The owner of an iconic DC restaurant who donated free food to Black Lives Matter protesters did the same 57 years ago for the March on Washington

Anneta Konstantinides

Virginia Ali has owned Ben's Chili Bowl for more than 60 years, feeding protesters from boththe March on Washington and the Black Lives Matter movement. Ben's Chili Bowl/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via  Getty Images

From the March on Washington in 1963 to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, Virginia Ali has been there to feed protesters. 

Ali and her husband Ben opened Ben's Chili Bowl on U Street — then known as "Black Broadway" — in 1958. 

The restaurant is now considered a landmark in DC's dining scene, famous for its half-smoke covered in the family's secret homemade chili sauce. 

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with Martin Luther King Jr., and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali has witnessed the course of history — both the flames of great change, and the dheartening tolerance of the status quo — through a big window at the front of Ben's Chili Bowl.is 

Ali was 24 when she and her husband Ben, yes the Ben, opened their restaurant on U Street in Washington, DC, when the city was still segregated and the neighborhood was known as "Black Broadway."

She was 29 on that historic day in August 1963, when she and Ben fed some of the hundreds of thousands of people who streamed into the city for the March on Washington and heard Martin Luther King Jr. tell the world about his dream.

Now, on the cusp of turning 87, Ali is feeding Black Lives Matter protesters who are fighting the same fight for civil rights that she has witnessed her entire life.

"It would certainly be nice to have them before I leave this earth," she told Insider. "And I'm old."

Ali spoke with Insider about her restaurant's incredible legacy, what she talked about with MLK, and why she has so much hope in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Virginia Ali left her hometown in Virginia and came to Washington, DC — which was still segregated — in 1952.

Ben and Virginia Ali on their wedding day in 1958. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram

It was there that she met and fell in love with Ben, who immigrated to the US from Trinidad and attended Howard University.

Shortly after they tied the knot in 1958, the newlyweds converted a former silent movie theater into their own "little restaurant" on U Street. It cost them $5,000.

"We wanted to be self-employed," Ali told Insider. "We decided on chili dogs because there were a lot of hamburger places already around."

From the cabinet maker to the electrician, the couple hired local African-American businesses to help build their restaurant.

Ben's Chili Bowl during its early days. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was very new and modern-looking at the time," Ali recalled with a laugh. "Definitely colorful."
"And we had a big glass window in the front, you could see through the whole thing. It was a new and exciting place."
Ben's Chili Bowl became well-known (and loved) for its half-smoke, now considered a signature DC dish.

The iconic half-smoke, accompanied by potato chips, at Ben's Chili Bowl. Astrid Riecken For The Washington Post via Getty Images )

Tucked inside a warm steamed bun with mustard and onions, the half-smoke is topped with a generous heap of Ben's spicy homemade chili sauce — still a secret family recipe.

"Sober up with a chili dog," the restaurant's slogan used to read.

Just two blocks up from Ben's Chili Bowl was Martin Luther King Jr.'s satellite office.
Martin Luther King Jr. during CBS' "Washington Conversation" program in DC on May 20, 1962. CBS via Getty Images

"Whenever he was in town, he'd make his way to the Chili Bowl," Ali said. "I had the opportunity to sit with him and listen to his dreams and hopes, what he was going to do and accomplish."


Before they watched MLK speak during the March on Washington in 1963, Ali and her husband were handing out sandwiches to protesters as they streamed into the city.

Ali on the front grill in the early days of Ben's Chili Bowl. Ben's Chili Bowl

"It was an ecstatic day," Ali said. "Filled with hope and pride because so many people came from all walks of life. Thousands of people were there, and Dr. King delivered that amazing 'I Have a Dream' speech."

"It was just a glorious day, that's how I remember it," she added. "A history-making day, a very peaceful day of demonstration and love and hope."

Less than five years later, MLK was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1964. The mayor of DC put the city under curfew as days of protests began.

Flames engulf a building during the DC riots in 1968. Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images
"I remember that evening so vividly," Ali said, speaking of the day MLK died. "When someone rushed through the front door at Ben's Chili Bowl and said, 'Dr. King has been shot.' Then we found someone with a transistor radio and heard, 'He's no longer with us.'"

"People were crying, we're all in tears. That sadness turned to frustration, the frustration turned into anger, and that rising began."

In the days following MLK's assassination, referred to as the Holy Week Uprisings, there were protests in cities across the US. The nation's capital saw days of unrest that led to 13 deaths, according to a 2018 Washington Post article, which noted that MLK's "assassination ignited an explosion of rioting, looting and burning that stunned Washington and would leave many neighborhoods in ruins for 30 years."

Civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael obtained special permission to keep Ben's Chili Bowl open after curfew to provide food and shelter. The restaurant kept its usual business hours, staying open until 3 a.m. during the week and 4 a.m. on the weekend.

"You could see the fire across the street, glass windows shattering, buildings burning, tear gas all over the place," Ali said. "It lasted for three nights. When that period was over, we noticed that a lot of the businesses didn't reopen."

In 1988, Ben's Chili Bowl was hit by another challenge. The city dug up the entire street in front of the restaurant and began building a new Metro station.

The city of DC dug up the entire street in front of Ben's to build a new Metro station in 1988. Ben's Chili Bowl
"That was very, very hard," Ali said. "But I did make them have signs made, metal signs that said, 'This way to Ben's.' And I went down blocks and blocks and directed traffic to come to the one-way street behind us. If there happened to be three cars, they'd have to wait until everyone was served."

"We managed to hold on and hang in there and survive," she added. "In 1990, the subway opened and I had a banner across the building that said, 'We survived Metro.' The new businesses began to roll in."

In the last three decades, Ali has witnessed the revitalization of U Street, celebrated the restaurant's 60th anniversary, and served President Barack Obama.

Obama orders his lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl restaurant on January 10, 2009. MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Ben's Chili Bowl was one of the first establishments that Obama visited when he moved to DC two weeks before his inauguration.

"You don't get a warning or anything," Ali said. "The next thing you know, someone looks up and the Secret Service is there and he opens the door and here he comes!"

