civil rights 
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SOURCE: New York Times
4/10/2021
Ramsey Clark, Attorney General and Rebel With a Cause, Dies at 93
Ramsey Clark's tenure as Attorney General saw the aggressive enforcement of civil rights law; his liberalism strained his relationship with Lyndon Johnson, who blamed Clark in part for energizing the "silent majority" that led Richard Nixon to victory. He continued in private life to represent unpopular defendants and oppose American militarism.
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SOURCE: Woodrow Wilson Center and National History Center
4/9/2021
Washington History Seminar – Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction
Professor Kate Masur joins the Washington History Seminar on Monday, April 19 to discuss "Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction."
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SOURCE: Washington Post
3/31/2021
A Black WWII Veteran Was Beaten and Blinded, Fueling Civil Rights Movement
A new documentary examines the attack on Isaac Woodward in 1946, which catalyzed demands for full citizenship and civil rights.
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SOURCE: TomDispatch
4/4/2021
“The Greatest Purveyor of Violence in the World”
by Liz Theoharis
Martin Luther King's 1967 Riverside Church address pointed out that the cause nonviolent civil rights struggle required him to challenge the US government to end militarism. Today, the pandemic shows that an ethos of nonviolence must include an active approach to end suffering through global cooperation.
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4/4/2021
What Comes Next?
by Stephanie Hinnershitz
In 1979, Asian American leaders testified to Congress about problems of discrimination, opportunity and hostility facing their communities. The official response largely enshrined a "model minority" myth that obscured ongoing problems behind a celebratory narrative of inclusion. Waves of anti-Asian violence in the 1980s belied that story, and warn us not to minimize the climate of hostility Asian Americans face today.
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SOURCE: NPR
3/30/2021
Pushing to End Filibuster, Dems Point to its History in the Civil Rights Era
Kevin Kruse explains that, while the Senate filibuster isn't inherently racist, it's been a popular tool for racist ends, and, rather than promoting compromise, has allowed a minority to kill legislation completely without the prospect of legislative give-and-take.
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/23/2021
Justice for the Negro Leagues Will Mean More Than Just Stats
Major League Baseball will incorporate player records from various Negro League competitions in its official statistics. Black players denied the chance to play in the segregated Major Leagues will now be listed among the official all-time greats, but will this move actually raise awareness of the political and social forces that kept the game segregated?
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SOURCE: Smithsonian
3/24/2021
Decades Before the Civil War, Black Activists Organized for Racial Equality
by Kate Masur
Despite being a "free" state, Ohio imposed special restrictions on free Black residents within its borders. In 1837 Black Ohioans began to organize a non-Southern civil rights movement that anticipated modern struggles for justice.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
3/26/2021
Mitch McConnell is Wrong. The Filibuster is, in Fact, Racist
by Keisha N. Blain
"Try as he might, McConnell cannot erase the historical record. To use his own words, 'There's no dispute among historians about that'."
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SOURCE: FrankNews
3/26/2021
Interview: A Rich Man's War, A Poor Man's Fight
Historian Keri Leigh Merritt, interviewed about the history of labor organizing in the South, links the history of Southern policing to the maintenance of exploitative labor practices after the Civil War and explains how the fight to unionize Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama facility extends the politics of the Civil Rights Movement.
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3/21/2021
Incognegro, Part II: How New York Law Enforcement Worked to Destroy Core
by L.E.J. Rachell
Ray Wood's memoir alleges that as a rookie NYPD detective he was coerced to act as an agent provocateur to convince members of New York's Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) chapters to commit crimes or other acts that would discredit and destroy the movement. The NYPD and FBI could clear the air by releasing their files on infiltration of Black-led organizations.
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SOURCE: Rolling Stone
3/16/2021
The Filibuster’s Ugly History and Why It Must Be Scrapped
by Sean Wilentz
Democrats fear what a Republican Senate might do without the filibuster; they should fear what Republican state legislatures will do unless they take away the tool of obstruction standing in the way of legislation to protect voting rights.
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SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
3/18/2021
For 100 Years, the Filibuster has been Used to Deny Black Rights
by John Fabian Witt and Magdalene Zier
The filibuster is often associated with Southern conservatives' opposition to civil rights legislation, but it's important to note that the modern use of the tactic emerged to defeat the 1920 Dyer anti-lynching bill – the NAACP called the filibuster a "license to mobs to lynch unmolested."
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SOURCE: The Guardian
3/7/2021
On the Anniversary of Selma We are Sadly Reminded: Voting Rights are Still Imperiled
by Elliott Smith
The legacy of sacrifice by voting rights activists like Amelia Boynton is being imperiled by a wave of state voter suppression laws.
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SOURCE: MSNBC
3/2/2021
Vernon Jordan, Civil Rights Icon and Former Clinton Adviser, dies at 85
"Born Aug. 15, 1935, in Atlanta, Jordan grew up in the segregated South and became an influential leader in the civil rights movement, Washington politics and Wall Street."
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SOURCE: New York Times
3/5/2021
One Old Way of Keeping Black People From Voting Still Works
by Jamelle Bouie
The Senate filibuster thwarted a bill for federal supervison and certification of state elections, allowing Mississippi to ratify a white supremacist state constitution by suppressing the black vote.
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SOURCE: Harper's Bazaar
3/8/2021
Socialite Mollie Moon Used Fashion Shows to Fund the Civil Rights Movement
by Tanisha C. Ford
Ebony Magazine's Fashion Fair offered a platform to Black designers while raising money for civil rights organizations – more than $60 million over a half-century.
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SOURCE: WTVY
2/24/2021
Auburn Professors Working to Preserve History of Selma’s ‘Bloody Sunday’
Richard Burt and Keith Hébert are leading a team of researchers to preserve the site of the historic attack on voting rights marchers by Alabama State Troopers on March 7, 1965, hoping that a better-preserved public monument will clear up misperceptions of the day's events.
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SOURCE: The Guardian
2/25/2021
Fight To Vote: The Woman Who Was Key In 'Getting Us The Voting Rights Act'
Historian Carol Anderson explains the contributions of Amelia Boynton to the Selma movement and the erasure of women's organizing work from many histories of the movement.
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SOURCE: CNN
2/21/2021
Black Women's Roles in the Civil Rights Movement have been Understated -- But that's Changing
Beverly Guy-Sheftall of Spelman College discusses the public minimization of women as leaders in the 1950s and 1960s Black Freedom movements.
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