Free Republic

Martin Luther King Jr.’s accomplishments include being one of the most revered civil rights leader in history. Al Sharpton’s accomplishments include dodging taxes and being really awful at reading a teleprompter. But that didn’t stop Geraldo Rivera from comparing the two men on Bill O’Reilly’s show. O’Reilly had him on to discuss Fox poll numbers that suggest that, overall, Americans are not fond of the Rev. “Al Sharpton’s constituency really likes him a lot. He is the man for the black civil rights movement right now,” Rivera replied. “It’s sad that a shakedown artist tax cheat can be put in...

Generational awakening of New Abolitionists honors the dead and fights for the living.How do you measure commitment? Is it the willingness to take a day out of life and sacrifice it to history, to plunge for one morning or afternoon into the unknown, to engage in one solitary act of defiance against all the arrayed power of established society? Then tens of thousands, mostly black, some white have committed themselves…by the simple act of joining a demonstration. —Howard Zinn, commenting on the Civil Rights Movement’s Student Nonviolent Coordinating CommitteeZinn, a historian who taught in the College of Arts &...

By the tone and tenor of the reaction to the recently announced Academy Award nominations, you would think that old Jim Crow himself had been resurrected and is stalking the land. No black actors are up for best actor or supporting actor. The film "Selma" - which some historians claim is horribly inaccurate - was "snubbed" (although nominated as Best Picture) as was the film's female director. The reason? 97% of Academy voters are white and 75% are men. Case closed, right? It is - if you live your life looking at reality through a prism of race and gender....

On Dec 4, 2014, the Black Student Union of UC Berkeley held the first of three protests. Students occupied The Golden Bear Cafe for 4.5 hours, the amount of time Michael Brown’s body lay in the street in Ferguson, Mo.Over the last month, the Black Student Union at UC Berkeley has organized three separate events to protest police killings of unarmed black men. Students have marched on the streets, through local businesses, and sat in at cafés. The demonstrations have allowed students to grieve, heal, and show solidarity with protesters in Ferguson and Staten Island. But they have also been...

In response to the whitest Oscar nominations in 17 years, Al Sharpton has issued a statement expressing his disappointment in the nominations and calling for a meeting to address the lack of diversity in Hollywood. “The lack of diversity in today’s Oscar nominations is appalling, and while it is good that Selma was nominated for ‘Best Picture,’ it’s ironic that they nominated a story about the racial shutout around voting while there is a racial shutout around the Oscar nominations,” Sharpton said in a statement. “With all of the talent in Selma and other Black movies this year, it is...

Black Democrats will celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend by gathering near Ferguson, Mo., where a black teenager was killed by a white police officer last summer.The lawmakers, all members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), say they'll use the holiday to call on voters to get more involved in social justice issues while urging Congress to pass legislation overhauling the criminal justice system. Those issues have gained national prominence since August, when Michael Brown, an unarmed black 18-year-old, was shot and killed by Darren Wilson, a white police officer, after a confrontation on the streets...

During a live chat on Tuesday, January 13, Bill shared his thoughts on saving democracy, fighting corporate interests, the new film Selma, Ted Cruz’s political aspirations, President Lyndon B. Johnson and much more. But first he started by answering a question that so many have been asking lately: What will you be doing next? Bill said he’ll be taking “a few deep breaths,” after working virtually nonstop and dealing with weekly deadlines over the past decade. He added: “I’ll be more specific about the future after I give it more thought than has been possible to date. Our website billmoyers.com...

Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus plan to be in Ferguson, Mo. on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, Monday, January 19, to encourage residents to get more involved in the political process. Ferguson has been the subject of regular demonstrations and some unrest since the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, 18, an unarmed African-American, by white policeman on Aug. 9, 2014. A local grand jury declined to indict the police officer, though some questioned the fairness of the process set up by the local prosecutor. Richmond said Black Caucus members will encourage...

In another attempt to explain away the Paris terrorist attack, CNN’s Religion Editor compared the situation Muslims may feel in France to the situation in Ferguson, Missouri. CNN’s Daniel Burke appeared on the network this morning and was asked about the treatment of Muslims in France and if that contributed in any way to the terrorist attacks in Paris. Burke uncorked a stem-winding response that laid blame for the attack on France’s “secular history” and a failure to integrate religious minorities. (VIDEO-AT-LINK) “I think it’s kind of like what we saw in Ferguson. That this was a kind of, in...

The last several months have seen an outpouring of activism, with slogans coming in waves: “Justice for Mike Brown,” “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot,” and “I Can’t Breathe.” But the phrase “Black Lives Matter” has emerged to bind each flashpoint into one cause. The 2012 murder of Trayvon Martin and acquittal of George Zimmerman served as the first of these flashpoints, snowballing in August with the murder of Michael Brown. “Ferguson is the birthplace of what’s happening right now. In many ways, Ferguson is like ground zero of these protests,” says DeRay McKesson, who has been protesting and organizing in Ferguson...