"He was escorted in by our mayor at the time and it was just, it was a dream come true to have him there," she added. "At my age, we certainly had no idea we'd see an African American become president of the United States of America."
As Obama was sworn in on his first Inauguration Day in 2009, the line was out the door to get into Ben's Chili Bowl. Many waited for up to three hours.

A line stretches around the corner at Ben's Chili Bowl on the day of Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009. Mario Tama/Getty Images

"Many people had read that his first outing in Washington, DC, had been at Ben's Chili Bowl, so can you imagine how many people wanted to come to Ben's because of that?" Ali said. "There was a line out there all day long on that cold January day."

Ben died in October 2009 from natural causes. The couple's three sons now run the restaurant.

Ben and Virginia Ali. The Washington Post/Michael Williamson/Getty Images
"I'm not in the day to day things at my age," Ali said. "I have three wonderful sons that surprised us by becoming part of the business, and their wives as well. They do the hard work now. Restaurant work is truly hard work now."

While Ali is no longer at Ben's Chili Bowl every day, she is still very much involved. This month she joined her family's efforts to feed hundreds of Black Lives Matter protesters, just as she did with Ben over 50 years ago.

An image of George Floyd is seen at Ben's Chili Bowl as a customer leaves during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Ali and her family have prepared and handed out hundreds of sandwiches, chili dogs, and burgers for protesters during the demonstrations in DC.

"I'm very proud of what we're seeing today in terms of protesting," she said. "I find it rather disheartening to know that they had to come back and do this again all these many years later, and fight for the same basic human rights laws that we fought for in the '60s. But I'm proud of the fact that they're doing it, and doing it well."

Ali and her family have also been donating as much food as they can to frontline workers, even as Ben's Chili Bowl faces new businesses challenges due to the pandemic.

Ali with her sons and daughters-in-law. Ben's Chili Bowl

"The pandemic has certainly affected our business severely, as it has all businesses in our community," Ali said.

But an outpouring of donations from locals and fans has allowed Ben's Chili Bowl to keep giving back to the community that it loves so much.

"Our Ben's Chili Bowl community has been tremendous, and I'm so grateful to them for that," Ali said. "We've got donations to help us and whatever we get, we turn into feeding the community and the local hospitals."

As with the many obstacles that Ben's Chili Bowl has faced in its 62 years, Ali said she knows it will survive the pandemic as well.

Ali sits near photos of her and Ben at their restaurant during the COVID-19 outbreak on June 15, 2020. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
"This too shall pass," she said. "I'm the optimist."

And when it comes to the challenges of American society, Ali has hope that the next generation will bring change.

Ali told Insider she has hope in the next generation. Ben's Chili Bowl/Instagram
"Today we have the young people just coming out based on their own hearts, to protest for the basic human rights laws that we fought for, without that strong leadership of Dr. King that we had back then," Ali said. "And I just think that's tremendous. They're diverse — people from all walks of life, backgrounds, races. And not only is it in Washington, it's in every city in this country and all over the world."

"That's amazing to me, and that certainly has to speak to hope," she added. "And I encourage them to keep the pressure on and not give up."

"Because we need basic systemic human right laws — and we need them now."

‘Embarrassingly incompetent’: NAACP official scolds Kellyanne Conway who can’t explain Trump’s diss of MLK Day

 January 20, 2020 By David Edwards


Sherrilyn Ifill, who serves as president of the NAACP Defense Fund, on Monday lashed out at presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway after she could not explain what President Donald Trump was doing to mark Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

“He’s preparing for Davos,” Conway said in a Monday morning interview, “and agrees with many of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for and agreed with for many years, including unity.”

“What an embarrassingly incompetent answer,” Ifill later told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell. “There’s is no answer that she can give that would be acceptable because he’s doing nothing to commemorate MLK Day, and frankly, it would be hypocritical if he tried to do that.”


“Just in the last week, the tweets that he’s put up, knowing that [the pro-gun rally in Virginia] was coming today, knowing that the governor of Virginia had declared a state of emergency today because of credible threats of violence given what happened in 2017 in Charlottesville,” she continued. “We’ve now reset what the president is supposed to do. He’s not supposed to call for calm and peace.

“He just gets to tweet whatever he wants,” Ifill pointed out. “He’s not doing anything to commemorate MLK Day and that’s why it’s important that we do that work. We don’t need Mr. Trump to lead us in knowing what to do around equality and justice.”

Watch the video below from MSNBC.

Trump likens himself to Martin Luther King Jr while boasting about low black unemployment

Kellyanne Conway claims civil rights leader would not support impeachment

Alex Woodward New York Tuesday 21 January 2020 

Donald Trump has linked his achievements on the anniversary of being sworn in as president with Martin Luther King Jr‘s birthday, as the he boasted of low unemployment among black Americans.

On Twitter, the US president wrote: “It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!”

Asked how Mr Trump is celebrating this year’s nationwide memorial recognising the murdered civil rights leader, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said the president “agrees with many of the things” Dr King stood for, including “unity and equality”.

Then she pivoted to the president’s upcoming impeachment trial in the Senate, saying: ”He’s not the one trying to tear the country apart.”

Ms Conway said Dr King’s “vision” did not include “Americans dragged through the process where the president is not going to be removed from office”.

The adminisrion listed no public events celebrating Dr King on Monday. The president issued a proclamation on 17 January in advance of the federal holiday, writing that the administration “works each day to ensure that all Americans have every opportunity to realise a better life for themselves and their families regardless of race, class, gender, or any other barriers that have arbitrarily stood in their way”.

Mr Trump and Mike Pence, the vice president, did visit Dr King’s memorial marker in Washington DC. This year, his campaign’s Twitter account posted a photograph showing Mr Trump walking through the memorial – a photo taken at last year’s wreath-laying ceremony – to “honour the life” of Dr King, but it did not disclose that the image was from last year.

His campaign account also juxtaposed images of Dr King with footage of the president appearing with black Americans as part of a fundraising video.

Mr Trump largely spent the day in Washington in 2019 because of a government shutdown that effectively grounded the first family. In 2018, he was in Palm Beach, Florida. He spent this weekend in Florida and Texas, where he addressed the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Ms Conway said she spent the morning “reading some of the lesser-known passages by Dr King” and said that she appreciates that “we as a nation respect him by giving him his own day”.

