The 1995 Million Man March was arguably the most important event in Black History of the 1990s. News accounts at the time clearly listed both Louis Farrakhan and Ben Chavis as jointly responsible for organizing the Million Man March. However, nearly all news coverage and subsequent discussions of the Million
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Black Protests in the US, 1994-2010
Although many discussions imply nothing happened between the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter, we find that Black protests in the 1990s and 2000s seem continuous with what came later.
Read moreDebunking Myths about the Civil Rights Movement
Jeanne Theoharis. A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History (Beacon Press. Kindle Edition) [E]ven those civil rights heroes we recognize today were reviled in their day and made to feel crazy. Today’s lamentation—that we need another King—misses the fact that we have many
Read moreWhen the NYPD Rioted
(updated March 4, 2024 to include quotations from Black newspapers) In New York in 1992, about 10,000 off-duty police officers and their supporters protested and about 4,000 of them rioted against then-mayor David Dinkins (who is Black) for his advocacy of an all-civilian review board to monitor police misconduct. Rioting
Read moreRecent Anti-Police Brutality Protests Since George Floyd’s Death are Far Larger than Previous Black Lives Matter Protest Waves
Much excellent work has been written about the need for systemic reform of policing in the US, the discrimination and inequalities faced by Black Americans, and the brave struggles of anti-racist protesters amidst the ongoing police repression and the unprecedented COVID-19 global pandemic. As social movements go, the ongoing mobilizations
Read moreThe Importance of Demonstrating that Communities Can Police Themselves
Chloe Haimson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, haimson@wisc.edu Note: This piece is based on research collected for a forthcoming paper in Mobilization. In recent weeks, heated interactions nationwide between protesters and police, were sparked by the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, by a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin.
Read moreDismantling the Minneapolis Police Department
Note: This post originally featured on scatterplot. Over the past 4 years, I’ve studied community perceptions of the Minneapolis Police Department. With a team of students, we conducted qualitative interviews with over 100 residents and 20 leaders of police reform/transformation/abolition groups; tracked reform efforts by the MPD; and attended city
Read moreResisting Repression: Black Lives Movement in Context
The huge wave of protests against police violence that is happening this week has new features tied to the current moment, but is grounded in a movement that has been building for decades. Its direct ties to the Black Lives Matter protests of 2014-2016 should be obvious, but that movement,
Read moreThe Fall of 2014: Recovering the Roots of The Black Lives movement
Most people have some rough idea of the history of “Black Lives Matter.” I use it to refer to the network of organizations now identified by the name Black Lives Matter. These organizations exist as part of a broader movement network known as the Movement for Black Lives. The founders
Read moreBlack Strike at UW Madison 1969
In February of 1969, Black students and their White allies at the University of Wisconsin Madison called a strike and blocked entrances to campus buildings to back up their demands. I agreed to be part of a panel June 16 on the Black Student Strike of 1969 at UW Madison.
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