Tag Archives: Civil Rights Movement
My Loudmouth :) Black Power Media Discussion Of Al Sharpton’s “Loudmouth”
My passionate first few minutes here are a manifestation of my core belief that writers should take sides but not necessarily be on sides. Big difference.
Asante Sana, Sidney Poitier
JANUARY 10th UPDATE:
Book Mini-Review: Black Marks
John Lewis and Andrew Aydin. Art by L. Fury and Nate Powell.
New York: Abrams Comic Arts, in conjunction with Good Trouble Productions, 154 pp., $24.99.
The change of artist did nothing to hinder the entrance into John Lewis’ world: one of bloodshed, and courage and almost constant activity and sound. Kudos to co-writer Andrew Aydin and artist L. Fury, who took the baton well from Nate Powell. The award-winning March (examined by this reviewer here) is followed up with a new triology, completed in text just before the congressman’s death last year. In this first installment, Lewis slowly realizes that the attributes that propelled him to Movement leadership–Christian witness, closeness to the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King (derisively called “Da Lawd” by some youth activists) and a belief in integrated work–has got him ousted from his beloved Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It’s a time of X marking new spots, of Watts and draft cards afire, of Black Power shouted, of Stokely Carmichael ascendant, of Black self-determination on Black terms, and Lewis is exhausted. To Be Continued in Book Two. After all these decades, it is sad to see Lewis still refer to Black nationalism as Black “separatism”–as if such nationalism was still some abberation–but at least he explained in detail here why some thought it justified. Wedded to American thoughts and ideals, the hero decides not to put on a new face but to find a new place and space.
Film Mini-Review: J. Edgar Hoover, MLK and the Mixtape Sans Music
This film–a very timely look, particularly with what’s going on now, at this very moment–is quite a detailed look at the real Martin Luther King and the real Federal Bureau of Investigation. With the sheets pulled off everybody, this film is almost an intellectual nudist camp, allowing the viewer to absorb an-often sordid story that, as Ronald Reagan (!) warns at the beginning, isn’t pretty. Yep, King’s extramarital sextape is real, and the FBI did try its best within its own twisted bounds of evil legality to destroy him. Along the way, the viewer sees King’s trajectory through the eyes of the Federal Bureau of Investigation–the radical King, the one only the Left or Black nationalists talk about. The filmmakers punk out at the end, though, choosing not to sift through the detail of the assassination itself and not explaining the larger and smaller intelligence agencies, or philosophies thereof, at work. (The Black context of King’s death is here, in what seems to be a 1969 episode of Black Journal, when the national black public-affairs television show and the wound were both still fresh.) The oral-history-format (just voices, no speaking-heads until the very end) and extensive use of file footage, from newsreels to television shows, is combined with the fine-tooth-comb research of David Garrow and others. This is the proper documentary to watch as America’s scabs are bleeding.
BlackLash Event No. 6: Organization and Reparations
Book Mini-Review: The Jackson Mine
I Am Somebody: Why Jesse Jackson Matters.
David Masciotra. Foreword by Michael Eric Dyson.
London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 198 pp., $27.
This time-shifting mini-biographical tribute to Jesse Jackson Sr. reminds us why he is so exasperating and inspiring to so many. In thematic chapters, Masciotra goes back and forth from the 1960s to 2020, reminding the audience that knows (50-plus) and the audience that doesn’t (under 50) that he’s been here all along, connecting the eras of Martin Luther King to Black Lives Matter, from Aretha Franklin to Megan Thee Stallion. Displaying a good understanding of how hegemonic mass media works, the author does an excellent job showing and explaining why the uncontrollable, indefatigable, undefeatable Jackson consistently doesn’t fit the MSM program and perhaps only will after he transforms into a series of sometimes-accessed, highly-edited film and video clips. Jackson’s service to humanity, his always-public witness to injustice and his full membership in 20th century and 21st century public memory are all unapparelled among the currently living, regardless of motivation or rumor of motivation. He is the ultimate insider-outsider and the remarkable half-century of history of world human rights struggle he brings to the table cannot be duplicated by this current army of Millennial and post-Millennial Ivy League-educated “social justice activists,” no matter how concerned and committed they want to be. They will never have Jackson’s nerve because that only comes through walking through America’s fire repeatedly and nakedly, of being unafraid to publicly be who you really are, mistakes and all, regardless of who publicly hates you and for how long. Masciotra shows the Rainbow/PUSH founder constantly at a table prepared for him in the presence of his enemies. The fact that he often seems to be the agenda he is looking for at any table doesn’t seem so negative here in his Winter, especially after you total up the psychological, spiritual and social cost, the steep price of destiny’s frequent-flyer ticket. He breathes, so he leads until he leaves.
My Latest Book Review, On Michael Eric Dyson’s New Book On RFK and James Baldwin…….
My Latest Book Review, On El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Malcolm X and History……..
My AtlantaBlackStar Article On The 50th Anniversary Of The Newark Rebellion…..
…….is here.
Drums in the Global Village 