Here’s my dog video, a la carte
Yeah
-Psalms 23
It’s the history of Europe, simply.
It’s one of the reasons that we are in this terrible place.
It is one of the reasons that we have five cops standing on the back of a woman’s neck in Birmingham.
Because at some point they believed, they were taught and they believed, that they were better than other people because they were white.
It leads to a moral bankruptcy.
It is inevitable.
It cannot but lead there.
James Baldwin, Citizen King: Three Perspectives (1963)
RAY JOHNSON
HAND- PAINTED LETTERED
NOTHING
“Hand-lettered nothing” describes a lot of the crap you see on Etsy/Instagram/tumblr these days…
^^^ TRUTH.
This photograph was taken as King tried to explain to his daughter Yolanda why she could not go to Funtown, a whites-only amusement park in Atlanta. King claims to have been tongue-tied when speaking to her. “One of the most painful experiences I have ever faced was to see her tears when I told her Funtown was closed to colored children, for I realized the first dark cloud of inferiority had floated into her little mental sky.”
American Terrorism… Lynching Postcards
Terrorism is defined as “the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.” Western media likes to paint terrorists with a brown face, but one of the most horrific campaigns of terror happened in the past century on American soil – the estimated 3,436 lynchings of black American men and women between 1882 and 1950, intended to control and intimidate the recently freed black population. There is nothing more disturbing than being confronted with visual evidence of humanity’s dark heart, especially when it is evidence of a widespread, mainstream hatred for and violence towards one another. Hatred that stems from fear, and is driven by religion and a belief that murder is morality made distorted flesh; violence that aims to cow and suppress any aspirations a community might have for equality and a brighter future.
When I came across this collection of American postcards from James Allen and John Littlefield, published in a book entitled Without Sanctuary, I saw how important it is to look at these images, today more than ever. These postcards were made to commemorate events that made many American white people feel proud – of their race, of their superiority, of their civilization and their intelligence. They took photos of their disgusting, cowardly accomplishments and memorialized them for future generations, to be found and collected and remembered by their descendents. On the backs, they wrote to friends and family in sociopathic excitement about the mob the participated in. These postcards capture the mobs witnessing with glee the murder of young men and women, whose most serious crime was the color of their skin. The corpses hanging and charred in these postcards lived in a world that counted down the days until their murder from the second they drew air into their infant lungs. This history is potent, stomach-churning and of essential importance to the America of today, and to the world of today. And the most striking thing about these photographs is that they don’t erase the perpetrators like many histories and memorials do today, preferring to focus on who was victimized rather than on those who proudly – and with government backing – tortured, raped and murdered people. The murderers in these photos stand proud, grown men looking at the camera with the smiling conviction that the teenage boy they just killed, one against a hundred, was deserving of their hatred, fear and frustration. No grand jury needed; the law was in the hands of the murderers.
History is not linear; history is happening all around us, all the time. These photos are context, they are reality, they are pictures of American terrorism. Read James Allen’s commentary below and be aware that these photos are sickening, and all too real.
Africans in America mounted resistance to white people lynchings in numerous ways. Intellectuals and journalists encouraged public education, actively protesting and lobbying against lynch mob violence and government complicity in that violence. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), as well as numerous other organizations, organized support from white and black Americans alike and conducted a national campaign to get a federal anti-lynching law passed. African American women’s clubs raised funds to support the work of public campaigns, including anti-lynching plays. Their petition drives, letter campaigns, meetings and demonstrations helped to highlight the issues and combat lynching.[4] In the Great Migration, extending in two waves from 1910 to 1970, 6.5 million African Americans left the South, primarily for destinations in northern and mid-western cities, both to gain better jobs and education and to escape the high rate of violence.
From 1882 to 1968, “…nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress, and three passed the House. Seven presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a federal law.”[5] In 1920 theRepublican Party promised at its national convention to support passage of such a law. In 1921 Leonidas C. Dyer from Saint Louissponsored an anti-lynching bill; it was passed in January 1922 in the United States House of Representatives, but a Senate filibuster by the Southern white Democratic block defeated it in December 1922. With the NAACP, Representative Dyer spoke across the country in support of his bill in 1923 and tried to gain passage that year and the next, but was defeated by the Southern Democratic block.
DO NOT BE SCARED TO REBLOG THIS. WHETHER YOU OR YOUR FOLLOWERS WANT TO SEE THIS OR NOT, IT NEEDS TO BE SEEN.
every single year since the boats hit the beach
The Best Show is one of my favorite things in the entire world and tomorrow it is BACK and I could not be more excited. Cannot wait.
REPOST: Anytime you hear someone criticizing black people for rioting, share this info with them.
FACT:
Prior to the 1960s, rioting (or race riots), consisted of whites burning down and destroying black communities simply because they didn’t want them there. Mostly in major northern, western and Midwestern cities, where the population of black citizens grew tremendously due to the great migration. Blacks fled from Jim Crow south to seek refuge and to find jobs and homes. The competition was fierce, thousands and thousands of blacks flooded the cities resulting in “white flight”.
White people were angry that blacks were taking over jobs and building their own communities. Even white soldiers that have been stationed away from home were furious when they came back to this “change”.
This is how race riots started. Whites were not too happy about desegregation in their cities. With subliminal attempts to keep their city segregated, blacks were not allowed in the “white” part of town. Black homes and communities were destroyed and burned down by angry white mobs and countless deaths occurred.
Here are ONLY just a few examples of race riots that took place in our country:
1921: May 30- June 1. Tulsa, OK. Black Wall Street Massacre
1922. May 6, June 9 Kirven, Texas
1923: January 1. Rosewood, FL Rosewood Massacre
1930: October 12-15 Sainte Genevieve, MO
1931: March Scottsboro, AL
1935: March 19 Harlem, NY Harlem Riot of 1935
1943: May Mobile, AL
1943: June Los Angeles, CA Zoot Suit Riot
1943: June 15-16 Beaumont, TX Beaumont Race Riot of 1943
1943: June 20 Detroit, MI Detroit Race Riot
1943:August 1 Harlem,NY Harlem Riot of 1943
1949: August-September Peekskill, NY
1951: July 11-12 Cicero County, IL Cicero Race Riot
1958: Maxton, NC Battle of Hayes Pond
1959: February Pearl River County, MS
1960: April Biloxi Beach, MS
1962: October Oxford, MS Uni of Mississippi
1963: September 30. Oxford, MS Ole Miss Riot
1963: July 11 Cambridge, MD Cambridge riot of 1963
1963: May 13 Birmingham, AL Bombings
1964: July Brooklyn, NY
1964: July 18 Harlem, NY Harlem Riot of 1964
1964: July 24-26 Rochester, NY Rochester riot
1964: August Jersey City, NJ
1964: August Paterson, NJ
1964: August Elizabeth, NJ
1964: August Chicago, IL
1964: August 28 Philadelphia, PA Philadelphia 1964 race riot
1965: March 7 Selma, AL Bloody Sunday
1965: July Springfield, MA
1965: August 11-17 Los Angeles, CA Watts Riot
… only to name a few….
(Image: Race Riot in Detroit, 1943)