Overviews
VIEWS OF WAR: Why do Americans understand the horrors of others countries’ wars … but not our own? (5/19/22)
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)
‘WE CHARGE GENOCIDE’: Fifty years ago, civil rights activists implored the United Nations to investigate America’s systemic racism. Almost no one paid attention. But the petition eventually led to international standards for human rights. (12/26/21)
1960s and beyond
ANGELA DAVIS REMEMBERS: The Black panthers activist on racism, police, and the courts … and the moment she realized “I had a future” (5/29/22)
THE JOURNEY OF KATHY BOUDIN: From the S.D.S. to the Weathermen Underground to prison, where she created programs for AIDS education, peer support program, mothers separated from their children, and college classes. (5/7/22) Also see this.
GOOD MAN, GOOD CITIZEN: Todd Gitlin organized and took to the streets … then he dug in to figure out what it all meant. One of the best voices on activism has been stilled. RIP. (2/7/22)
TO EVERY SEASON … Yeah, it’s a little woo-woo, but activism happens in cycles. (1/26/22)
THE SWINGING 70S: Long derided as a decade of backsliding and bad clothes, the 1970s provided the foundation for the world we live in now. (12/22/21)
CHRONICLES: Recording the history of activism in Arkansas. “What we had learned from the ’70s was seeing that racism, sexism and social injustice are inextricably connected. We couldn’t work on one without working on the others.” (5/3/22)
Anti-slavery
★ FREDERICK DOUGLASS KNEW: Granted that the law and its administration are stacked against activists and insurgents. But law’s universality, face-to-face application, and need for contestation give outsiders a chance to prevail. (6/13/22)
SAME AS IT EVER WAS: Reformers always move too slowly for activists. A case in point: Lydia Marie Child’s frustration with Abraham Lincoln. (3/28/22)
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)
REMEMBERING IGBO LANDING: Walking into the waters of Georgia, to their deaths, made a powerful statement about the helplessness of slavery. (1/22)
Antiwar: Vietnam
PROTESTING FROM THE HANOI HILTON: Everyone knows how John McCain resisted his captors as a POW in Vietnam. But what about POSs who were opposed to the U.S. war? Their story has been ignored from the beginning because of the taint of possible brainwashing. Tom Wilber and Jerry Lembke recover this lost history.
FREAKING OUT NIXON: How the May Day protests against the Vietnam War scared President Richard Nixon. Because of the “little bastards,” the Nixon Administration softened its positions in talks to end the war. (4/29/21)
FIFTY-YEAR-DELAY: After pressure from the Nixon Administration, theaters pulled the film “F.T.A.” (“Free the Army”) in 1972. In 2021, the antiwar drama starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland finally was finally screened again. (3/4/21)
Canada
HISTORY LESSON: Canadians usually avoid the hot-headed antics of their neighbors to the south. That’s why the trucker convoy was so disturbing to friends of Canada. (3/3/22)
Civil rights
DRAMATIZING A GIANT: A new play on Bayard Rustin, one of the greatest activists of the 20th century. (7/4/22)
JUSTICE DELAYED: Activists seek charges against the women who falsely accused Emmett Till. (7/7/22)
REAL HISTORY: Go deep on the ordinary people—including activists like Rosa Parks—to understand the American experience. (7/9/22)
NAMESAKE: Who was Melnea Cass? As Boston reckons with a drug and homeless crisis on the boulevard named in her honor, a look back at the civil rights icon. (6/27/22)
I CAN’T BREATHE: Atlantans battle over the destruction of a local forest to build a military-style training center for police. (5/14/22)
REMEMBERING THE POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN: Exhibit at the civil rights museum in Memphis.
★ 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.
THE POWER OF HONESTY AND WITNESS: After Emmett Till’s brutal murder in 1955, his mother insisted on an open casket. His mutilated body, she said, revealed the essence of racism and terrorism. That story is part of the six-part “Women of the Movement,” airing on ABC. (1/5/22)
Demonstrations
THE BIGGEST EVER: The ten biggest demonstrations in history, from Gandhi’s 1930 Salt March to the Indian farmers march of 2021-22.
Environmentalism
CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF EARTH DAY: Spurred by an oil spill off the coast of California, Senator Gaylord Nelson came tip with the idea. Since then, it has sparked environmentalism across the world. (4/20/22)
Indigenous peoples
LAND BACK: Should colonial powers return land stolen from indigenous peoples?
LGBTQ+
★ A SIGNAL MOMENT: A half century ago, Dr. Anonymous, disguised in a Nixon mask, told the American Psychological Associations he was gay and a psychiatrist. The next year the APA revoked its classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder. (5/2/22)
Modern slavery
SHOCK OF THE NEW: The new film “Alice” explores what it would be like for a slave to walk into the 1970s America. Guess what? It actually happened. (1/24/22) (Get the backstory here)
Prohibitionism
GLOBAL ABSTINENCE: Prohibitionism was a global movement, not the crazed efforts of the booboisie. Progressives, nationalists, and reformers argued that it would remove the barriers to progress in all realms of life. (1/1/22)
Red scare
RED SCARE OR LABOR SCARE? McCarthyism and suppression of leftist movements were not about the dangers of communism as much as subversion of union organizing.
THREE STRIKES: A century ago, Marie Equi was one of thousands of activists arrested in the Palmer Raids. As a radical, lesbian abortionist, she faced a tougher road than other dissidents. (1/4/22)
Repression and backlash
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)
★ BACKLASH AS A WAY OF LIFE: Activism + coalitions = Reform … then backlash. The latest iteration wants to burn down the house. (4/29/22)
Suffragism
A ‘HAMILTON’ FOR SUFFRAGISM: “Suffs” depicts effort to get the vote for women from 1913 to 1920. (5/18/22)
FOLLOWING AN OLD SCRIPT: The anti-abortion movement followed the Suffragist emphasis on state-level action. Also: “America is religious and women are taught to have shame about their bodies, and there’s not a lot of knowledge and understanding of basic aspects of reproduction.” (5/11/22)
Youth
YOUTH RISING: A history of youth activism in America, from the early labor movement to the current DACA activism. (11/4/20)
NINA SIMONE: The author of the classic “Strange Fruit” lived a long life of activism.