This morning, the White House issued a message on Twitter, saying the president will “pause to honour the incredible life and accomplishments” of Dr King, who was assassinated on 4 April 1968 at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he was addressing striking sanitation workers amid preparations for a Poor People’s Campaign.

Minutes later, the president wrote his support for a “Lobby Day” rally in which thousands of gun rights activists – including far-right militia members – gathered in Virginia to protest gun control legislation in the state.

The president accused Democrats of “working hard to take away” Second Amendment rights. “This is just the beginning. Don’t let it happen, VOTE REPUBLICAN in 2020!”

   Martin Luther King's daughter calls out  Kellyanne Conway for saying her father would oppose Trump's impeachment

The youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr has condemned Kellyanne Conway after she claimed that the impeachment of Donald Trump would have been against King's values. 

Speaking to NBC News on Martin Luther King Day, Conway was asked what the president is doing to commemorate the day. In reply, she said:

I can tell you that the president is preparing for Davos and agrees with many of the things that Dr King stood for including unity and equality and he's not the one trying to tear the country apart through an impeachment process and lack of substance which is really very shameful at this point. 

I've held my opinion on it for a very long time but when you see the articles of impeachment that came out, I don't think it was within Dr King's vision to have Americans dragged through a process where the president is not going to be removed from office, is not going to be charged with bribery, extortion or high crimes and misdemeanours.

Conway's egregious and completely baseless comments on King's values sparked a strong reply from Bernice King, who is now the CEO of the King Centre in Atlanta, Georgia. 

The 56-year-old quote retweeted the above video, asking Conway and the Trump administration to refrain from using King's name to somehow justify their own issues. 

Unfortunately, Conway wasn't the only Trump loyalist to invoke King's name on Monday, as a way of almost trying to prove that nothing they have ever said could be interpreted as bigoted. 

Jeff Sessions, a former senator for Alabama and member of the Trump administration tweeted a King quote that said:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Journalist Britanny Packnett Cunningham then quote retweeted Sessions with a quote from Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr's wife, where she strongly criticised the appointment of Sessions to government. 

As an almost perfect tonic to this level of hypocrisy from modern-day Republicans, Bernice King delivered a speech complaining that due to the resurgence in racism and white supremacism, a day to celebrate the legacy of her father "is not enough."

Watch more
The story behind Martin Luther King Jr Day

 MLK’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech


SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MLK

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=MLKDAY

Republicans ignore that King was concerned about more than the content of one’s character | Opinion


Leonard Pitts Jr.
Fri, January 14, 2022

Dear white conservatives:

When you’re right, you’re right. And you are definitely right about that quote from Martin Luther King.

When he stood at the temple of Lincoln in 1963 and declared his dream “that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” he surely spoke a word for the ages. Your fondness for that word has not gone unnoticed.


How could it? You invoke that line all the time — all ... the ... time — to show that King, had he not been murdered by a white supremacist in 1968, would have stood in solidarity with your social and political agenda.

Most recently, you’ve used it in opposing the teaching of critical race theory. You use it so much that a body might think you couldn’t name another King quote if the survival of the human species depended on it.

Well, did you know Martin Luther King said other things? It’s true! In a spirit of public service and in celebration of his birthday, here are a few of them. You’ll be happy to know that they support your right-wing agenda exactly as much as your favorite quote does.

For instance, use this one to show that King would have shared your love of capitalism:

“Something is wrong with capitalism. Maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism. We must develop programs that will drive the nation to the realization of the need for a guaranteed annual income.”

And like you, he surely would’ve condemned reparations and affirmative action:

“A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for him, in order to equip him to compete on a just and equal basis.”

Certainly he didn’t believe there was any such thing as white privilege:

“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a ... mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn.”

And he likely would have opposed ending the filibuster:

“I think the tragedy is that we have a Congress with a Senate that has a minority of misguided senators who will use the filibuster to keep the majority of people from even voting.”

Surely King would have sided with the makers over the takers:

“This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor.”

And he would’ve shared your contempt for Black Lives Matter:

“I had seen police brutality with my own eyes and watched Negroes receive the most tragic injustice in the court. All of these things had done something to my growing personality.”

Try this quote to prove that King, like you, thought there was no such thing as systemic racism:

“For the good of America, it is necessary to refute the idea that the dominant ideology in our country even today is freedom and equality while racism is just an occasional departure from the norm on the part of a few bigoted extremists.”

And if all that seems a lot to remember, well, it’s summed up in something he said on the last night of his life. He was a tired and frustrated man by then after 13 years of marches, speeches and death threats, struggling with a nation that refused to venerate its own lofty ideals. And he told an audience in Memphis:

“All we say to America is: Be true to what you said on paper.”

How Americans are tarnishing Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy for their self interest | Hill

LeBron Hill, Nashville Tennessean
Thu, January 13, 2022, 8:08 PM·3 min read

When I was in the first grade, attending Jack T. Farrar Elementary School in Tullahoma, my music teacher, Mrs. Majors, would take the lesson time in January to tell the class the story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination.

She would start her narration with setting the scene and told us that, at the time, MLK felt compelled to go to Memphis to continue his push for racial justice. Her voice would then change into a deep, sinister cadence when she started describing James Earl Ray's evil intentions to kill King.

Mrs. Majors, a white teacher, told that story every year and I would listen to it each year like it was the first time I'd heard it.


I grew up thinking of Dr. King as a hero, just like Clark Kent and Peter Parker, who put their own ideals and desires aside for the common good.

Years later, I toured Dr. King's birth home in Atlanta and felt like I was getting to see the origin story of a superhero.

I remembered Dr. King as a superhero.

America has forgotten MLK's message and created its own

Americans all have the right to remember Dr. King the way they want to, but in the last couple of years, I've noticed that his quotes, writings and speeches have been construed to fit a political or social agenda, most of the time opposite of what Dr. King fought and stood for.

Robin Steenman presents at 'Let's Talk Wit & Wisdom," and event put on by the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty. Steenman is chair of the newly formed chapter

A recent example is Green Bay Packers' Quarterback Aaron Rodgers misusing Dr. King's quotes to push COVID-19 misinformation.

