To honor Dr. King, GOP should honor what he really believed in

Featured at Roll Call

It was fitting that as the world honored the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who would have turned 95 years old on the holiday commemorating his life and work, his daughter Bernice King set the record straight: “Many folks who use ‘woke’ with contempt today probably would have hated Daddy when he was alive,” she said. “He was very conscious and committed to eradicating what he called the ‘triple evils’ of racism, poverty and militarism. If you’re quoting him to stop truthful teaching about him…”

I wonder if anti-“woke” warrior Ron DeSantis’ ears were burning?

Bernice King has had to spend way too much of her time and energy correcting, scolding and rebuking not just the Florida governor and fading GOP presidential hopeful, but also all those who have never hesitated to co-opt King. And like her, I suspect even they know they would have been among the majority of white Americans who judged King a danger in 1968, the year he was assassinated at the age of 39.

It has become routine for many to lecture her about all the things her father would say or think were he alive today, which disrespects them both.

The real King is still deemed too dangerous for some who would ban books that honestly report the important American history

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Jan182024 TAGS: , , , , , ,

A summer of reflection — and fears of history repeating itself

Featured at Roll Call

It is a striking image, a fearless visage staring at the camera while holding a sign with booking number “7053” chest high. “Beautiful rebel” are the words used to describe Rosa Parks on the coaster that I’ve decided will never cushion a bottle or glass.

Another mugshot has made the news this summer though I don’t think even his supporters would label the subject “beautiful.” “Defiant” is the better adjective for the Donald Trump that looks out from the photo taken when he was booked in Fulton County, Ga., the first mug shot of an American president. Controversial? Yes. But after being charged with a litany of felonies that stem from his and his allies’ alleged efforts to reverse Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia, was there a choice?

While it has been impossible to escape the image now gracing X, formerly known as Twitter, T-shirts and more, the first — the quiet, determined woman — has been stripped of its radical origins, if it’s remembered at all by those who praise the former president’s close-up.

When and if children learn about Rosa Parks and her role in the civil rights movement, the lesson is usually recounted through a gauzy lens that portrays her as a respectable seamstress who just got tired one day instead of the tireless NAACP activist whose refusal to move to the back of the bus was an inevitable and deliberate part of a movement, the continuing fight against the social order of segregation, white supremacy and police brutality that ruled the day.

It wasn’t only Parks in the fight. She has been elevated because of America’s tendency to flatten and simplify, to spoon-feed harsh historical truths in a narrative of happily-ever-afters. In fact, the famous Parks mugshot was taken, not in 1955 during her initial arrest, but in February 1956, when Parks and many other activists were targeted by the city in an attempt to break the back of a boycott that was getting results and making Montgomery leaders “uncomfortable.”

Discomfort, though, was part of the rebellion — the only way to change the status quo.

The ceramic square is a souvenir collected during my visit to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, one stop in my summer of visits to civil rights museums, the chance to broaden my own education about American history.

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Sep062023 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

The dangers of a short memory in recognizing — and fighting — hate

Featured at Roll Call

June 17, 2015.

Though it wasn’t that long ago, far too many Americans only dimly recall what happened on that date, when a racist murderer sat down to pray with parishioners at the historically Black Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., then pulled out a .45-caliber handgun and started shooting. He killed nine people who had welcomed him and did it without — not then nor in the years since — a shred of remorse.

Maybe some have had memories tweaked with the recent news that the Justice Department has agreed to pay the victims’ families and the survivors $88 million to compensate for a background check failure.

But those families needed no reminder and would give anything to have their loved ones back on this earth.

The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Cynthia Graham Hurd, the Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, the Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor, the Rev. Daniel Simmons, Myra Thompson — they were caring community leaders and so much more than names scrolling across the bottom of a TV screen, as Hurd’s younger brother Malcolm Graham said in a 2015 Washington Post column about his sister.

She was a librarian, who surely would have helped high school dropout Dylann Roof with his educational challenges. Instead, the white supremacist, schooled by online bile, turned to violence toward African Americans. That I mention Hurd is no coincidence. I did not know her well, but we had met. And I do know her brother Malcolm, a former North Carolina state senator and current Charlotte city council member, who established the Cynthia Graham Hurd Foundation for Reading and Civic Engagement to continue her work and legacy.

Does it take a connection for Americans to feel?

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Nov042021 TAGS: , , , , , , ,

Who is afraid of critical race theory?

Featured at Roll Call

Even as the U.S. will likely have a federal holiday to mark June 19th or Juneteenth — an important date not a part of many history books — battles over teaching race continue. After the murder of George Floyd, many sought to learn lessons that were absent in the traditional white-washed version of American history taught for generations.

But educating students about race — what some call critical race theory — has become another flashpoint in the culture wars pitting red against blue. Mary C. Curtis talks with education policy expert Jazmyne Owens of New America about why some states are trying to ban the teaching of systemic racism and what it will mean if they succeed.

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Jun172021 TAGS: , , , , ,

POLITICAL WRAP: 100 Year Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre; Controversy Over Race Education in Schools

Featured at WCCB Charlotte

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – How race and history are taught in schools is the latest flashpoint in the ongoing “culture wars.”

It comes as states, including North Carolina, consider laws limiting the use of “critical race theory” in education.

Our political contributor, Mary C. Curtis, gives us her take in the video above.

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May312021 TAGS: , , , ,

What kind of country do Americans want? Voters definitely have a choice

Featured at Roll Call

OPINION — “This is the diverse party. We are a diverse country. I am from a majority-minority state, California. So as far as I’m concerned, if we aren’t talking about race, dealing with race and actually addressing the problems of America today forthrightly and strongly, we’re not going to get the support of people, and we don’t deserve the support of people.”

That was presidential hopeful Tom Steyer, when I spoke with him recently, during his second stop through North Carolina in two weeks.

Yes, there are primary and caucus states after Iowa and New Hampshire. And Democratic candidates are realizing success in those two states is not necessarily destiny. That means appealing to the diverse voters who will have to make peace with the candidates and one another by November, and realizing that as the primaries move South, West and beyond, inequality is an essential part of the debate.

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Jan302020 TAGS: , , , , ,