There is an expression in police work: “If you weren’t there you don’t know what happened.” Cops know you need all available information to make a good judgment. When a cop sees a lady “sawed in half” on a stage he/she understands that what is being presented is a carefully crafted illusion. They understand that seeing a brief video, even one that was “shown on television thousands of times” doesn’t necessarily provide proof of what happened. The Rodney King case brought acquittals for the police when the first jury saw all of the available video; but a conviction when the...

What if African Americans were as politically unified as our racial attitudes make us appear to be? Suppose, for instance, we did more than believe that racial discrimination exists but actually used our political and economic muscle to remedy race-specific problems? There are 42 million African Americans in this country with a combined purchasing power expected to hit $1.1 trillion this year. If Black America were an actual nation state instead of just a shaky state of mind, it would have a population slightly less than Spain’s and rank as the 46th-richest nation in the world, according to a statistical...

Texas Senator Ted Cruz has more than the White House on his mind–he’s also taking a shot at Gracie Mansion. The conservative Republican, a probable presidential contender in 2016, blasted Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, for his educational views in a speech he gave yesterday at the Heritage Action Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. Mr. Cruz, a supporter of charter schools, said Mr. de Blasio’s opposition to Eva Moskowitz’s charter network amounted to throwing “young African-American kids” out of school. “In my view school choice is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. And I gotta say...

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS CONTENT THAT MAY TRIGGER ANYONE WHO IS OFFENDED BY RACIAL SLURS AND ENJOYS MUSIC.If you don’t know who Azealia Banks is, there are only two explanations: 1.You’re a racist.2.Just kidding, that was it. She’s a rapper/singer/whatever who’s less known for her music than for her feuds, or “beefs,” with more popular and/or talented artists. She picks fights with people like Iggy Azalea, Eminem, Lady Gaga, and then a bunch of other people you’ve never heard of because of #1 above. Banks has been forced to do this for publicity purposes, because her music sounds like...

According to the latest census data, African Americans make up just over 13% of the US population. That means out of the 317 million people living in the USA, there are about 41 million blacks -- just over the total population of California. However, looking at the popular culture you'd never know that. Black music dominates popular music. Black culture is how most people define "cool." And most of all, what might offend blacks dominates popular culture, media, education, and entertainment. Fred Reed writes:

Since August, when unarmed teenager Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Mo., young people have rallied in the streets of Ferguson, New York, Oakland, Los Angeles and other cities across the nation and the world. In Long Beach, young people recently began organizing around the slogan #BlackLivesMatter, a campaign born in 2012 after Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, was acquitted of murder charges. Throughout, music has been an undeniable part of the protests, the latest reminder that when used the right way, music can inspire social change. “Music can be considered the heartbeat of social...

Stephanie Miner, the Democratic Mayor of Syracuse, N.Y., appointed Mark D. Muhammad to the Syracuse city school board last week. Muhammad is a minister in the Nation of Islam — a very wealthy, U.S.-based religious organization that mixes the tenets of Islam with notorious notions of black supremacy. The current leader of the Nation of Islam is Louis Farrakhan. Muhammad, 54, will serve the remainder of the term to which commissioner Bill Bullen was elected until the next election in November, reports Post-Standardullen is leaving town.) In addition to his role as a Nation of Islam minister, Muhammad is an...

ATLANTA — THE groundswell of protests over police brutality in the closing days of 2014, when people dropped to the marble floor of Grand Central Terminal and shut down the Brooklyn Bridge, blocked Lake Shore Drive in Chicago and chanted “I Can’t Breathe” from Boston to Oakland, summoned ghosts not only of the marches of the civil rights era but of the larger forces that led to the arrival of so many African-Americans in the big cities of the North and West in the first place. Dozens of cities would ultimately join in these demonstrations of discontent. But a map...

A major Black group in the United States says it will host the next summit of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Reparations Commission early this year. The New York-based Institute of the Black World 21st Century (IBW) said on Saturday that the summit will take place from April 9-12 in New York. The CARICOM Commission is chaired by Sir Hilary Beckles, vice-chancellor designate of the University of the West Indies. Inspired by the creation of the CARICOM Commission, a National African American Reparations Commission is being established as part of an effort to intensify the Reparations movement in the U.S., the...

One of you is going to watch this, and comment: This is 3 minutes and 44 seconds of my life I’ll never get back. There is so much wrong there, it’s hard to know where to start. Please, don’t hate me for posting this. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)