"I would add this to the mix as an aside, but the great MLK said you have a moral obligation to object to unjust rules and rules that make no sense," Rodgers said last November.

And it's not just his quotes that are being misused.

Bernice King, the youngest daughter of the civil rights icon, took to Twitter on Jan. 5 to express her frustration with the nonprofit political group Moms for Liberty's sponsored American Dream Conference Friday and Saturday in Franklin, using her father's image in a digital invitation.

Last November, the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty submitted a complaint against several books being used in a curriculum they believed violated Tennessee's new anti-critical race theory law , including a one about Dr. King, "Martin Luther King Jr. and the "March on Washington" by Frances E. Ruffin. The Tennessee Department of Education refused to investigate the complaint.

Bernice King is constantly forced to defend the work of her father. If we truly care about King's work, she wouldn't have to do so.
MLK's spirit has become politically focused

Quite frankly, we're all at fault for taking an MLK quote and posting it to our social media platforms in hopes of getting our point across. But what I find most appalling is the sheer lack of acknowledgment of what he went through.

Bernice King speaks during the release of Lee Sentell's Civil Rights Trail book in June.

During the 1960s civil rights era, Dr. King was considered a communist in many circles. Dr. King was labeled the "most dangerous" Black man in America in a 17,000-page FBI file.

I am so disgusted by the appropriation of Dr. King that I have considered ignoring the federal holiday in honor of his birthday.

If you do celebrate Martin Luther King Day on Monday, remember that in America, we have a habit of taking our heroes and martyrs and sanitizing them in our current climate without remembering what they really stood for.

If we don't stop this inauthentic and disingenuous use of Dr. King's legacy, we will tarnish the work of a man who marched in hostile streets, endured immoral arrest and jail time, and ultimately died for fighting for the civil rights of all Americans.

LeBron Hill is an opinion columnist for the USA TODAY Network Tennessee and the curator of the Black Tennessee Voices newsletter. Feel free to contact him at LHill@gannett.com or 615-829-2384. Find him on Twitter at @hill_bron or Instagram at @antioniohill12.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Martin Luther King Jr. Day: How Americans are tarnishing MLK's legacy

Dr. King Aided Progress in Sports, Too

By Brad Pye Jr., Written for the Jan. 16 1975 edition of the Los Angeles Sentinel Newspaper

Published January 13, 2022

Muhammad Ali and Dr. Martin Luther King (File Photo)

Yesterday the world of sports and the rest of the world should have taken time off and saluted that man from Atlanta.

That man they called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If he had lived that man from Atlanta would have been 46 year old yesterday.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lived, worked, and died for all of us.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped bring about progress in sports and all other walks of life.

Somewhere up there Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. must have been smiling Tuesday night when he looked on the Phoenix area in the Valley of the Sun and saw two black men—K.C. Jones of the winning East All-Stars and Al Attles of the West All-Stars coaching both teams.

Naturally, this was a first like so many of the firsts Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. brought about in his much too short life on this planet.

It must have brought an equal amount of joy to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s heart earlier this season when former Grambling State University star Matt Reed helped quarterback the Birmingham Americans to the WFL title in the city where he and Mrs. Rosa Parks et al started the successful bus boycott.

A boycott that brought the walls of segregation and discrimination tumbling down.

There is a lot of progress in sports today that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. helped bring about because of his successful and relentless campaign to help all Americans share in that elusive American dream.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. … had a dream … a dream that blacks would someday be judged not by the color of their skin but by the contents of their character.

I’m sure Dr. Martin Luther King would agree the world of sports has come as close to making this a reality as any other area of American life.

The world will long remember that another man from Atlanta via Alabama, Hank Aaron. Broke Babe Ruth’s all-time home run record in 1974.

And that Frank Robinson became the first black major league manager in history.

And that the St. Louis Cardinals’ Lou Brock broke Maury Willis’ all-time stolen bases record with 118.

Others will remember that Muhammad Ali upset George Foreman and the world to regain the world’s heavyweight championship.

But most of all the world should remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. because he tried to help us all … and he was truly a prince of peace during our lifetime.

That Time MLK Convinced Nichelle Nichols To Stay on “Star Trek”

Nichols and her character’s joint impact on pop culture continues to be felt to this day, but perhaps what’s most amazing is how fleeting it could have been if not for a random intervention by none other than MLK himself.

By Tom McKenna

Published on 8/1/2022 at 5:51 PM

Credit: Getty Images

Nichelle Nichols, a beloved actor, singer, and dancer whose career spanned six decades, passed away Saturday at the age of 89. Nichols will be best remembered for her trailblazing role as Lt. Nyota Uhura on the original “Star Trek” TV series, which aired from 1966-69.

Nichols’ performance as Uhura — a communications officer and the fourth highest-ranking member of the USS Enterprise — was a landmark moment for representation in pop culture, marking one of the first times in American history that a Black woman appeared on television in a leading role. Nichols also contributed to a watershed moment in the 1968 episode “Plato’s Stepchildren,” when Uhura shared what is believed to be the first interracial kiss broadcast on TV with Enterprise Capt. James T. Kirk (played by her white co-star William Shatner).

Nichols and her character’s joint impact on pop culture continues to be felt to this day, but perhaps what’s most amazing is how fleeting it could have been if not for a random intervention by none other than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself. According to an anecdote Nichols sharedin severalinterviews, she initially considered quitting “Star Trek” entirely after its first season. However, MLK personally urged her to stick with the show when the two spoke at an NAACP fundraiser in California, stressing her character’s importance to the cause of civil rights and representation.

“[MLK] said, ‘You can’t [quit]. Don't you know who you are to our movement, to everyone? You are there in the 23rd century. You've created a role that has such dignity and everything — it’s so powerful. You cannot leave,’” Nichols reflected in a 2011 interview. “Then he told me many other things, like, ‘This is one of his only shows that Coretta and I allow our children to stay up and watch.’ So I went back Monday morning and told [“Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry], and he said, ‘God bless Dr. Martin Luther King. Somebody sees what I'm trying to achieve.’”

