NOW WE CAN TRAVEL WITHOUT EMBARRASSMENT was the advertising slogan used by the publisher of The Negro Motorist Green Book, a vital resource for African-American travelers in a period when sundown towns (previously) were still common. This slim volume was published annually until 1964 for the benefit of black motorists who needed to know where they could sleep, eat, or purchase fuel.
posted by Joe in Australia on Sep 13, 2010 - 37 comments

389 years ago...
posted by desjardins on Nov 7, 2008 - 53 comments

'We done heard your voice, we saw your marches, we don't want to hear that any more.' Music artist Nas directs pointed criticism toward civil rights stalwart Jesse Jackson and his generation. But he's not alone. Kevin Powell is running for congress and shares the sentiment. [more inside]
posted by cashman on Jul 23, 2008 - 87 comments

Constance Baker Motley, civil rights lawyer and federal judge, is dead at age 84. (NYT; bugmenot). She was a brilliant lawyer in the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund when it was led by Thurgood Marshall, winning anti-segregationist legal victories against Alabama Governor George Wallace and many others, and defending the civil rights movement. A New Yorker, she was a state senator and borough president of Manhattan. In 1966, Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and she became the first black woman federal judge in the United States. Speeches, writings and clippings.
posted by By The Grace of God on Sep 29, 2005 - 10 comments

Welcome to the Relativist Fallacy. Conservative blacks in the United States are objecting to recent comparisons between the gay marriage and the 1960s civil rights movement, which fought segregation against blacks, arguing that sexual orientation is a choice.
posted by the fire you left me on Nov 28, 2003 - 89 comments