Freedom Summer 1964 was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, where hundreds of volunteers, primarily college students, traveled to Mississippi to register African American voters, establish Freedom Schools, and challenge the systemic racism that had long pervaded the region. This summer of activism played a crucial role in advancing civil rights and social justice in the United States.
The event will be emceed by Alice Fried of the Solano County League of Women Voters and will include two special presentations. First, former Poet Laureate Mary Susan Gast (2020-2023), who participated in Freedom Summer as a college student, will share “Gifts from Freedom Summer –1964,” followed by a unique portrayal of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Hamer, who rose from humble beginnings in the Mississippi Delta to become one of the most important, passionate, and powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements and a leader in the efforts for greater economic opportunities for African Americans, will be brought to life by local artist and activist Linda Youngblood Wright.
The event will also include refreshments and an opportunity for Q&A about Freedom Summer 1964 and continued efforts to ensure voting rights across our country. Voter registration tables will also be set up, so that anyone who isn’t registered to vote can do so.
2– 4pm, in the Doña Benicia Room at the Benicia Public Library, 150 East L Street, Benicia. Registration is not required. This event is free and appropriate for all ages.
Disclaimers: Benicia Independent is not affiliated with either Benicia Public Library or the BUSD.
Freedom Summer 1964 was a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights Movement, where hundreds of volunteers, primarily college students, traveled to Mississippi to register African American voters, establish Freedom Schools, and challenge the systemic racism that had long pervaded the region. This summer of activism played a crucial role in advancing civil rights and social justice in the United States.
The event will be emceed by Alice Fried of the Solano County League of Women Voters and will include two special presentations. First, former Poet Laureate Mary Susan Gast (2020-2023), who participated in Freedom Summer as a college student, will share “Gifts from Freedom Summer –1964,” followed by a unique portrayal of Fannie Lou Hamer.
Hamer, who rose from humble beginnings in the Mississippi Delta to become one of the most important, passionate, and powerful voices of the civil and voting rights movements and a leader in the efforts for greater economic opportunities for African Americans, will be brought to life by local artist and activist Linda Youngblood Wright.
The event will also include refreshments and an opportunity for Q&A about Freedom Summer 1964 and continued efforts to ensure voting rights across our country. Voter registration tables will also be set up, so that anyone who isn’t registered to vote can do so.
2– 4pm, in the Doña Benicia Room at the Benicia Public Library, 150 East L Street, Benicia. Registration is not required. This event is free and appropriate for all ages.
Disclaimers: Benicia Independent is not affiliated with either Benicia Public Library or the BUSD.
[Note from BenIndy: This post was first published on Stephen Golub’s blog, A Promised Land: America as a Developing Country. There, Steve blogs about domestic and international politics and policy, including lessons that the United States can learn from other nations. If interested, you may sign up for future posts by subscribing to the blog. The images showing featured in this post were added by BenIndy editors and are not original to Steve’s post.]
December 7. September 11. And as we recall the third anniversary of the U.S. Capitol being seized by rioters, January 6 has joined the ranks of the most horrible days in American history. In the words FDR applied to Pearl Harbor, it is a “a date which will live in infamy.”
Thankfully, the January 6, 2021 insurrection did not wreak nearly the massive deaths nor physical havoc of those other two days. But in one crucial respect, it’s proven even worse.
How so? In the wake of December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001, the country came together in the face of massive challenges to our democracy and way of life. In contrast, the time since Insurrection Day has seen us more divided than ever. What’s more, we face the distinct prospect of the person who prompted the insurrection – and a wide array of other attempts to subvert the 2020 election results – being returned to the presidency this year.
Lies have been piled on lies, to portray the insurrectionists as heroes. A quarter of Americans believe that the FBI probably or definitely organized and encouraged the attack; fewer than half of us say that it probably or definitely did not do so.
The original, underlying sin of the insurrection and Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election was his misbegotten claim that Joe Biden stole it. Yet, as former Rep. Liz Cheney has pointed out, “There were over 60 court cases where judges, including judges appointed by President Trump and other Republican presidents, looked at the evidence in many cases and said there is not widespread fraud.”
Donald Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol to contest the certification of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results. | Ahmed Gaber/ Reuters.
To further hammer home this same point, eight leading Republican legal luminaries published a 2022 report that explained that the 2020 election was lost by Trump, not stolen by Biden. The group included two former U.S. senators, two former federal judges and a former chief of staff to two Republican congressional majority leaders. As he explained in asserting the Biden’s election was valid, “I’m certainly not a ‘Never-Trumper.’ I voted for Donald Trump twice for President.”
I’m belaboring the point about these lawsuits because the conclusions by Republican judges and attorneys constitute key parts of the overwhelming proof that Trump has misled his followers – the over a thousand insurrectionists and the many millions of others – about 2020. Yet an August CNN poll found that two-thirds of Republican still attribute his loss to voter fraud.
Which brings us back to the insurrection, and the one respect in which January 6 was worse than December 7 and September 11, for all of their horrors.
Supporters of Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. | Brent Stirton / Getty Images.
Here’s how it’s worse: The drive to undermine our democracy continues. It includes Trump’s election denialism, as well as his Hitleresque attacks on political opponents as “vermin” and on undocumented aliens as “poisoning the blood of our country.”
