Some lament that today’s anti-racism movement has no charismatic leaders like the civil rights era did. Such comparisons don’t reflect the real history of the struggle for Black equality in the US.
Police in Tulsa, Okla., march toward a crowd of demonstrators on June 20, 2020.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Dorothy Cotton never publicly spoke about her intimate relationship with King. But no woman – not even King’s wife – was closer to the civil rights icon during the last years of his life.
On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., addresses marchers during his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.
AP/File
Publication was justified of information from the FBI that Martin Luther King Jr. witnessed and celebrated a woman’s rape, writes a historian, who warns the FBI had long wanted to destroy King.
Some say Till’s body was dumped from the Old Black Bayou Bridge in Glendora, Mississippi. Others dispute this detail.
cmh2315fl/flickr
Scholars continue to debate what, exactly, happened to Emmett Till the morning of his murder. But that hasn’t stopped a poor Mississippi community from trying to profit off one version of the story.
Duke Ellington leads his orchestra in a rehearsal in Coventry, England, on Dec. 2, 1966.
Associated Press
Michelle R. Scott, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Earl Brooks, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
From spirituals about the trials of slavery to the fight for civil rights and the modern rhythms of swing music, Duke Ellington told a story about black life that was both beautiful and complex.
Yolanda Renee King, the grandchild of Martin Luther King Jr., alongside Jaclyn Corin, a Parkland survivor and activist.
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
These youngsters have ample fervor, and they are dramatically photogenic. Dismissing them as being fake or lightweight can spell trouble for members of the establishment.
Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker during a news interview in 2004.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
Rev. Walker worked closely with King and would be the one to bring King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail to public attention. He was the only one who could understand King’s handwriting.
Howard Thurman’s image on Howard University chapel’s stained glass window.
Fourandsixty from Wikimedia Commons
Howard Thurman, a mentor to MLK, first met Gandhi during a visit to India in 1936. He came to understand nonviolence as a force more powerful than hate that had the power to transform the world.
Emile Durkheim who taught at Sorbonne University is considered a founder of modern sociology.
Emile Durkheim helped to lay the foundations of sociological thought and theory. He spoke of our current condition as being influenced by social structures and institutions.
The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions.
AP Photo/Frings
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.
Managing Director of the McCourtney Institute of Democracy, Associate Research Professor, Political Science, Co-host of Democracy Works Podcast, Penn State