Trailer: Barber of Birmingham--Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement

Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement

Mr. James Armstrong is a barber, a “foot soldier” and a dreamer whose barbershop in Birmingham, Alabama has been a hub for haircuts and civil rights since 1955. “The dream” of a promised land, where dignity and the right to vote belongs to everyone is documented in photos, headlines and clippings that cram every inch of wall space (and between the mirrors).

GAIL DOLGIN, Director/Producer

ROBIN FRYDAY, Director/Producer

“We Need Leaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of the People”

“We Need Leaders Among The People, Not Leaders Of  the People” 

by Mark Nasion | special to NewBlackMan

For those  on the left who don’t understand  my willingness to work with whites they regard as conservative or racist, let me tell you a little bit about my political mentor, Rev. Claude Williams. Rev. Williams, with whom  I spent four summers with during the early 1970s organizing his personal papers, was a Presbyterian minister brought up in the hills of Tennessee in an evangelical tradition ( a credo he described as “God said it, Jesus did it, I believe it, and that settles it) who  had a conversion experience in his late thirties and became an advocate of the social gospel and an opponent of southern segregation.

Williams had an opportunity to put these principles into action when he became a minister in a mining town called Paris Arkansas during the Depression, and devoted his ministry to strike support, moved to Commonwealth Labor College when he was forced out of  Paris and there became a supporter of the Southern Tenant Farmers Union, an interracial organization that fought for the rights of sharecroppers and tenant farmers being forced off the land by Depression conditions and New Deal agricultural program.

When organizing for the STFU, Williams developed a unique strategy for organizing  southern blacks and white for progressive unionism by employing biblical imagery common to both.  His fiery preaching and innovative charts and posters, using quotes from the bible to promote interracial solidarity and a cooperative commonwealth, made him one of the South’s most effective organizers,  and a hated figure among local elites, who literally ran him out of Arkansas in the late 1930s.

From there, Williams moved to Memphis, where he helped organize interracial locals of the Food and Tobacco Workers Union and in North Carolina and then was brought up to Detroit during World War II by the UAQ to help preach to the Southern Blacks and Whites working in easy proximity during that city’s auto plants.

After the war, Williams moved back  to farm South of Birmigham where he began working with interracial locals of the Mine Mill and Smelters Union and holding meetings on his property to help people register to vote.  When a wave of McCarthyite reaction set in, Williams became a target of the local Klan, who set fires on his property, killed his dogs, and forced him to stop holding interracial meetings on his farm. But his white neighbors, who had been the recipient of many acts of generosity on the part of Williams and his wife Joyce, refused to let the Klan kill him, so he remained on his farm through the worst days of Klan and Citizen’s Council Terror until and opening came in the middle 60’s and a strong civil rights movement came to the Birmingham area.

I had learned about Williams amazing work when writing my Master’s essay on the Southern Tenants Farmers Union, but meeting him in person, an being given responsibility for organizing and filing his personal papers was a transformative experience.  Williams was a big, powerful, hard drinking  man  who held a deep conviction that Southern working class whites, when they could overcome their racism, were far more reliable allies to Blacks than northern white liberals because they had a common religious heritage as well as a common class interest. He had shown the potential of this approach in labor struggle after labor struggle before McCarthyism had sidelined him and believed it was the only one that would allow progressives  to challenge domination of American politics by the  rich and powerful.

Having the opportunity to live with a person who not only articulated such a view with great eloquence, but  practiced it every day, and survived pressures that would have silenced most people, made a tremendous impression on me.  Williams challenged me, as he did all leftists to relinquish elitist contempt of working class people and meet them on their own ground, using arguments rooted in their own culture and traditions, and providing and example of courage and generosity they would respect. As he told me on countless occasions “ We don’t need leaders  of the people, we need leaders among the people.!”

Throughout my life of political activism,, I have tried to take that message to heart and reach out to people of diverse political perspectives while fighting for racial and economic justice.

Nothing I have experienced in 40 plus years of activism, including my experience with the Occupy Movement and the 99 Percent Clubs in the last 6 months, has convinced me this approach is wrong.

***

Mark Naison is a Professor of African-American Studies and History at Fordham University and Director of Fordham’s Urban Studies Program. He is the author of two books, Communists in Harlem During the Depression and White Boy: A Memoir. Naison is also co-director of the Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP). Research from the BAAHP will be published in a forthcoming collection of oral histories Before the Fires: An Oral History of African American Life From the 1930’s to the 1960’s.

