how we got this national fable

February 1, 2023 9:19 AM

Jeanne Theoharis, author of A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of the Civil Rights History, on our tendency to focus on protests, on complaints about Black Lives Matter causing disruption, and on how we trap Rosa Parks on the bus as the mild-mannered secretary and not the uncompromising fighter for justice. Theoharis speaks of how, during the 2013 unveiling of a statue in her honor, the Supreme Court was hearing Shelby County v Holder (which gutted the Voting Rights Act). Four minute video: 5 Myths of the Civil Rights Movement.

The title of the book comes from James Baldwin's 1963 "A Talk for Teachers" (Bonus pdf of Clint Smith column on that speech).

posted by spamandkimchi (4 comments total)

Also! Theoharis on mentor Julian Bond's history of the civil rights movement at Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS).
posted by spamandkimchi at 9:27 AM on February 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

Starting this first talk now! Thank you.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 2:26 PM on February 1, 2023

One thing I noticed is that when people talk the civil rights movement in general and MLK Jr. in particular, the struggles are sometimes phrased in terms of acting against abstract forces of segregation, voter suppression, etc... And the idea is that once those big pieces of civil rights legislation were passed, these abstract forces were defeated, e.g.: "and they lived happily ever after, The End". But civil rights activists weren't (just) fighting the abstract concept of segregation. They were fighting against segregationists, actual living, breathing humans with their own thoughts and motivations and agency. They obviously didn't think that the passage of those laws was "The End" at all. They literally filled in swimming pools and set up parallel schooling systems to avoid integration.
posted by mhum at 7:56 PM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]

Marking the first day of Black History Month by watering down the AP class content is a new low for the College Board.
posted by St. Oops at 9:08 PM on February 1, 2023 [3 favorites]