SUMMER 2013, part one
Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
** Ella Baker
1). Summer, 2013
I felt the double blow to my gut before my head could reasonably catch up: the 1965 Voting Rights Act—a crowning achievement of the classical phase of the Black Freedom Movement—was emasculated on June 25 by the Supreme Court, 5-4, in Shelby County v. Holder, and Trayvon Martin—the young Black man who by all accounts had done nothing wrong and was unarmed, walking home from a trip to the store for snacks on the night he was stalked, confronted, and shot to death by an armed vigilante—was denied any semblance of justice on July 13 when his killer was acquitted in a Florida courthouse.
This summer a friend sent me the abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ angry and stirring 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”—
** Ella Baker
1). Summer, 2013
I felt the double blow to my gut before my head could reasonably catch up: the 1965 Voting Rights Act—a crowning achievement of the classical phase of the Black Freedom Movement—was emasculated on June 25 by the Supreme Court, 5-4, in Shelby County v. Holder, and Trayvon Martin—the young Black man who by all accounts had done nothing wrong and was unarmed, walking home from a trip to the store for snacks on the night he was stalked, confronted, and shot to death by an armed vigilante—was denied any semblance of justice on July 13 when his killer was acquitted in a Florida courthouse.
This summer a friend sent me the abolitionist Frederick Douglass’ angry and stirring 1852 speech, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”—