Post-MLK Day Links

Hawaiians, blacks unite at King parade Vicki Viotti

The queen's portrait hung next to that of a King. In this case, the pair were separated by time and space — though they both labored peacefully for the rights of their people, said Mel Kalahiki.

"We have the same dream," said Kalahiki, who helps organize the yearly "Onipa'a" anniversaries of the Hawaiian kingdom overthrow. "We dream someday that the U.S., with all their might, is going to say, 'Justice is not done.' "

Kalahiki was waiting at Ala Moana Park to join yesterday's Martin Luther King Jr. Day Parade, which this year occurred on the same day as the Hawaiian observance. That's why the occasion — a parade through Waikiki and a "unity rally" at Kapi'olani Park — was a shared presentation and blended the themes of civil rights and Hawaiian sovereignty activism.

"Well, it just so happened!" she said with a wry laugh. "What can I say?"

Those lei-draped portraits were presented to Patricia Anthony and Marsha Joyner, representing the parade sponsoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition-Hawai'i, who carried them the rest of the way to the park.

Will Pit Interview With Morgan Freeman On The MLK Memorial

A memorial,
long overdue, will be built on the National Mall in Washington. It will
be appropriately situated on four acres of the nation's most hallowed
ground in a direct line between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.
The centerpiece is large a "Stone of Hope," on which the silhouette of
Dr. King will be carved, symbolizing his walking out of the mountain of
despair. Dr. King's sermons and speeches will be etched into a
significant portion of the Memorial. The Memorial will fittingly be
situated in the midst of the cherry blossoms, which will be bloom each
year on the anniversary of Dr King's assassination.

This memorial
project came about from the ambitious efforts of the Alpha Phi Alpha
fraternities. For over 20 years, the fraternity worked to make this
dream a reality. As a result, in 1996, Congress signed an Act
authorizing a Memorial in Washington and President Clinton signed the
legislation authorizing the building to take place on the Tidal Basin.

(also see Build The Dream.)

On Point: The Power of Black Radio (radio show)

There was music that said "stand up," charismatic DJs, and direct calls
for real equality. Black radio during the civil rights movement played
a key role in the struggle. In some cases that meant gospel songs, in
other cases, R&B with chart toppers like "People get ready" or
"keep on pushing."

From a very practical standpoint radio was
also the best way to get the word out to many black communities in
Birmingham, Chicago, Atlanta. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s
organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council, shared a
building with black radio station WERD. One DJ there, Jockey Jack
Gibson, used to drop his microphone out the window and down a few
stories so that King could read his announcements early on in the civil
rights struggle.

Hear a conversation with historian Brian Ward
and Shelley Stewart, one of the era's most prominent DJs, the role of
black radio in the civil rights movement of the '50s and '60s.

Prometheus 6 - Background reading for "Race - The Power of an Illusion"

A Struggle for Rights: 'Eyes on the Prize' Mired in Money Battle DeNeen L. Brown and Hamil R. Harris

Many of these images of the black freedom struggle were
captured in the award-winning 1987 documentary series "Eyes on the
Prize," which portrayed the civil rights movement and the heroic
efforts of Martin Luther King Jr.

What scares Lewis now is that a new generation of
people who know little or nothing about what it took for black people
to get this far in this country -- with rights to vote, rights to
attend the same schools as whites, rights to live in the same
neighborhoods, ride the same trains, buses, work in the same places --
may not be able to see the film.

Yes, there are books and photographs about the
struggle. But those alone can't tell the story the way "Eyes on the
Prize" did, Lewis says. The series is no longer available in stores and
can't be shown on television or released on DVD until the filmmakers
are able to renew the expired rights to footage, photos and music that
were used. Old sets of VHS tapes owned by community centers and schools
are wearing out. Teachers and librarians seeking new copies can't
purchase them, except for rare ones being sold on eBay for as much as
$1,500.

The film is hampered by the same problem many
documentary filmmakers are encountering as they wrestle with buying and
renewing licenses to use copyrighted archival footage, photos and
music. Independent filmmakers must pay for each piece of copyrighted
material, and those costs have escalated in the past 10 years.

Some of the footage in "Eyes" was cleared for only
five years, and the executive producer died before renewing the rights.
"Eyes on the Prize," which was produced by Blackside Inc., a film and
television company founded by Henry Hampton, won 23 awards, including
two Emmys, for outstanding documentary and for outstanding achievement
in writing. The first six parts aired in 1987. It was last broadcast on
PBS in 1994. Many of the rights in the eight-part sequel, "Eyes on the
Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965-1985)," expired five
years after it aired in 1990.

" 'Eyes on the Prize' is one of the most effective
documentaries ever put together that dealt with civic engagement," says
civil rights leader Lawrence Guyot, who led the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party and today is a program manager for the D.C. Department
of Human Services. "This is analogous to stopping the circulation of
all the books about Martin Luther King, stopping the circulation of all
the books about Malcolm X, stopping the circulation of books about the
founding of America.

"I would call upon everyone who has access to 'Eyes on the Prize' to openly violate any and all laws regarding its showing."

New Book: Groundwork: Local Black Freedom Movements in America

Over the last several years, the traditional narrative of the civil
rights movement as largely a southern phenomenon, organized primarily
by male leaders, that roughly began with the 1955 Montgomery Bus
Boycott and ended with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has been
complicated by studies that root the movement in smaller communities
across the country. These local movements had varying agendas and
organizational development, geared to the particular circumstances,
resources, and regions in which they operated. Local civil rights
activists frequently worked in tandem with the national civil rights
movement but often functioned autonomously from—and sometimes even at
odds with—the national movement.

Together, the pathbreaking essays in Groundwork
teach us that local civil rights activity was a vibrant component of
the larger civil rights movement, and contributed greatly to its
national successes. Individually, the pieces offer dramatic new
insights about the civil rights movement, such as the fact that a
militant black youth organization in Milwaukee was led by a white
Catholic priest and in Cambridge, Maryland, by a middle-aged black
woman; that a group of middle-class, professional black women
spearheaded Jackson, Mississippi's movement for racial justice and made
possible the continuation of the Freedom Rides, and that, despite
protests from national headquarters, the Brooklyn chapter of the
Congress of Racial Equality staged a dramatic act of civil disobedience
at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

No previous volume has enabled readers to examine several different local movements together, and in so doing, Groundwork forges a far more comprehensive vision of the black freedom movement.