The National Council of Churches, which represents 38 Christian denominations, has long been the voice of progressive religion. But over the years, its influence has waned.
What are the ethics of anonymous resistance?
Vincent Diamante
An expert argues why the anonymous op-ed in The New York Times can hardly be considered an act of civil disobedience and why it might make things even worse in the Trump administration.
John F. Kennedy’s assassination shocked the world in the 1960s and arguably played a part in the rise of Donald Trump today.
Abbie Rowe/AAP
The reverberations of JFK’s assassination can still be felt to this day in the paranoid and racialised politics of the American right
Students at Hampton University celebrate at graduation on May 9. 2010. Studies suggest, however, that the benefits African American students accrue from education will be fewer than those of whites.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Many in the US believe that all people can gain riches and education simply by working hard. Here’s why that is not true for those have been denied rights and privileges for generations.
In what became one of the defining moments of his unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign, Republican candidate John McCain takes back the microphone from Gayle Quinnell, who said Barack Obama “was an Arab.” The moment occurred during a town hall meeting on Oct. 10, 2008, in Lakeville, Minn.
(AP Photo/Jim Mone)
John McCain did something during the 2008 U.S. presidential election that would seem very out of place today: he made himself vulnerable by speaking up about the character of opponent Barack Obama.
Black power militant H. Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael (right) appeared at a sit-in protest at Columbia University in New York City on April 26, 1968.
AP
The 1968 protests at Columbia University led the institution to abandon a gym project that residents considered racist and cut off its defense work – and generated worldwide attention in the process.
The KKK assembled in Portland, Maine, in 1923.
Library of Congress
One year after Charlottesville’s white supremacist march, US racism is seen primarily as a Southern-grown problem. But Jim Crow laws started in the North, which has a long history of systemic racism.
Former US president Barack Obama delivers a speech in Kenya ahead of his visit to South Africa.
Dai Kurokawa/EPA
Barack Obama is delivering the Nelson Mandela lecture in a changing world dominated by the often outrageous utterances of his successor, US President Donald Trump.
Young people hold hands for a prayer during a gathering at sunset outside the Christian Fellowship Church in Benton, Kentucky.
AP Photo/David Goldman
The anti-Vietnam War efforts of Yale University chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. and other church leaders alienated many Protestant Americans – with lasting repercussions.
Fair housing protest in Seattle, Washington, 1964.
Jmabel/Wikimedia Commons
Where people live in the US is still often influenced by racial discrimination. Is the federal government doing enough to carry out the vision of the civil rights era legislation?
The cover of Marvin Gaye’s album, ‘What’s Going On’.
Paul Harvey, University of Colorado Colorado Springs
King Jr., remembered today mainly for his non violent resistance, was a radical reformer who called for a fundamental redistribution of economic power and resources .
Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream – which alternated between shattered and hopeful – can be traced back to Hughes’ poetry.
AP Photo
In order to avoid being labeled a communist sympathizer, King needed to publicly distance himself from the controversial poet. Privately, King found ways to channel Hughes’ prose.
In this Aug. 28, 1963, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
(AP Photo, File)
Fifty years ago Elvis Presley sang a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr: “If I Can Dream.” English professor Robert Morrison goes back to that moment and looks at the lyrics written in honour of MLK.
How much has really improved for black people in the U.S. since 1968?
Ted Eytan
A minority politics scholar assesses black progress 52 years after MLK’s death based on poverty, jobs and wealth. ‘In some ways,’ she concludes, ‘we’ve barely budged as a people.’
Many Americans would be appalled to think that caste might exist in the supposedly meritocratic U.S. But is the country’s persistent, entrenched inequality really so different?
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
An Indian scholar makes the case that caste explains inequality in America better than race and class.
MLK Day is a reminder to honour the voices and actions of our pasts but it is also a call to action to look at our current lives and see what we can do better. Pictured: a Black Lives Matter protest in NYC, July 2016.
(Shutterstock)
In a climate of Trumpism, where racism and violence are daily occurrences, the need to reflect on our racialized children and our anti-racism parenting is critical – on MLK Day and every day.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State