Showing titles in Civil Rights & Liberties

For acclaimed historian William Jelani Cobb, the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency is not the most remarkable development of the 2008 election; even more so is the fact that Obama won some 90 percent of the black vote in the primaries across America despite the fact that the established black leadership since the civil rights era-men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Andrew Young, who paved the way for his candidacy-all openly supported Hillary Clinton.

As a proud son of a civil rights leader, Steven L. Reed grew up hearing stories about how his father integrated Montgomery lunch counters and took advice directly from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy. However, it wasn’t until Reed was in the fourth grade and received a death threat against his father that he began to understand more fully the importance of the lessons his father was trying to impart. At this pivotal moment, his father explained, “My job is to prepare you to be a cross-bearer and not just a crown-wearer.

In The Heavens Might Crack, historian Jason Sokol traces the diverse responses, both in America and throughout the world, to King's death. Whether celebrating or mourning, most agreed that the final flicker of hope for a multiracial America had been extinguished.

"Bloody Sunday" - March 7, 1965 - was a pivotal moment in the civil rights struggle. The national outrage generated by scenes of Alabama state troopers attacking peaceful demonstrators fueled the drive toward the passage of the Voting Rights Acts later that year. But why were hundreds of activists marching from Selma to Montgomery that afternoon?

Reniqua Allen tells the stories of Black millennials searching for a better future in spite of racist policies that have closed off traditional versions of success. Many watched their parents and grandparents play by the rules, only to sink deeper and deeper into debt. They witnessed their elders fight to escape cycles of oppression for more promising prospects, largely to no avail. Today, in this post-Obama era, they face a critical turning point. Interweaving her own experience, Allen shares surprising stories of hope and ingenuity.

"Mein Thema heute, so fürchte ich, ist fast schon beschämend aktuell." Was ist Freiheit, und was bedeutet sie uns? Begreifen wir sie nur als die Abwesenheit von Furcht und von Zwängen, oder meint Freiheit nicht vielmehr auch, sich an gesellschaftlichen Prozessen zu beteiligen, eine eigene politische Stimme zu haben, um von anderen gehört, erkannt und schließlich erinnert zu werden? Und: Haben wir diese Freiheit einfach, oder wer gibt sie uns, und kann man sie uns auch wieder wegnehmen? In diesem auf Deutsch bisher unveröffentlichten Essay zeichnet Hannah Arendt die historische Entwicklung des Freiheitsbegriffs nach.

Following the fatal shooting in broad daylight of unarmed African American Michael Brown by a white cop in August 2014, Ferguson, Missouri, became the scene of protests that pitted law enforcement against locals and Black Lives matter activists. The media firestorm has not waned, and, in fact, has grown stronger in light of all the recent violence by and against police officers nationwide. According to Ferguson's former police chief Tom Jackson, the uninformed media actually fans the flames of unrest and exploits the situation.

An analytical, sometimes revisionist, succinct biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Though often taken for granted, the modern American public defender is a recent invention with a surprisingly contentious history - one that offers insights not only about the "carceral state" but also about the contours and compromises of 20th-century liberalism.

In Green Hell, Steven Milloy shows how the government and environmental elites will soon have you under their Green thumb, controlling the speed you drive, the temperature of your home, even when you can retire - and that's just the tip of their melting iceberg. Milloy argues that our hasty Green policies are more harmful to society than helpful to the environment and shows how we can counter the Green agenda. We all want a healthy planet, but we don't need to live in a Green nanny state to have one.

Black Hands, White House documents and appraises the role enslaved women and men played in building the US, both its physical and its fiscal infrastructure. The book highlights the material commodities produced by enslaved communities during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. These commodities enriched European and US economies; contributed to the material and monetary wealth of the nation's founding fathers, other early European immigrants, and their descendants; and bolstered the wealth of present-day companies founded during the American slave era.

Ever since the 2016 election, pundits have been saying our country has never been more divided - that if progressives want to reclaim power, we need to be "pragmatic", reach across the aisle, and look past identity politics. But what if we're getting the story all wrong? In The Marginalized Majority, Onnesha Roychoudhuri makes the galvanizing case that our voices are already the majority - and that our plurality of identities is not only our greatest strength, but is also at the indisputable core of successful progressive change throughout history.

Of the approximately twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as many as two million came as children. They grow up here, going to elementary, middle, and high school, and then the country they call home won’t—in most states—offer financial aid for college and they’re unable to be legally employed. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements.

In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled that little Linda Brown couldn't be excluded from a public school because of her race. In that landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the court famously declared that public education must be available to all on equal terms. But 66 years later, many of the best public schools remain closed to all but the most privileged families. Empowered by little-known state laws, school districts draw attendance zones around their best schools, indicating who is, and who isn't, allowed to enroll.

Pay attention, people of faith. Dark clouds are gathering. The winds of intolerance are blowing. There’s a great storm approaching. American Christians are facing uncertain times. Our nation’s values are under assault. Religious liberty has been undermined. We live in a day when right is now wrong and wrong is now right. The vicious left-wing attack against the recent traditional marriage stance of Chick-fil-A should serve as a wake-up call to people of faith. It’s not about a chicken sandwich. It’s about religious liberty. It’s about free speech. It’s about the future of our nation.

Set against the backdrop of a world and society in turmoil during the various revolutions across the globe, and written before the term “feminism” had become popularized, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a treatise that explains the ways in which women were mistreated and marginalized. Specifically, this explication was writing to respond to a particular popular idea of the time: that women were unsuited for getting their own educations and were better off living private, quiet lives in service of husbands.

Activists from Henry David Thoreau and Mohandas Gandhi to the Movement for Black Lives have long recognized that there are times when, rather than having a duty to obey the law, we have a duty to disobey it. Taking seriously the history of this activism, A Duty to Resist wrestles with the problem of political obligation in real world societies that harbor injustice. Candice Delmas argues that the duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and political association impose responsibility to resist under conditions of injustice.

For over 50 years, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., a Baptist minister, activist, and organizer, has worked for civil rights, peace, and the promise of true democracy. From his years in the Civil Rights movement, his work as founder of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and as an international ambassador for human rights, he has left an indelible impression on the history of our time. These speeches and sermons include the famous speeches he delivered at the Democratic Party conventions of 1984 and 1988 following his historic campaigns for the presidential nomination.

Jess Phillips - no stranger to speaking truth to power herself - will help you dig deep and get organised, finding the courage and the tools you need to speak up and make a difference. As well as offering inspiration and hope from her own experiences Jess talks to the accidental heroes who have been brave enough to risk everything, become whistle-blowers and successfully fight back....

Throughout her long career of “afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted,” the cause closest to Molly Ivins’s heart was working to protect the freedoms we all value. Sadly, today we’re living in a time when dissent is equated with giving aid to terrorists, when any of us can be held in prison without even knowing the charges against us, and when our constitutional rights are being interpreted by a president who calls himself “The Decider.”