The Christian Right was not the only opponent of same-sex marriage in early 2004. Episode 19: “The Black Church and Gay Marriage” dropped last night. Subscribers to Current at the Longshore level and above receive this narrative history podcast. Here is a teaser: […]
Civil Rights movement
Rip Patton, freedom rider, RIP
Today I learned from my friend and colleague Todd Allen that yet another veteran of the civil rights movement has passed away. Here is the Associated Press: Ernest “Rip” Patton, a member of the Nashville Freedom Riders and civil rights […]
Episode 85: Reckoning with Confederate Monuments
Historian Karen L. Cox argues that “when it comes to Confederate monuments, there is no common ground.” In this episode, we talk with Cox about the history of Confederate monuments and how the recent racial unrest in the United States […]
A Third Reconstruction?
Matt Ford gives us a lot to think about in this piece at The New Republic. titled “Our 250-Year Fight for Multiracial Democracy.” A taste: Some scholars and activists, by the same token, break down American history into presidencies or […]
The John R. Lewis Memorial 10 Highway
Glad to see this. Here is WSFA 12 News: The Alabama legislature passed a bill Thursday to name a portion of U.S. Highway 80, from Selma to Montgomery, after the late civil rights icon and congressman, John R. Lewis. According to […]
Fannie Lou Hamer webinar for teachers
Current‘s Managing Editor Jay Green, will join Chris Burkett and Sarah Beth Kitch on Saturday, April 10, 2021 for a webinar on civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. The webinar readings include: Testimony Before Congress, Fannie Lou Hamer, 1964 Voting […]
The Author’s Corner with Allison Schottenstein
Allison Schottenstein is Annual Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at University of Cincinnati’s Blue Ash College. This interview is based on her new book, Changing Perspectives: Black-Jewish Relations in Houston during the Civil Rights Era (University of North Texas Press, […]
The longest filibusters in U.S. history were launched to stop the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964
Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: At his first White House news conference Thursday, President Biden said he agreed with former president Barack Obama that the filibuster is “a relic of the Jim Crow era.” This follows a Tuesday statement […]
Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King
James Taylor:
Why white evangelicals criticize the Black church
In the 1980s, when I was a student at a small Christian college, some of my professors warned us about the “liberal theology” of the civil rights movement. What Martin Luther King Jr. did was notable, they said, but he […]
Episode 76: Howard Thurman: Theologian, Mystic, Activist
Howard Thurman was a mid-20th century theologian, writer, activist, and mystic who had a profound influence on the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Thurman’s writings–especially his 1949 work Jesus and the Disinherited–provided an intellectual and spiritual guide to those trying to […]
“Negro troublemakers have listened to and followed Communists too long”
Last night I stumbled across this letter to the editor in The Shreveport (LA) Journal (1966): Mon, May 30, 1966 – 4 · The Shreveport Journal (Shreveport, Louisiana) · Newspapers.com I am assuming Mr. Joe Vance of Forth Worth, Texas […]
Barack Obama’s 2020 DNC convention address, democratic virtues, and the failure of Trumpism
Watch Barack Obama speak to the nation on Wednesday night from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bps3m4eFTuE&w=560&h=315] Obama’s choice of venues speaks volumes. At a time when many on the Left are disparaging the American Revolution […]
What Donald Trump said about John Lewis
Watch Trump’s interview with journalist Jonathan Swan on Axios on HBO: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaaTZkqsaxY&w=560&h=315] The section on the late civil rights activist John Lewis begins at the 35:23 mark, right after Trump says he has done more for the African American […]
Bebe and Marvin Winans: “Good Trouble”
At John Lewis’s funeral service: [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjSIvRprSUY&w=560&h=315] Born in Troy, Alabama; to Eddie and Willie Mae Share-croppers workin’; in the heat of the day He knew there was much more, so he asked the Lord to show All he […]
What is Trump doing during the John Lewis funeral?
If you are not watching the John Lewis funeral right now, I hope you get a chance to see some of the speeches after they are posted online. For example, 91-year-old Jim Lawson, an advocate of non-violent protest, offered a […]
Lonnie Bunch on John Lewis
Lonnie Bunch is the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and was the founding director of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. Over at Politico he reflects on the life of civil rights activist and congressman […]
Barack Obama on the passing of John Lewis
On Medium: America is a constant work in progress. What gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further — to speak out for what’s right, to challenge an unjust […]
What I wrote about John Lewis in *Believe Me*
p.176: “But the problem with Donald Trump’s use of American history goes well beyond his desire to make America great again or his regular references to some of the darker moments in our past–moments that have tended to divide Americans […]
John Lewis, RIP
Sad news. Here is Katharine Q. Seelye of The New York Times: Representative John Lewis, a son of sharecroppers and an apostle of nonviolence who was bloodied at Selma and across the Jim Crow South in the historic struggle for racial […]