Civil Rights Movement

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Haley Barbour Finds Himself in (Another) Civil Rights Mess

2012 GOP contender has problematic political roots, writes Steve Kornacki

(Newser) - Haley Barbour still hasn’t said whether he’ll run for president, but he’s already stirring up controversy thanks to a lengthy Weekly Standard profile in which he recalls his hometown of Yazoo City, Miss., fondly, and doesn’t remember the struggle for civil rights as being “that...

Ernest Withers Informed on Martin Luther King to FBI

Famed civil rights photographer a spy

(Newser) - Ernest Withers, the famed “original civil rights photographer” and close confidant of Martin Luther King, was secretly a paid FBI informant, cluing the government in on all the Civil Rights Movement’s activities, according to a two-year investigation from the Memphis Commercial Appeal . Withers tailed King for the feds...

Obama Leads Last Salute to Dorothy Height

Funeral for civil rights leader attracts president, congress

(Newser) - President Obama spoke at Dorothy Height's funeral today, calling on Americans to honor the memory of the late civil rights leader by serving their country and making it better. "We can all be drum majors for a righteous cause," the president declared. He said she'd lived a righteous...

Civil Rights Pioneer Dorothy Height Dead
 Civil Rights Pioneer 
 Dorothy Height Dead 
Obituary
Apr 20, 2010 1:13 PM CDT

Civil Rights Pioneer Dorothy Height Dead

Obama calls her the 'godmother' of movement

(Newser) - Civil rights luminary Dorothy Height has died of natural causes at age 98, says a spokesperson for the National Council of Negro Women, a group that Height headed for 40 years. Though never a media darling, Height was active in civil rights causes since the 1930s, lobbying everyone from Eleanor...

Civil Rights Photographer Charles Moore Dead at 79

His riveting images sparked national outrage

(Newser) - The photographer credited with helping make the civil rights struggle a national issue has died. Charles Moore, 79, a news photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser and Life between 1958 to 1965, often placed himself in harm's way to capture shocking images of police attacking protesters. He began covering the movement...

Blood Done Sign My Name Clichéd, But Important

Simple civil rights drama splits critics

(Newser) - Critics are somewhat divided on Blood Done Sign My Name, a civil rights drama with more honesty than panache. Here’s what they’re saying:
  • From its not-exactly-deep dialogue to its “not-quite-stereotypical but not-quite-real” characters, Blood “has the look and feel of a dependable TV movie,” says
...

Civil Rights Leaders Talk Jobs With Obama

President promises to improve economy for black Americans

(Newser) - President Obama met with some of the country’s top civil rights leaders last night, laying out his plans to improve the economic conditions that have sent black unemployment soaring to 16.5%. Al Sharpton, NAACP head Benjamin Jealous, and National Urban League chief Marc Morial all braved the snow...

Obama Salutes Protest Songs With Concert
 Obama Salutes 
 Protest Songs 
 With Concert 


BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Feb 10, 2010 9:57 AM CST

Obama Salutes Protest Songs With Concert

Bob Dylan, Queen Latifah head all-star salute to music that fueled civil rights

(Newser) - Crediting civil rights-era protest songs and their spiritual predecessors for his election, President Obama last night opened the White House to an all-star lineup that paid tribute to the music that he said fueled freedom marches and civil disobedience. Queen Latifah sang the Marvin Gaye classic "What's Going On"...

Emmett Till's Casket Found 'Rusted, Battered'

Locals search for loved ones' graves at desecrated cemetery

(Newser) - As Chicagoans mourned the desecration of a historic cemetery, the casket of civil rights icon Emmett Till was found rusted in a shack amid garbage and gravestones, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. “When we opened it up trying to find what we have, a family of possums ran out,”...

Supreme Court Sidesteps Major Voting-Rights Ruling

(Newser) - The Supreme Court ruled narrowly today in a challenge to the Voting Rights Act, exempting a small Texas district from a key provision of the law, but side-stepping the larger constitutional issue. The act requires Southern areas with a history of discrimination to get advance federal approval before changing election...

