Pope Francis Disturbed By Atrocities In Syria; Renews Call For Dialogue

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother

By Associated Press

imagesPope Francis says he has been disturbed by `’terrible images” of atrocities occurring in Syria, and he is urging the international community to step up its efforts to end the civil war there.

Francis told tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday that Syrian and rebel forces must put down their arms. He renewed his call for dialogue as the U.S. considers a military response to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria last week.

Francis cited the intensification of the `’war among brothers,” including massacres and `’atrocious deeds,” and he urged the international community to `’put all its efforts” toward helping Syria find a solution to this `’tragic situation.”

He also expressed solidarity for the victims and all those suffering, especially the children.

Read More Pope Francis Disturbed By Atrocities In Syria; Renews Call For Dialogue.

 

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50 Years Later: Whither the Moral Arc of the Universe?

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother
English: Dr. Martin Luther King giving his &qu...

Dr. Martin Luther King giving his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Paul Brandeis Raushenbush

In 1853, the controversial abolitionist Theodore Parker preached these words: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

A century later a young black preacher famously took up this refrain in his sermons and speeches; perhaps most famously on the steps of the State Capitol in Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 when he answered the question how long African Americans must wait for full equality and justice in America, “How long?” Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked, “Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

This faith in the moral arc of the universe became a central theme in King’s famous “I Have a Dream Speech,” delivered to a quarter of a million people at the March on Washington, 50 years ago this week.

The anniversary comes at a time when it is hard to feel that the universe is continuing to bend towards justice — especially for African Americans. Prison populations offer a stark reminder of racial inequity, Trayvon Martin’s killing went unpunished, stop and frisk targeting of African Americans has reached a boiling point, North Carolina has enacted voter suppression law, and the Supreme Court recently gutted the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that was one of the most important achievements of the civil rights movement.

In the majority opinion of the Supreme Court decision on the VRA, Chief Justice Roberts insisted “that nearly 50 years later, things have changed dramatically” and concluded therefore that the protections enacted and reaffirmed by Congress over that last 50 years are no longer necessary.

Read More 50 Years Later: Whither the Moral Arc of the Universe? | Paul Brandeis Raushenbush.

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50 Years Later, Our March Goes On

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother
English: Official portrait of United States At...

Official portrait of United States Attorney General Eric Holder (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Eric H. Holder, Jr.

It was an honor to speak at the National Action to Realize the Dream March this morning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.

Fifty years ago, Dr. King shared his dream with the world and described his vision for a society that offered, and delivered, the promise of equal justice under the law. He assured his fellow citizens that this goal was within reach — so long as they kept faith with one another, and maintained the courage and commitment to work toward it.

And he urged them to do just that. By calling for no more — and no less — than equal justice. By standing up for the civil rights to which everyone is entitled. And by speaking out — in the face of hatred and violence, in defiance of those who sought to turn them back with fire hoses, bullets and bombs — for the dignity of a promise kept; the honor of a right redeemed; and the pursuit of a sacred truth that’s been woven through our history since this country’s earliest days: that all are created equal.

via 50 Years Later, Our March Goes On | Eric H. Holder, Jr..

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Five myths about the March on Washington

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother

By William P. Jones

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during...

Crowds surrounding the Reflecting Pool, during the 1963 March on Washington. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Aug. 28, 1963, the March on Washington, featuring Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, became the touchstone of the American civil rights movement. But our focus on one man and one speech has obscured some of the history and meaning of the event. As we mark this milestone, let’s take a closer look at popular misconceptions about what brought hundreds of thousands of people to Washington 50 years ago.

1. Martin Luther King Jr. organized the march.

The March on Washington was initiated and directed by A. Philip Randolph, a 74-year-old black labor leader who first called for a march on the Capitol to protest employment discrimination in 1941. Though that event never happened, Randolph’s organization, the Negro American Labor Council, initiated another protest in January 1963, then reached out to King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and other civil rights and labor groups.

This iconic protest had many fathers. In addition to Randolph and King, the 10 official chairmen of the event included John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Roy Wilkins of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, as well as another labor leader and three religious leaders. The National Council of Negro Women also supported the march, but Randolph and other male leaders refused to include its president, Dorothy Height, in the official leadership. Despite vigorous protest from black women, they insisted that women could be represented by men.

2. The main goal of the march was to eliminate Jim Crow laws.

Marchers demanded equal access to public accommodations, housing, education and voting rights, but in an official list of demands, they also called on federal authorities to create “meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages” for unemployed workers and raise the minimum wage to a level that would “give all Americans a decent standard of living.”

Read More Five myths about the March on Washington – The Washington Post.