Shatner was one of many of Nichols’ contemporaries to express their sorrow at her death. “I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Nichelle,” the 91-year-old actor tweeted. “She was a beautiful woman & played an admirable character that did so much for redefining social issues both here in the US & throughout the world.”

Sixty years on from their only meeting, why it's time to reassess Martin Luther King and Malcolm X

Chris Harvey
Fri, 2 February 2024 

The series uses the only meeting between Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X as a hook to explore their lives - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

“My whole career has been about racism and injustice,” says Kelvin Harrison Jr. “My first job was 12 Years a Slave, my second was Roots.” Being on the set of the former set a tone for his life, he says, after coming from an educational system that didn’t want to “divulge the atrocities of what this country is built on”. Since those striking entries in his early CV, the New Orleans actor has been turning heads in almost every role, most recently as blues great BB King in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Now he’s taking on an American icon, Martin Luther King Jr, in the eight-part instalment of National Geographic’s Genius: MLK/X.

MLK/X dramatises the parallel lives of King and his radical counterpart Malcolm X. For Harrison, it was intimidating. “Dr King is more famous than Michael Jackson,” he says, adding that the singer wouldn’t have been who he was if it wasn’t for the murdered Civil Rights leader. Yet the 29-year-old notes, every time he’s seen King – who was 39 when he was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 – portrayed on screen, “it’s been an older actor, someone with a bigger resumé, more mature. I immediately retreated and got so insecure and fell into my own imposter syndrome. I was like, ‘I can’t do this’”.

Like previous series of Genius, which explored the lives of Einstein, Picasso and Aretha Franklin, MLK/X is richly detailed historical drama with an emphasis on character and performance. One of the reasons Harrison took the role, he says, is because the British actor Aaron Pierre had already signed up to play Malcolm X. He recalls seeing Pierre playing the escaped slave Caesar in Barry Jenkins’s poetic, moving adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad. “I remember sitting watching it in one of my friends’ living rooms, and the presence he holds and the weight he carries from our experience is so profound.”

It’s true. Pierre has a natural gravitas on screen. Jenkins, the Oscar-winning director of Moonlight, saw it at once, plucking him if not from obscurity, then from his debut stage role, as a dashing Cassio alongside André Holland’s Othello and Mark Rylance’s Iago at the London’s Globe theatre in 2018. “That was a very surreal moment,” Pierre tells me. He and Jenkins, he says, now “have a very deep friendship. I consider him a big brother”. In fact, both Pierre and Harrison will appear this year as the voice leads in Jenkins’s long-awaited prequel to The Lion King. It pits the two as warring royal brothers Mufasa (Pierre) and Taka (Harrison), before the latter takes on the identity of the usurping Scar. “Barry has a way of making everything look beautiful,” Harrison says. “I’m sorry to everyone else, but it’s the most artistic and exciting Disney movie I think I’ve seen.”

"The man had huge lungs": Kelvin Harrison Jr as Martin Luther King Jr - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

On the surface, MLK/X sets two oppositional figures on collision course towards their one and only meeting on March 26, 1964, at the seat of the US Congress in Washington DC, where, inside the Capitol, the Senate debated the passage of the Civil Rights Act, as Southern Democrats attempted to filibuster it out of existence.

Prior to their meeting, Malcolm X had openly criticised King’s strategy of non-violent resistance in the face of individual, state- and government-backed violence, in which Civil Rights activists were attacked with guns, bombs, boots, bottles, bricks, dogs, batons and water cannons. He blamed King for putting defenceless children at risk on marches and suggested that black people had a right to defend themselves “by any means necessary”. He was, of course, labelled “dangerous” for this perspective. “I think he was operating from a place of love,” Pierre says. “There is a lot of misinformation out there about both men and I think what this [series] does is reconfirm that they are not opposing forces.”

King, though, must have been stung by Malcolm X’s criticisms. “It’s hurtful when anyone you respect says something about you that is not positive,” Harrison says, noting that King’s approach was clearly strategic. “He’s trying to make sure we weren’t blowing the game.” The drama leans heavily on Peniel E Joseph’s twin history The Sword and the Shield, as well as Jeff Stetson’s 1987 play The Meeting, which imagines a secret hotel-room encounter between the two men. Stetson wrote the show’s opening episode.

Harrison says he had to have a negotiation with himself about how far towards an impersonation it was possible to go without it feeling like one, especially in relation to King’s voice, familiar to so many from his “I have a dream” speech in Washington in 1963. “I did decide ultimately that I wanted to get as close to the voice as possible,” he says. There was a biological component to think about, though. “The man had huge lungs,” he laughs.

"I walked how he walked, gestured the way he gestured": British actor Aaron Pierre as Malcolm X - Richard DuCree/National Geographic

For his part, Pierre watched countless hours of footage of Malcolm X and immersed himself deeply in the role. “I wouldn’t describe myself as a method actor,” he says, but “maybe two thirds of the crew didn’t even know I was from London, because I stayed in accent the whole time. I walked how he walked, gestured the way he gestured.” After filming ended, he says, “it took me a while to relearn my own gestures, because I’d spent six months trying to not imitate, but embody him”.

The actor grew up on a council estate in West Croydon (a stone’s throw from where Stormzy comes from, in south London) and was able to draw on being subjected to racism “multiple times” to inform his portrayal – “it’s a deeply hurtful experience, and it’s a deeply saddening experience,” he says. Yet he insists, “I’m fortunate to have grown up where I did – acceptance and understanding of race, heritage and religion wasn’t something I had to learn in my adulthood. I had friends who were Muslim, who were Christian, who were Rastafarian, it was just normality for me.”

He’s not the only Brit in the production. I May Destroy You’s Weruche Opia plays King’s wife, Coretta Scott King, and Lennie James, a veteran of Line of Duty and The Walking Dead, plays King’s father, Martin Luther King Sr. James was one of the first wave of British actors to try their hand in America, partly because of the lack of roles for black actors. Pierre notes that in theatre in the UK, “I’ve always felt I could play any role, but in terms of television and film, my opportunities seemed considerably more limited”. Harrison says that working with the Brits was a revelation. “I felt like I came into this with a lot of discipline,” he laughs. “But those are real thespians.”

