Southern History and Civil Rights in the News 7 August 2020
Southern History and Civil Rights in the News
7 August 2020
This was a big news week regarding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and voting rights in general. National Geographic gives some history of the VRA here, and AllOnGeogria, a “hyper-local” community news outlet in SE Georgia, covered the movement to name September 18 “National Black Voter Day” here, The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights highlighted a press call to urge congressional action on election funding, as noted here, and WLRN, NPR’s Miami affiliate, reports that three dozen former DOJ civil rights attorneys have filed a brief in the ongoing suit in the state of Florida to restore felon voting rights, as a state constitutional amendment approved by the state’s voters in 2018 requires. That coverage is here.
In news related to the ongoing civil rights protests in the wake of the George Floyd murder, the New York State Bar Association has directed its Committee on Civil Rights to investigate if federal law enforcement officers being sent into cities such as Portland, OR, is a violation of US law, as reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, here.
Monuments continue in the news this week as well, but a lot of the talk is centering around creating new public sites, as new monuments have been proposed to honor unnamed slaves in the (Un)Known Project, as reported by WFPL, NPR affiliate in Louisville, KY here, a new Civil Rights Trail in Cleveland, OH, as noted in the Cleveland Scene here, and a new photomosaic to honor Ida B Wells that will be installed in the Main Hall of Washington DC’s Union Station, as distributed by Cision Newswire here.
A couple of listens this week, the podcast BrainStuff makes an argument for Frederick Douglass as the father of the civil rights movement here, and NPR’s Flashpoint with Cheri Gregg talks to representatives of the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP, as well as a civil rights attorney, and others, in looking at “The Future of the Civil Rights Movement,” here.
In education news, The Washington Post reports that the NAACP has partnered with the University of Kentucky to create a new civil rights and education initiative. That coverage can be found here, and the Avery Research Center at the College of Charleston is one of five institutions partnering with the Digital Public Library of America to create a new digital program “highlighting the roles and experiences of Black women in the women’s suffrage movement.” You can read about that from the South Carolina ABC affiliate here.
Until next week, stay well,
Michele “Scout” Johnson
Editor, H-South
This series of weekly posts to H-South, “Southern History and Civil Rights in the News,” aims to track informed public discussions of southern history and civil rights. To recommend a reading, please email Dr. Michele Johnson at editorial-south@mail.h-net.org.
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