But it also includes so much more. Just a partial compilation of Trump’s anti-democratic attitudes, actions statements and online activity includes his: excusing the January 6 insurrection; suggesting that the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff deserved execution; accusing NBC of treason and threatening to deny it airwaves access; threatening and otherwise attempting to intimidate judicial system personnel and witnesses; stating that he has “no choice” but to lock up certain political opponents if elected – even contemplating indicting Biden; praising Hungary’s authoritarian leader (as well as like-minded figures such as Vladimir Putin); and planning to politicize the federal civil service to do his political bidding.
However, there’s another compilation we can take into account as we ponder January 6. It lists what we can do to prevent that date of infamy from defining not just our recent past, but our impending future. It’s what we can do to help save democracy. Here are a few such actions from that lengthy list:
First and foremost, voting for democracy, which means for Biden (or, in the unlikely event he does not run, whomever else the Democrats nominate). Personally, I believe he’s accomplished a lot. But you don’t have to be a fan of Joe to cast your vote for him. Recognizing the threat that Trump represents, a very conservative friend of mine (who thinks that Biden is lousy) intends to do so.
Not voting for a third party candidate, and not simply sitting out the election, even if you’re a progressive who feels Biden has fallen short. The choice is either/or: not voting for Biden only helps Trump. This election will be decided by voter turnout and whom people turn out for – we need only bear in mind 2000 and 2016 to recall the consequences of third party candidates’ impacts.
Finally, a biggie: Becoming politically active, whether it’s through donations, phone banks, canvassing, writing letters to editors, helping out in toss-up states or seeking to influence friends and relatives on the fence. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
March 2023 By Sheri Leigh, a member of Benicia Black Lives Matter
1957, New Jersey or New York polling location
March has been designated as “Women’s History Month,” and there has been a lot of progress towards women’s empowerment in this country over the last century. Because of the indomitable will of women to be recognized as fully capable citizens, the 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed in 1920, giving women the right to vote; the Equal Rights Amendment passed in 1972, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex; and the recent Me Too Movement created a wave of public awareness, condemning sexualization of women in professional settings. Although sometimes women are still treated as sexual objects and/or with derision, a woman’s right to a workplace free of hostility is protected by law. Women, as a group, are now more educated than ever; have climbed the ranks of the professional world, making them a powerful force in the economy; and have equal political decision making power as men. Despite progress, women still have a ways to go to achieve true equity. For example, women currently make up 50.5% of the US population, but only represent ~25% of those in public office. The balance of power is still tipped towards men, but it is slowly and steadily shifting.
But what about women of Color?
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was a journalist, educator, early leader in the civil rights movement, and cofounder the NAACP.
Because racism and sexism have been defining features of this country’s history, Black women, on the whole, have a deeper experience of subjugation and disenfranchisement than white women. Their path towards equality has been more difficult. They are a prime example of the effects of “intersectionality,” or social and systemic discrimination towards a person or group based on two or more categories of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.
Intersectionality and the vote
The history of voting rights for women is an excellent illustration of how intersectionality has affected Black women. At the turn of the 20th century, the powerful Suffragist Movement helped bring about the 19th Amendment giving the right to vote to ALL women. Black women leaders such as Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, and Nannie Helen Burroughs worked in conjunction with white women suffragists.
However, many Black women wanting to vote after the Amendment was passed were presented with new and significant barriers, particularly in the South — barriers that were primarily fabricated by white men and often carried out with cooperation from Black men and white women. These included having to wait in line for up to twelve hours to register to vote, paying poll taxes, and being required to read and interpret the Constitution before being deemed eligible to vote. In parts of the Deep South, Black women endured threats, assault, and/or jail time based on false charges if they attempted to vote.This oppressive conduct went unchecked until the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) was signed into law, specifically protecting the right to vote and banning deterrents like poll taxes and literacy tests.
New threats
More recently, however, new threats to the Black female vote have emerged. On June 25, 2013, Shelby County (Tennessee) v. Holder, a landmark Supreme Court decision, declared that the VRA’s formula, in which jurisdictions were required to submit a preclearance plan for voting, is unconstitutional. With the subsequent change to the VRA, several state and local jurisdictions with a significant history of racism were able to formulate their own voter regulations without Federal oversight. Although State voting laws can still be reviewed by Congress, this act significantly reduced the protections provided by the VRA. For example, within three years of the Supreme Court decision, 868 polling stations, mainly in African-American counties, were closed. Those who reside in those areas now must travel a greater distance to vote. Many can’t access the polls because mail in ballots are prohibited and they don’t have transportation or are unable to take time off from work or because they have to present a driver’s license and don’t have time or money to get one. These individuals have become disenfranchised and underrepresented once again. Unfortunately, this probably has impacted Black women voters more than any other group.
Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) was a civil rights activist, feminist, educator, orator, religious leader and businesswoman.
In the State of California, voting rights are unencumbered by literacy tests, mandatory poll locations and other factors that would limit access. California and other states like it guarantee freedom to voters, despite the coordinated efforts of many to suppress the role of minorities and women in our country’s leadership.
Black women have been and continue to be at the forefront of voting rights and accessibility for everyone since the earliest days of the Suffrage Movement. Their advocacy has allowed more people to vote than ever before. We have a growing number of Black and other women of Color who have been elected into office to represent their constituencies: Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass; California US Congresswoman Maxine Waters; and former District Attorney of San Francisco and current Vice President Kamala Harris, to name a few. These women represent all of us through positions of power and are backed by a history of strong, brave, and persistent women of Color who fought and continue to fight for their rights to be fully active and engaged and enfranchised citizens of the United States.
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