The meeting: Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X shake hands in Washington DC, 

March 26, 1964 

- Universal Images Group/Marion S Trikoskor

As for his own experience of racism, he says, “I’ve always looked at people as, we’re just brothers and sisters, that’s it,” but he has experienced “people not giving me the same respect... I’ve also experienced a lot of tokenism. Now is that blatant racism? Not necessarily.” But, he adds: “I know it’s still in the air. I can feel it.” He won’t always call it out, he says, unless he thinks, “This is just disrespectful and inappropriate”. He notes that because he grew up in the 2000s, his experience of racism “is more nuanced. I don’t get it as explicitly as we get to see it in the show”.

Of course, both King and Malcolm X had direct experience of white supremacists – Malcolm’s father had been repeatedly threatened and died in a suspicious streetcar accident when his son was six, which his mother maintained was a racist murder. King’s family home was bombed when he led a city-wide bus boycott against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. I wonder if Harrison thinks that it is still a significant problem in American society, given that clear links have been established between the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and white supremacist organisations. “Yeah, of course it is still a problem,” he says. “There are people out there that believe that and feel that way.”

There is a “looming anxiety” about the possibility of a second Trump presidency in his “internal conversations”, he says, but he adds: “I think it’s one of those things, where you have to be really patient and you have to listen to what everyone has to say. And just see where we end up. I am not a believer in allowing the anxiety to create a new monster.”

Genius: MLK/X begins on National Geographic on Saturday 3 February at 9pm

It’s the Class War, Stupid: An Evening With Noam Chomsky

By Noam Chomsky, Anthony Dimaggio , Raihan Alam

April 28, 2023
Source: Counterpunch


In mid-April, we hosted renowned linguist, political analyst, and activist Noam Chomsky for a speaking and Q&A event at Lehigh University as part of the Douglas Dialogues forum. The event was attended by hundreds of students, faculty, and staff, and provided the Lehigh University community an opportunity to engage in contemporary political issues with Professor Chomsky, as related to the rise of global and domestic extremism. This reflection looks at some of Chomsky’s insights, and what they tell us about the state of democracy in America today.

It’s been over two years since the January 6th insurrection, where thousands of far-right rioters stormed our nation’s Capitol in an attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of executive power. FBI director Christopher Wray referred to the insurrection as an act of “domestic terrorism,” and reports suggest that far-right extremists have killed more people in our country than have domestic Islamist fundamentalists since 9/11. In this political environment, Chomsky exposes the causes of rising rightwing extremism, and spent much of his time with the Lehigh community discussing this issue of growing concern.

When asked what he thinks of the rise of the right in U.S. politics today, Chomsky points out that this isn’t simply an American, but an international phenomenon. Citing the rising popularity of rightwing ethno-nationalists across the world from Nigel Farage in the UK and Marine LePen in France to the AFD Party in Germany, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and religious nationalists in Israel, Chomsky recognizes that, while each nation has its own unique flavor of rightwing nationalism, rising extremism is happening all over the world.

Chomsky emphasizes the role of neoliberalism as a force that fuels rightwing, authoritarian, and fascistic politics. He points to rising inequality and worker insecurity across the globe in the last 40 to 45 years, highlighting a “bitter, savage class war” that’s being fought by both major U.S. political parties, on behalf of plutocratic elites, and against the large majority of Americans who have seen their economic positions stagnate or decline during this period. In the U.S., a corporate elite has imposed a political-economic system that institutionalizes stagnant wages and household incomes, pressures workers to increase productivity, fuels an assault on labor unions, does nothing to stop spiraling health care costs and rising mortality, and that has grown the incarceration state, as the profits hoarded from these practices accrue to the top one percent of wealthy Americans who own and control the economy.

Chomsky cites a report from the Rand Corporation, which finds that U.S. business elites have siphoned off an incredible $50 trillion in additional wealth over the last three decades, at the expense of working, middle class, and poor Americans. The Rand report uses polite academic language, talking about rising economic inequality from 1975 to 2018, in which income and wealth growth have “not been evenly shared,” and with inequality having “increased substantially by most measures” to the tune of an additional $47 trillion captured by the wealthiest Americans, at the expense of the bottom 90 percent of income earners.

Chomsky is more direct and blunt in his language. He talks about how this class war has “opened the doors for the sheer robbery of the American public” on behalf of plutocratic elites. Chomsky argues that the intensifying class war is a perfect environment for an authoritarian demagogue to rise to power, playing on the fears and anxieties of an increasingly insecure citizenry. This demagogue – Chomsky cites Trump as exhibit A – tells his supporters that he loves them, while stabbing them in the back by further intensifying neoliberal policies such as business deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy, which fuel not only rising inequality, but the global environmental crisis that springs from a lack of regulations on the fossil fuel industry. In classic Chomskyian style, he points to the incredible power of propaganda, with the fossil fuel industry playing the role of “merchants of doubt,” muddying the waters of public discourse on whether climate change is even real, thereby blunting potential government action on this mounting crisis. Trumpian-style demagoguery, Chomsky argues, is instrumental to direct public attention away from an elite driven class war, with public anger being stoked via the shameless exploitation of hot button culture war issues. Among them Chomsky includes anti-vaxxerism – which he points out “has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.” Another diversionary tactic is the mainstreaming of “great replacement” propaganda within the GOP and in rightwing media, which depicts white working-class Americans as under assault due to the immigration of non-white peoples, who threaten to make white people a minority. Finally, Chomsky talks about an authoritarian effort on the American right to demonize any group with expertise that might challenge the GOP, its deceptions, and its plutocratic supporters. These much-maligned experts include journalists, scientists, and medical professionals, among others with technical skills who may not echo GOP propaganda. As Chomsky argues, the message that’s delivered in this war on intellectualism is that “it’s not the corporate sector that is guilty” of shafting the American people, but rather “the liberal elites” and other technocrats, who are supposed appendages of the Democratic Party and working against normal Americans. Understandably, Chomsky finds this rising anti-intellectualism to be extremely disturbing, as it foments distrust, alienation, paranoid delusion, and isolation, which have undermined efforts to form progressive democratic social movements that might fight back against plutocracy in America.

