SNCC); and the Congress for Racial Equality (
CORE). While these associations generally pursued their goals through civil disobedience and the courts, it was the Black Panther Party that eschewed the establishment in favor of leftist community organizing, a focus on Black power, and military tactics.
New film
Judas and the Black Messiah, in theaters and on HBO Max Feb 12, follows the rise of Black Panther Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya), the head of the Illinois chapter of the party. Filmmaker Shaka King tells the true story of Hampton and Bill O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield), the car thief turned FBI informant forced to undermine the organization from the inside and participate in Hampton’s assassination. The movie is blistering in its portrayal of the conspiracy between the federal government and the local police department to silence Hampton.
By Ryan Shepard
Feb 12, 2021
For seven months in 1961, more than 400 black and white activists, known as Freedom Riders, took bus trips through the American South to protest segregated bus terminals to test the 1960 Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia that declared segregated facilities for interstate passengers illegal.
The original group of 13 Freedom Riders seven African-Americans, including future Congressman
John Lewis and six whites left Washington D.C. on Greyhound bus on May 4. Their plan was to reach New Orleans on May 17th to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Brown V. Board of Education, which rules that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
Today and Tomorrow: A Journey through the Civil Rights Movement By WALB News Team | February 12, 2021 at 11:02 AM EST - Updated February 12 at 11:02 AM
ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - February is Black History Month. What better time is there to reflect on how far we’ve come and look at how far as a community we still must go?
What better way to do that than through the eyes of someone who has lived through it all? The one and only Rutha Harris.
Harris reflected on her journey and the changes she said still need to be made.
“My name is Rutha Harris. I grew up in this house where I’m sitting. I was born in this house,” said to WALB during our interview with her. “My dad, who was a minister, my mom was a schoolteacher sheltered us from all the ills of segregation. He said ‘I bought a house for you to live in, and in this house is a kitchen, so you don’t need to go to restaurants. In this house, I bought you a television, so you don’t need to go to the movie theater.’
The Importance of Electoral Politics in Social Change Movements
Mandy Carter
By Mandy Carter–
I wonder how many of us could ever have thought that we would have our first-ever woman, and woman of color, as our vice-president? I sure didn’t at first.
That was until I remembered having had the good fortune of working on the historic election of our first-ever Black president, Barack Obama, in his 2008 presidential election campaign.
As an out Black lesbian and lifelong Democrat, I count myself fortunate to have worked on two winning historic campaigns that proactively engaged our LGBTQ+ communities. In 2008, soon-to-be President Obama formed Obama Pride with five national co-chairs for his national LGBT leadership team. They included myself of Durham, NC; Marsha Botzer of Seattle, WA; Jesse Garcia of Dallas, TX; Campbell Spencer of Washington, DC; and Eric Stern of Berkeley, CA.