MLK's Kids Bicker Over Spielberg Biopic

Siblings plan to fight Dexter King's sale of movie rights to their father's life

(Newser) - The sale of the movie rights to Martin Luther King Jr.'s life has revived the feud among his three surviving children, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Martin Luther King III and Bernice King say their brother Dexter—chief executive of the King estate—only informed them of the plans for...

Spielberg Snags MLK Movie Rights

(Newser) - The first authorized biopic of Martin Luther King Jr. will be a Steven Spielberg production. The filmmaker's DreamWorks studio has obtained the rights from King's family, NPR reports. No word yet on whether Spielberg himself will direct or who will play the main role (Denzel? Jamie Foxx?). King’s children...

New Photos Bare Aftermath of King's Death

Life finally releases grim images taken after assassination

(Newser) - Newly published photographs by a Life magazine lensman capture the aftermath of the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., including a motel worker sweeping away the blood of the civil rights crusader. Few journalists traveled to Memphis after the assassination, and Life declined to run the photos after his...

MLK's Dream Now a Reality: 69% of Blacks

Majority of blacks say King's vision fulfilled; whites more skeptical

(Newser) - More than two-thirds of African Americans believe that the goals set out in Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream" speech have been met, a CNN poll finds. That number has doubled since last March, to 69% from 34%. Although whites seem to still think race relations have...

High Court to Hear Challenge to Voting Rights Act

Provision forcing local governments, mainly in South, to clear changes with feds at issue

(Newser) - The US Supreme Court agreed today to hear a case that challenges a central section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act designed to protect minority voters in discriminatory districts, the New York Times reports. Section 5 of the law, which forces many Southern states and select districts elsewhere to get...

Tuskegee Airmen to Attend Inaugural

Invitation recognizes their contribution to historic event

(Newser) - The Tuskegee Airmen of WWII have been invited to the inauguration of the nation's first black president, the New York Times reports. Barack Obama has acknowledged his debt to the elite all-black force, whose heroes fought for a country that discriminated against them. Now in their 80s and 90s, it's...

Folk Giant Odetta Dead at 77
 Folk Giant Odetta Dead at 77 
Dec 3, 2008 2:37 AM CST

Folk Giant Odetta Dead at 77

Odetta's powerful songs were soundtrack of '60s struggle

(Newser) - The woman Martin Luther King Jr. called "the queen of American folk music" has died of heart failure at the age of 77, the New York Times reports. Odetta was a huge influence on dozens of musicians from Bob Dylan to Janis Joplin as her powerful voice and songs...

King Family Wants Cut of Obama-King Souvenir Cash

The dream may be passed down, but not the brand

(Newser) - The family of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is demanding a share of the proceeds from the sudden wave of T-shirts, posters, and other merch pairing the civil rights leader with Barack Obama, the AP reports. Obama may have inherited the dream, but they own the brand, says the...

Prop 8 Splits California's Gays, Blacks

African-Americans argue gay marriage isn't a civil rights issue

(Newser) - California's narrowly passed ban on gay marriage has divided many of the state's gays and blacks on the issue, the Los Angeles Times reports. Exit polls show that black voters—who turned out in record numbers—backed the ban by around 70%, the biggest margin of any ethnic group. Some...

Jesse's Face Spoke for Millions
 Jesse's Face Spoke for Millions 
OPINION
Nov 5, 2008 1:18 PM CST

Jesse's Face Spoke for Millions

Jesse Jackson's tears expressed so many possible thoughts

(Newser) - Not long after the networks declared Barack Obama the next American president, writes Rebecca Traister in Salon, the years worth of emotions that led up to that moment flashed across the face of Jesse Jackson. In minutes, the civil rights leader's expression transformed from a still one of disbelief, (or...

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