One of the most important lessons Chomsky left his audience with is that the rise of extremism and plutocracy are not inevitable. If we want a more just society, we must organize and fight for one. It won’t just fall into our laps. Social movements have created change before, and they can do it again. But it’s up to us to make that dream a reality.

One of the first questions Chomsky was asked during the student Q&A was, “What do you see the future holding as tensions rise and class warfare becomes more pronounced?” He answered, “It’s up to you…. If only one side is engaged in class war, you know the outcome. If both sides are engaged, it’s quite different.”

Chomsky highlighted cycles of change in the 20th century. He described how labor unions were decimated by President Woodrow Wilson’s Red Scare and associated crackdowns from corporations in the 1920s. The decline of labor unions preceded the Gilded Age, a time of abject poverty and massive wealth inequality. Yet, the Gilded Age was met with an intense reaction from social movements. Labor unions and organizations like the AFL-CIO began to organize industrial actions and disruptive sit-down strikes. Such pressure, alongside a sympathetic White House under Franklin Roosevelt, led to the passage of the New Deal, which created the groundwork for social democratic institutions, including the welfare state, regulation of business, and worker protections. Take for example Social Security, which provides benefits to tens of millions of Americans today and is one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in U.S. history.

Yet, we don’t have to go back a century for examples of democratic movement successes. The Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests of 2020 were one of the largest, if not the largest, protests in U.S. history. As many as 26 million people reportedly participated in the protests. This was about 10 percent of the adult population. The protests preceded Executive Order 14074, which changed federal agency use-of-force policies. BLM also made significant changes to public awareness, and forced local police departments to confront their troubled histories of racism, racial profiling and police brutality. Research shows that the BLM protests shifted public discourse toward anti-racism. Analyses of social media searches and the news show an increased interest in terms like “mass incarceration,” “white supremacy,” and “systemic racism.” Such an interest was sustained even beyond the height of the protests during the summer of 2020. Other evidence suggests that the BLM movement increased perceptions of discrimination against Black people, and this prompted some vote switching from Donald Trump and third party candidates to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

A second major lesson from Chomsky’s talk is that violence is not the answer to fighting back against rising inequality and the assault on democracy. Chomsky was asked during the Q&A: “Is the threat of violence the only mechanism that we have to either establish peace or progressive revolution?” He answered, “Would violence help overcome these problems? There’s no reason to believe that. Resorting to violence is moving into the arena where the enemy has the power. If you’re a tactician, you don’t move into the arena where the opponent is powerful, you move into the arena where the opponent is weak.” The “enemy” in this reference would seemingly refer to a plutocratic political-economic elite, which Chomsky targeted throughout his talk as the primary threat to American democracy.

Chomsky discussed how those in political power use protest-related violence to justify their opposition to social movements. He used the BLM protests of summer 2020 as an example, pointing to how, despite BLM being overwhelmingly non-violent, a fringe of protestors, and in some cases agitators, rioted, looting stores and destroying property. This played right into the hands of media outlets like Fox News, whose pundits loved the riots because they gave them a chance to demonize the movement. As numerous studies documented (see here and here), Fox News consistently tied rioting to BLM to tarnish the movement and its social justice objectives. Even though the vast majority of BLM protests have been peaceful, examples of violent protests were used to increase perceptions of the criminality and violence of BLM. Such perceptions diminish support for BLM and their goals for police reform.

Chomsky referred to violence as “a gift to the enemy.” Instead, change must come from “active organization and activism.” As he reminded the audience, it was the peaceful protests of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement that led to the passage of the Civils Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. was inspired by Henry David Thoreau and Mahatma Gandhi’s advocacy for nonviolence, and used it as the organizing principle for the Civil Rights Movement. In the Social Organization of Nonviolence (1959), MLK criticized violence, describing it as an unattractive social force, and argued that only self-defense is morally justified and able to gain popular sympathy. Yet, MLK did not advocate for passive resistance or resignation. He advocated for “militant nonviolence,” the consistent pressure of civil protest in the form of mass marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and strikes. Reinforcing Chomsky’s and MLK’s point, contemporary research shows that civil resistance campaigns have been twice as successful as violent campaigns in achieving political change.

We believe that Chomsky makes a provocative and compelling argument about the vitality of social movements and nonviolence to change. He is also right to identify how wealthy elites are engaged in a class war that utilizes culture war propaganda. When party officials rile up their base by drawing on transphobia, cultivating fear about critical race theory, stoking fear about an assault on Second Amendment rights, and mainstreaming “great replacement” propaganda, the party’s base becomes increasingly radicalized. The GOP base falls into this culture war messaging, despite being the victims of an elite class war. As we have found in our own national polling data out of Lehigh University’s Marcon Institute, only about 1 percent of people identifying as Republican also identify as upper-class, and only 11 percent identify as either upper-class or upper-middle class, meaning they hail from professional backgrounds that are likely to be part of the corporate-business class, or the group of white collar professionals on the periphery of the corporate upper class. Fifty-four percent of Republican Americans identify as middle-class, with another 26 and 9 percent respectively identifying as lower-middle or lower class. This means that the lion’s share of the 89 percent of Republicans who identify outside the upper class are the sorts of people who are likely to have been hurt by rising worker insecurity and intensifying inequality in the neoliberal era. Yet, these individuals embrace the GOP’s culture war, which directs attention away from the party’s active assault on its own base.

But there’s more to this story. Our work at Lehigh’s Marcon Institute documents how white supremacy is a social force that exercises ideological power over the public. It has always been a power in its own right in a country that historically idealized and practiced slavery, and later Jim Crow segregation, and continues to indulge in ethno-nationalist rhetoric that elevates whites to a dominant status. White supremacy has been constant, in various forms, throughout American history, and we shouldn’t relegate this factor to secondary status in explaining continued inequality in America today. Chomsky is right that racism is utilized as a weapon to reinforce classism among modern operatives of the plutocracy within the GOP. But racism also operates independently to reinforce white privilege and power at a time when the population is rapidly diversifying demographically away from a Caucasian white-identifying majority. We are talking today about a population in which – depending on the survey question asked – a third to half of Americans, and most republicans now embrace a mainstreamed version of white supremacy that accepts Great Replacement propaganda, celebrates confederate iconography, and elevates white identity to a national ideal. These are terrifying trends.