Brother Oustider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

California Newsreel:

To watch the entire documentary, to read background information and to order DVDs, visit:
http://newsreel.org/video/BROTHER-OUTSIDER-BAYARD-RUSTIN
 

This is a definitive film biography of one of the most controversial figures of the Civil Rights Movement. Hew was one of the first "Freedom Riders," an advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King and A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, intelligent, gregarious and charismatic, Rustin was denied his place in the limelight for one reason - he was gay.

"Freedom Rider," Etta Simpson Talks "Social Media"

From the Ella Baker Center:

In 1961, a group of young civil rights activists challenged segregation in the south by riding interstate buses. We had the pleasure of meeting one of the Freedom Riders.

Independent Lens | Daisy Bates: The First Lady of Little Rock (Trailer)

 

Watch A Civil Rights Hero Who Put Her Life on the Line on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

PBS | Independent Lens:

As a black woman who was a feminist before the term was invented, Daisy Bates refused to accept her assigned place in society. This program tells the story of her life and public support of nine black students who registered to attend the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, which culminated in a constitutional crisis — pitting a president against a governor and a community against itself. Unconventional, revolutionary and egotistical, Bates reaped the rewards of instant fame, but paid dearly for it.

Fordham University Professor Mark Naison Explains #OccupyWallStreet on ABC News

NewBlackMan contributor and Fordham University Professor Mark Naison Discusses #OccupyWallStreet on ABC News.

Association of Black Women Historians on 'The Help'

An Open Statement to the Fans of The Help

On behalf of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), this statement provides historical context to address widespread stereotyping presented in both the film and novel version of The Help. The book has sold over three million copies, and heavy promotion of the movie will ensure its success at the box office. Despite efforts to market the book and the film as a progressive story of triumph over racial injustice, The Help distorts, ignores, and trivializes the experiences of black domestic workers. We are specifically concerned about the representations of black life and the lack of attention given to sexual harassment and civil rights activism.

During the 1960s, the era covered in The Help, legal segregation and economic inequalities limited black women's employment opportunities. Up to 90 per cent of working black women in the South labored as domestic servants in white homes. The Help’s representation of these women is a disappointing resurrection of Mammy—a mythical stereotype of black women who were compelled, either by slavery or segregation, to serve white families. Portrayed as asexual, loyal, and contented caretakers of whites, the caricature of Mammy allowed mainstream America to ignore the systemic racism that bound black women to back-breaking, low paying jobs where employers routinely exploited them. The popularity of this most recent iteration is troubling because it reveals a contemporary nostalgia for the days when a black woman could only hope to clean the White House rather than reside in it.

Both versions of The Help also misrepresent African American speech and culture. Set in the South, the appropriate regional accent gives way to a child-like, over-exaggerated “black” dialect. In the film, for example, the primary character, Aibileen, reassures a young white child that, “You is smat, you is kind, you is important.” In the book, black women refer to the Lord as the “Law,” an irreverent depiction of black vernacular. For centuries, black women and men have drawn strength from their community institutions. The black family, in particular provided support and the validation of personhood necessary to stand against adversity. We do not recognize the black community described in The Help where most of the black male characters are depicted as drunkards, abusive, or absent. Such distorted images are misleading and do not represent the historical realities of black masculinity and manhood.

Furthermore, African American domestic workers often suffered sexual harassment as well as physical and verbal abuse in the homes of white employers. For example, a recently discovered letter written by Civil Rights activist Rosa Parks indicates that she, like many black domestic workers, lived under the threat and sometimes reality of sexual assault. The film, on the other hand, makes light of black women’s fears and vulnerabilities turning them into moments of comic relief.

Similarly, the film is woefully silent on the rich and vibrant history of black Civil Rights activists in Mississippi. Granted, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the first Mississippi based field secretary of the NAACP, gets some attention. However, Evers’ assassination sends Jackson’s black community frantically scurrying into the streets in utter chaos and disorganized confusion—a far cry from the courage demonstrated by the black men and women who continued his fight. Portraying the most dangerous racists in 1960s Mississippi as a group of attractive, well dressed, society women, while ignoring the reign of terror perpetuated by the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council, limits racial injustice to individual acts of meanness.

We respect the stellar performances of the African American actresses in this film. Indeed, this statement is in no way a criticism of their talent. It is, however, an attempt to provide context for this popular rendition of black life in the Jim Crow South. In the end, The Help is not a story about the millions of hardworking and dignified black women who labored in white homes to support their families and communities. Rather, it is the coming-of-age story of a white protagonist, who uses myths about the lives of black women to make sense of her own. The Association of Black Women Historians finds it unacceptable for either this book or this film to strip black women’s lives of historical accuracy for the sake of entertainment.

Ida E. Jones is National Director of ABWH and Assistant Curator at Howard University. 

