The Transatlantic Impact of civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome”
“We Shall Overcome” bridges the civil rights movements in the United States and Northern Ireland, says Glen Whitcroft, but does this overlook the diversity in Northern Ireland protest history?
Continue ReadingThe legacy of Black Power Visual Culture in 1990s Hip Hop
Artists such as KRS-One, Public Enemy and Chuck D. position themselves as heirs to the legacy of the Panthers and Malcolm X by creatively updating the “media-conscious iconography of sixties black radicalism for a 1990s constituency”, says Hannah Jeffery.
Continue ReadingWar Among All Puerto Ricans: The Nationalist Revolt and the Creation of the Estado Libre Asociado of Puerto Rico (part three)
The battle in Puerto Rico was over. By no means had it been bloodless. Eighteen Nacionalistas had been killed and eleven wounded. Seven policemen and a Guardsman were killed while twenty-one police officers and eleven soldiers were wounded. A fireman and two civilians also died during the gunfights. After his arrest, a still defiant Albizu Campos declared that the “nation was undergoing a glorious transfiguration.” By contrast, Muñoz Marín instead talked of the “tragic and useless death of 31 Puerto Ricans.”
Continue ReadingWar Among All Puerto Ricans: The Nationalist Revolt and the Creation of the Estado Libre Asociado of Puerto Rico (part two)
That the Nacionalistas were planning a coup or insurrection was hardly a secret. Emboldened by the apparent inaction of the insular government, Albizu Campos continued his call to arms against the U.S. and its representatives in the island – Muñoz Marín, the Populares, and anyone who served, worked, or were in any way related to the metropolis.
Continue ReadingWar Among All Puerto Ricans: The Nationalist Revolt and the Creation of the Estado Libre Asociado of Puerto Rico (part one)
In the first of three posts examining the Puerto Rican Uprising of 1950, Dr Harry Franqui-Rivera discusses the political developments that led to the nationalist revolt. In his inaugural address of 20 January 1949, President Harry S. Truman announced that, as leader of the free world, the U.S. was bent on combating the “false philosophy” of Communism, not just by strengthening its military alliances with “peace-loving” countries, but by its determination to “work for a world in which all nations and all peoples are free to govern themselves as they see fit, and to achieve a decent and satisfying life.”[1] He emphasized that the U.S. sought no territory, that “we have imposed our will on none”, and that “the old imperialism – exploitation for foreign profit – has no place in our plans.”[2] Moreover, the U.S. was to embark on a new plan to make available its technology and expertise, as […]
Continue ReadingThe Promise and Disappointment of 1920’s Paris for “Ebony Venus” Josephine Baker
Josephine Baker’s successful Parisian career is often cited as proof that France was a “colour-blind” nation in the 1920s, says Bethan Hughes, but this overlooks how Baker’s blackness was intrinsic to her success due to French perceptions of black sexuality.
Continue ReadingHaiti’s “horrid civil war”: The 1791 Haitian Revolution and its Legacy in America
Following the success of the American colonies in gaining their independence from Britain, an endeavour in which he had played no small part, Thomas Jefferson hoped that people of other nations would follow his countrymen down the road to political revolution. But the black republic of Haiti and its citizens became a national nightmare at this foundational moment of American history, and in many ways have retained that identity for over two hundred years.
Continue ReadingR&B entertainers didn’t take too long to get involved in the civil rights movement
Glen Whitcroft re-evaluates the financial and musical legacy of some of America’s most beloved and commercially successful African American entertainers, such as James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone.
Continue Reading‘Now comes good sailing’: Henry David Thoreau’s Cape Cod (1865) and Early Postbellum America
Although the text for May’s forthcoming #bookhour discussion, Henry David Thoreau’s Cape Cod, has never attracted scholarship in the way that Walden, ‘Resistance to Civil Government’, and the Journal have done, it echoes the blend of geniality, history, metaphysics, and occasional grotesqueries found in the celebrated works of contemporaries such as Hawthorne, Melville, or Poe.
Continue Reading“The Land Entire Saturated”: Commemorating the Civil War Dead at 150 years
April 9th, 2015 marked the sesquicentennial commemoration of the surrender of the General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to the Army of the Potomac under the command of General Grant. The surrender sounded the death knell for the shattered Confederacy. Appomattox was no cause for outpourings of joy; the conflict had dragged on for over four years and claimed the lives of over 620,000 American citizens.[1] Proportionately, if the war had occurred during the sesquicentennial years, the number of casualties would be approximately 6.2 million. Some historians argue that the 620,000 figure falls short of the mark, with James David Hacker estimating that the number may be as high as 850,000. As an internal struggle, the vast majority of the dead remain within the nation’s boundaries. Familiar battlefields act as sites for the concentration of their memory, there is no foreign Tyne Cot or Thiepval for this American bloodletting. […]
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