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Youth see march anniversary as chance to lead

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother

By Shaquille Brewster

460xMary-Pat Hector of Atlanta operates much like a 1960s civil rights activist as she plans for the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Her cell phone rings constantly as she confirms event details, tweaks the draft of the speech she’ll give at a rally, and prepares for a presentation.

Mary-Pat is 15 years old.

Just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the Montgomery Bus Boycott at age 26, and Rep. John Lewis helped to lead freedom rides at 23, young Americans like Mary-Pat are not letting age get in the way as they seek more than a contributing role in the push for social reform.

Young people are eager to influence this year’s March on Washington, says Jessica Brown, national coordinator for the Black Youth Vote coalition, which organized several youth events around Saturday’s march to the Lincoln Memorial.

“Of course you have the seasoned people who are there, and they are always rightfully going to have their position,” Brown said. “But you’re starting to see the pickup of the youth saying, ‘This is our time, this is our moment, this is the opportunity we have to show the world and the nation, that we’re here and we’re ready to work and organize to get things done.'”

Read More  Youth see march anniversary as chance to lead.

 

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Affirmation

Posted on August 25, 2013 by The Soul Brother

Go

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Twitter Sparks A Serious Discussion About Race And Feminism

Posted on August 24, 2013 by The Soul Brother
English: One of the symbols of German Women's ...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By NPR Staff

Twitter isn’t always the best place for big, thorny philosophical conversations. But it’s a great forum for catharsis and taking the temperature of a popular sentiment. Sometimes, rarely, it’s actually both.

If you were on Twitter last week, you may have seen a lot of rallying around the satirical but serious hashtag # (which itself spawned another trending hashtag ). It was an unlikely trending topic, but it served as a high-profile digital example of one of feminism’s most enduring internecine tensions — how or whether to make space in the world of feminism for people who aren’t white (or upper middle class or straight or able-bodied).

The hashtag was started by the blogger Mikki Kendall, but the proximate cause of the hullabaloo was the digital self-immolation of Hugo Schwyzer, a self-identified “male feminist” and one of the most polarizing figures in the feminist blogosphere.1 (BuzzFeed has a rundown of Schwyzer’s Twitter meltdown .) Several women of color have long complained that Schwyzer publicly went after them for criticizing him and his writing — — and yet despite this, he had long remained a contributor in good standing at influential feminist-inclined sites like . (Notably, most of those sites being criticized for publishing Schwyzer are run and largely frequented by white women.) A lot of people tweeting #solidarityisforwhitewomen felt that those sites and their proprietors had granted Schwyzer the platform to snipe at and undermine women of color while bestowing upon him undeserved feminist street cred. And now that Schwyzer was basically admitting that all of those complaints about him were true, they wondered why those same digital feminists who’d helped Schwyzer’s ascendancy weren’t denouncing him or locking arms with feminists of color. In their eyes, it was emblematic of the same myopic application of feminism.

via Twitter Sparks A Serious Discussion About Race And Feminism : Code Switch : NPR.

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Not Just A ‘Black Thing’: An Asian-American’s Bond With Malcolm X

Posted on August 24, 2013 by The Soul Brother

By Hansi Lo Wang

Malcolm X

Malcolm X (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The brief friendship of Malcolm X and Yuri Kochiyama began close to 50 years ago with a handshake.

Diane Fujino, chairwoman of the Asian-American studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, details the moment in her biography Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.

Kochiyama and her eldest son, 16-year-old Billy, were arrested along with hundreds of other people, mainly African-Americans, during a protest in Brooklyn, N.Y., in October 1963.

“[They were] in this packed courthouse,” Fujino says. “[There were] a lot of activists who [were] waiting their hearing on the civil disobedience charges.”

In walks Malcolm X, who was quickly mobbed by adoring activists.

Kochiyama described the scene in a in 2008. “I felt so bad that I wasn’t black, that this should be just a black thing,” she recalled. “But the more I see them all so happily shaking his hands and Malcolm so happy, I said, ‘Gosh, darn it! I’m going to try to meet him somehow.’ ”

Eventually, Kochiyama called out to Malcolm X, “Can I shake your hand?”

“What for?” he demanded.

“To congratulate you for giving direction to your people,” she finally mustered.

Malcolm X smiled and extended his hand. Kochiyama remembered how she could hardly believe she was meeting the most prominent black nationalist leader of the time.

Read More  Not Just A ‘Black Thing’: An Asian-American’s Bond With Malcolm X : Code Switch : NPR.

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Joan Baez – We Shall Overcome

Posted on August 24, 2013 by The Soul Brother
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James Brown – Say It Loud, I’m Black & I’m Proud

Posted on August 24, 2013 by The Soul Brother
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