Daina Ramey Berry, Tiffany M. Gill, and Kali Nicole Gross are Lifetime Members of ABWH and Associate Professors at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Janice Sumler-Edmond is a Lifetime Member of ABWH and is a Professor at Huston-Tillotson University.

Suggested Reading

Fiction:  

Like one of the Family: Conversations from A Domestic’s Life, Alice Childress 

The Book of the Night Women by Marlon James 

Blanche on the Lam by Barbara Neeley 

The Street by Ann Petry 

A Million Nightingales by Susan Straight

Non-Fiction: 

Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph 

To Joy My Freedom: Southern Black Women’s Lives and Labors by Tera Hunter 

Labor of Love Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family, from Slavery to the Present by Jacqueline Jones 

Living In, Living Out: African American Domestics and the Great Migration by Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Any questions, comments, or interview requests can be sent to:

ABWHTheHelp@gmail.com

Take This Hammer: James Baldwin in San Francisco (1963)

from Brendan Nee:

KQED's mobile film unit follows author and activist James Baldwin in the spring of 1963, as he's driven around San Francisco to meet with members of the local African-American community. He is escorted by Youth For Service's Executive Director Orville Luster and intent on discovering: "The real situation of Negroes in the city, as opposed to the image San Francisco would like to present." He declares: "There is no moral distance ... between the facts of life in San Francisco and the facts of life in Birmingham. Someone's got to tell it like it is. And that's where it's at."

Includes frank exchanges with local people on the street, meetings with community leaders and extended point-of-view sequences shot from a moving vehicle, featuring the Bayview and Western Addition neighborhoods. Baldwin reflects on the racial inequality that African-Americans are forced to confront and at one point tries to lift the morale of a young man by expressing his conviction that: "There will be a Negro president of this country but it will not be the country that we are sitting in now." The TV Archive would like to thank Darryl Cox for championing the merits of this film and for his determination that it be preserved and remastered for posterity.

Confessions of a Black Swim Parent: It’s Never Just Another Swim Meet

Confessions of a Black Swim Parent:
It’s Never Just Another Swim Meet
by Mark Anthony Neal | NewBlackMan

I suppose that years from now, my daughter will have little memory of the recent North Carolina YMCA swim championships. Yes she walked away with the 50-Yard Freestyle championship in her age group, lowered several of her times and anchored two championship relays, but in many ways it was just like any other meet.

Except the meet was not held on any other ordinary day; it was the 82nd anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.. I couldn’t help being reminded that if it were only 40 years earlier—in a state like North Carolina—my daughter might not have been allowed to even swim in the same pool with her White peers, let alone stand on the blocks and believe that she could be the fastest swimmer in any of the competitions.

Not to put any additional pressure on my daughter, I let the significance of the date sit quietly with me (though not quite, given the Curtis Mayfield and Nina Simone soundtrack that accompanied our drive to the aquatic center), ironic given the fact that most swim meets in contemporary America would register as a minor Civil Rights-era notable; It’s simply far too usual for there to be only a handful of Black swimmers competing at meets in which competitors often number in the hundreds.

And indeed, to judge by the number of adults, who randomly walk up to my daughter and her parents to comment on how fine her swimming technique is, I’m sure my daughter is more than aware of the race politics that are at play. As a White colleague remarked to me, comments about my daughter’s swimming technique—however innocent and even thoughtful—are apropos to the backhanded compliments middle class, educated Blacks receive about how “articulate” they are, as if there is some incompatible strain of Blackness that resists societal norms.

At twelve, my daughter is of a generation of young people whose lives are not ordered by race—that’s the job of their parents, who at least have a responsibility to make their children aware that despite best intentions (somewhere Edmund Perry is sighing), there will be many moments in their lives when race—and gender, and class and religious preference and sexual orientation will matter.

Thankfully, the only burden she takes onto the starting block is whether or not she will be able to drop her times, and that is as it should be. Nevertheless, my daughter and I have begun to talk about her unasked for role in this small post-race, racial drama. The conversations are borne out on the number of times that parents of younger Black swimmers have sought her out to meet their swimmers.

It has taken my daughter some time to realize that forty-plus year after Dr. King last walked the earth, the idea of a Black swimmer—and one who can compete at the highest levels, as she aspires—is an oxymoron. At any given swim meet, there’s going to be another Black swimmer that will see my daughter and others like her, and say “that can be me.”

***

Mark Anthony Neal is Professor of African & African-American Studies at Duke University and the author of five books including the forthcoming Looking For Leroy: (Il)Legible Black Masculinities. He is the host of the weekly webcast Left of Black. Neal is also a Black Swim Parent, who resides Durham, NC with his family, where his daughters swim for the YMCA of the Triangle Area (YOTA).

