENTRIFICATION: Washington congregations struggle with the blowout effects of gentrification. (4/15/22)
THE BUCK STOPS HERE: The secessionist movement of affluent Buckhead from Atlanta has failed. But people concerned about community fragmentation and segregation can’t breathe easily. (2/12/22)
Strategy and tactics
MARCH FOR THE MONTH: New Jersey students hold annual march during Black History Month. Why isn’t this an annual event, all over the nation? (2/20/22)
PLAYING HARDBALL: Advised by a veteran of farm workers movement of the 1970s, a Harvard fellow creates the Black Players for Change. (4/5/22)
EXTENDING THE SPHERE: A primary goal of activism is to expand the sphere of participants in politics. Poof, just like that, New York City has added almost a million people to the ranks of potential voters. (1/9/22)
NVDA: Martin Luther King’s six principles of nonviolent direct action. (2/16/22)
HUNGER STRIKE FOR VOTER RIGHTS: Students at Arizona State University stage a hunger strike to pressure Senator Sinema and President Biden. (12/20/21)
DEMONSTRATIONS LESSEN POLICE VIOLENCE: A new study, published in Scientific American, finds as much as a 20-percent decline in police killings in municipalities where Black Lives Matter protests took place. (3/1/21)
NONVIOLENT-ISH: Martin Luther King always understood that nonviolent direct action could produce violence. That was part of the strategy. (6/20)
WHITEWASHING HISTORY: Rebutting the claim that the 1960s civil rights cause was less violent than Antifa. In eight years of civil rights protests, property damage occurred in 11 percent of the 2,681 events; during the 2020 BLM protests, property damaged occurred in 4 percent of the 12,839 protests. (10/12/21)
THE ULTIMATE TEMPLATE: Decades after its peak, the civil rights movement continues to offer inspiration and templates for modern-day activists. (8/13/21)
HUNGER STRIKE FOR VOTER RIGHTS: Students at Arizona State University stage a hunger strike to pressure Senator Sinema and President Biden. (12/20/21)
Subversion
TARGETED: The U.S. government targeted Black Lives Matter activists to disrupt and discredit the uprisings of 2020, a new report concludes. (8/19/21)
Supporters
WHO GIVES? A survey of donors to civil rights causes. (3/10/22)
ACTIVISM, INC.: A new 20,000-s.f. headquarters for the Harlem-based Brotherhood Sister Sol, a nonprofit youth development and social justice organization. (4/13/22)
Tech
CAN BITCOIN DEFEAT RACISM? “Bitcoin’s open-source protocol provides fairness through a merit-based system that acknowledges each person’s differences, their skills, talents and contributions. The network that self-regulates through algorithms operates free from bias or favoritism.” (4/27/22)
Visions
★ LIVING IN THE FUTURE: New book explores the utopian visions that inspired civil rights activists.
Women and civil rights
MOTHERS, DAUGHTERS, ANMD SISTERS LEAD: Women lead indigenous people’s activism against global warming. (12/10/21)