By Joseph Orosco (January 22, 2019) By now, a lot of people have heard the story of how Star Trek was Martin Luther King, Jr.’s favorite TV show. It was, according to Nichelle Nichols, the only program he allowed his children to watch because it portrayed African Americans living in a future where they were treated equally and with dignity…
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Charlotte O’Sullivan (April 4, 2018) Today marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, the leader of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s in America. But here in Ireland, Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy goes far beyond the improvements he brought to the lives of African American people in the US; for example,…
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By Irami Osei-Frimpong (February 13, 2018) The basic problem is that our rights were conceived with property owning white men in mind. These rights presupposed economic security and independence. Security and independence came in the form of property. And that’s why the Constitution is primarily concerned with securing property rights. Also the exercise of rights relies on the collegiate fraternity…
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By Joseph Orosco (February 1, 2018) I was asked by several folks to share my talk that I gave for the City of Corvallis Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration 2018, sponsored by the King Legacy Advisory Board. This is a talk that builds on an essay I wrote shortly after the white nationalist gathering in Charlottesville in summer 2017. …
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By S. (January 16, 2018) If you’re a black person who was born after Dr. King died you were probably subjected to white people (possibly teachers, professors, mentors, role models, actors, friends, etc.) tell you how amazing Dr. King was and then have the same person turn around and engage in a racist behavior. Since his death, Dr. King has…
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By Mark Rudd (August 29, 2017) I woke up at 2 am last night thinking: How can you talk about socialism in the US without taking into account two salient characteristics of this country’s history and present: racism and militarism? Obviously John Judis has no problem with this question, since he never mentions either. I love Scandinavian socialism as a…
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By Joseph Orosco (August 15, 2017) As someone who regularly teaches about the political philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., I often spend time discussing with students the ways in which King’s ideas are taken out of context and turned into sound bites in order to support positions he would not himself have taken. The most obvious example is how…
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By Joseph Orosco (April 6, 2017) In an interview in her new collection, Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Angela Davis is asked about being a pioneer in developing the concept of intersectionality. She responds: There were many pioneers of intersectionality but I do think it is important to acknowledge an organization that existed in New York in the late sixties and…
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By Mark Rudd (April 4, 2017) Today is April 4, the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. M.L. King Jr’s historic speech at Riverside Church in NYC in which he broke his long silence on Vietnam and made the crucial link between militarism and poverty and racism. I consider this the left’s origin speech. It’s who we are, what we stand for….
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By Chris Crass Let’s be clear, when those in power and their media call for people to be “peaceful” in the face of endemic and sanctioned racist state violence, they aren’t calling for a return to disruptive and militant non-violent direct action unleashed by the Civil Rights movement, even if they insultingly call up Dr. King to denounce the #BaltimoreUprising.
By Mark Naison Spring, 1965. A junior at Columbia, I joyously prepared for the tennis season, which offered me the opportunity to play number-one singles. Two high-profile political issues deeply troubled me: the bombing of North Vietnam and President Johnson’s unwillingness to move aggressively to secure voting rights for African Americans in Southern States.