All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men, but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin

All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men,but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin

Roses for Aretha
by Mark Anthony Neal

“A Rose is Still a Rose,” released in 1998, was Aretha Franklin’s last major hit single. Produced by Lauryn Hill, who was poised to release the generation defining The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill later that year, the song represented a metaphoric passing of the torch—a torch that was also passed to Mary J. Blige, when Franklin appeared on the latter’s “Don’t Waste Your Time” from Blige’s Mary. Unspoken in both of these performances is that Franklin remains the most important Black Woman artist that the Unites States has ever produced and few among current fans of American popular music really have an appreciation of what that means.

In the annals of American Pop music, to paraphrase Barbara Smith, Gloria Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, “All the Rock Gods are White, All the Soul Men are…well Black Men, but Some of Us Are Aretha Franklin.” It is simply too easy to forget that Aretha Franklin was the first woman inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. That Ms. Franklin wasn’t included among the 16 men who were inducted in the first class (The Everly Brothers, really?) in 1986 only illustrates the point that Ms. Franklin’s achievements are often taken for granted, even among so-called fans of Black music.

Though the term “Diva” existed well before Aretha Franklin walked across a stage, in many ways she is the ultimate embodiment of the term. More than simply a celebrated vocalist, at her commercial peak in the late 1960s, Ms. Franklin could have legitimately been called the most popular Black woman of the 20th Century. The 18 Grammy Awards, including eight straight years in the Best Female R&B/Soul category (1968-1975) tell only a part of the story.

Ms. Franklin’s stature existed well beyond the Pop charts that she dominated in the 1960s and 1970s as she is part of a handful of African-American artists responsible for mainstreaming Black spirituality at a time when the ethos of that spirituality was at the cutting edge of progressive politics in the United States.

Read the Full Essay @ theLoop21

'Left of Black': Episode #5 featuring Danielle McGuire and Stephane Dunn

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Wayne State University Historian Danielle McGuire, the author of At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance--A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power.

Neal also talks with Morehouse College English Professor Stephane Dunn about the recent Vibe Magazine article 'The Mean Girls of Morehouse." Dunn is a regular contributor to theLoop21.com and the author of Baad Bitches and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films.

Mad at 'Mad Men'

The creators of Mad Men get so many things right in this period television series. Too bad they get black women so wrong.

Mad at 'Mad Men'
by Salamishah Tillet

In Mad Men, AMC's seminal series on the 1960s advertising scene, all the women are white, all the blacks are men and, well, the rest of us non-male colored folks are housekeepers and Playboy bunnies. At least, that's what one would think watching the show lauded by The Washington Post as "TV's most feminist show."

Mad Men is all about progressive gender politics -- as long as it comes wrapped in white skin. For female viewers who both enjoy Mad Men and come wrapped in brown skin, watching the show can be a frustrating experience.

For the fourth season, Mad Men, which comes to a close on Sunday, the civil rights movement serves as little more than a decorative backdrop. Now set between 1964 and 1965, the show continues to wonderfully detail the fall and the failures of its patriarch, Don Draper, while also exploring the limited gender roles that stifle white suburban housewives, like Betty Draper-turned-Francis, and the sexual harassment and gender discrimination that plague working women, like Peggy Olson and Joan Harris.

In fact, the show's creative representations of white male chauvinism and a budding white feminist movement is best captured in the ninth episode of this season, "Beautiful Girls," which oddly pits the fomenting civil rights movement against the budding feminist movement. When Abe, a white male hipster, sits down with Peggy and waxes philosophic about revolution -- particularly the upheaval in Greece and the civil rights movement in America -- Peggy quickly interrupts, "Most of the things that Negroes can't do, I can't do, and no one seems to care." Abe chides: "All right, Peggy, we'll have a civil rights march for women."

The civil rights movement, it seems, was for black men only.

Part of the reason the show gets away with such a reductionist version of the civil rights era is that for the past two seasons, there have been few references to the major battles and gains of this significant social movement. Significant moments of the '60s, from the March on Washington to the Birmingham Bombing to President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the Voting Rights Act, are either mentioned in passing or show up as grainy news footage on TV.

Black male historical figures like Malcolm X, Nat King Cole and Harry Belafonte are mentioned only briefly by the show's white characters. Or they're strangely used as the shadowy metaphor for the societal oppression of white women, like Betty Draper dreaming about Medgar Evers when she is heavily sedated for her third child's birth, or when the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fight serves as a backdrop for Peggy Olsen's duel with her family.

Read the Full Essay @ The Root