Yes, GOP elites are intensifying these reactionary social values by selling culture war propaganda as they kick their base – the vast majority of which are not wealthy – in the teeth on economic issues. But this is such a brutally effective method of control precisely because of the long-standing history of xenophobia and white supremacy that defines American political culture.

Noam Chomsky is an inspiration in the fight against propaganda. Throughout the discussion, he encouraged students to ask questions about how and where we get our information, to think about power relationships, how events are framed, who is doing the framing, and what they stand to gain. Through this intentional and reflective process, we become critically educated. Chomsky’s critical insights provide an invaluable guide for helping to develop consciousness about the inequities in our world, their causes, and what we can collectively do about them.

What Is It About Black History That Frightens the Hell Out of the (WHITE)            Far Right?


Scholar Molefi Kete Asante discusses the radical origins of Black History Month and how it confronts cultural hegemony.

By George Yancy , 

TRUTHOUT

February 24, 2024

JGI / TOM GRILL / TETRA IMAGES / GETTY IMAGES

In February 1926, the Black historian and scholar Carter G. Woodson established Negro History Week, which later became known as Black History Month. In 1915, along with others, Woodson also helped to establish the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, and, in 1916, he started the Journal of Negro History. By 1933, Woodson’s powerful book, The Miseducation of the Negro, was published.

Woodson was a Black intellectual who fought to have the history of Black people told. At the time of his book, Woodson understood that Black people were being miseducated, inculcated with egregious ideas about Black “inferiority” and indoctrinated to believe that they were historyless. He understood that a key part of white supremacy involves the attempt to control the very thoughts of Black people and thereby their actions, arguing that this domination strategy is aimed at producing a situation in which white people “do not have to tell [Black people] not to stand here or go yonder. [They] will find [their] ‘proper place’ and will stay in it.” Hence, for Woodson, the education of Black people necessarily entailed the interrogation of white ideology and mythology that passed itself off as “knowledge.” Education for Black people was designed to liberate and decolonize their minds and generate political action.

When I think about our current celebration of Black History Month, I wonder if Woodson would approve of how this month is being practiced. Is our current approach to this month radical enough in relation to Black knowledge production? To address this theme and others, I reached out to the prolific scholar Molefi Kete Asante, professor in the Department of Africology at Temple University, who has published over 100 books, most recently, The Precarious Center, or When Will the African Narrative Hold? The interview that follows has been lightly edited for clarity.

George Yancy: What do you think Carter G. Woodson would say about how Black History Month is recognized and celebrated in the U.S.? I am worried that, like MLK Day, Black History Month will be stripped of moments and Black figures in history that are deemed “too radical.”

Molefi Kete Asante: Carter G. Woodson was a visionary; he would have visualized an African American population well educated and capable of educating fellow citizens about the achievements and accomplishments of African people. He would say that Black history is American history, and that the celebration of Black history is a profoundly American event. Yet Woodson would not think that merely celebrating was enough; he would wish for an action agenda that would see African American history taught in all public schools because it is the glue that helps students explain social, political and economic discrepancies.

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As to what is radical, no one in our history who has added to the victories over micro- and macro-aggressions needs to be avoided in Black history. It is not just the figures who have been praised by whites that should be honored, but those that whites have shunned such as Nat Turner, Marcus Garvey, Assata Shakur, Maulana Karenga, Bobby Seale and Angela Davis. In addition to those who have been outside of our gaze, there are those who have worked like Fred Gray, MLK’s lawyer, who spent a lifetime attacking all of the vestiges of segregation that he could find in the American South. Gray contributed to civil rights by giving us the practical tools to fight against all forms of discrimination based on race.

We know that the far right (typically, white) bathe in the perpetuation of white lies. They distort our history, and water down its complexity. If history helps to define the spirit and existential vibrancy of Black people, then an attack on Black history is an attack on the lives of Black people. What is it about Black history — its content, its function, its potential — that frightens the hell out of the far right?

Black history challenges cultural hegemony and makes visible that which was deliberately or ignorantly made invisible; in other words, all that we know about African Americans today is the results of a demanding African American insistence that our history be available to everyone.

Carter G. Woodson devoted his entire life to the mission of corrective history about African Americans. With a singular emphasis on the significance of knowing what Africans had done, he was certain that kernels of knowledge about Africa and African American history would transform the way we saw ourselves. He was correct, because almost every Black person who has accomplished something important can point to models, examples and events that inspired them.

Young people who want to achieve something in science, art, artificial intelligence, architecture or culture can discover a bountiful field of African inspirations. This worries the far right because it means that Black people are no longer seeing themselves on the plantation that had been designed to minimize African people to enforce the illusion of white supremacy.

The aim of the far right is not so much a philosophical attack on African Americans (as in critical race theory; or diversity, equity and inclusion) as it is a cultural attack on African people themselves. In a strange way, our Blackness represents the origins of civilization, even beyond that, the beginning of our species, Homo sapiens. Consequently, any progressive social, economic or political project supported by African Americans could be a target of attack. Black people are no longer slinking back away from intellectual confrontation; we are confronting those who threaten our beingness with historical knowledge, wisdom and the assertion of a common humanity. Our aim as human beings is to fight to allow others to be human beings.

Black history challenges cultural hegemony and makes visible that which was deliberately or ignorantly made invisible

I really appreciate the profundity of how you characterize the aim of Black people, and how that aim is expansive and existentially inclusive. As we know, there are many ways that Black people can celebrate Black History Month. What would you recommend? I am especially interested in what you think needs to be emphasized and discussed in ways that have been overlooked. This brings us back to the theme of a more radical way of recognizing the purpose of Black History Month.

I think we should emphasize the nobility of people who have continued to succeed in a tough arena where our achievements have been minimized, ignored or disbelieved. Thus, it is persistent courage that is at the core of our history. Almost every Black community has individuals or groups who have made our history remarkable. Each town, city or community can identify some local figure or figures to serve as markers of persistent courage. It does not have to be material success or athletic prowess, but it could be a schoolteacher who rose to a task of providing space for children to learn history, values, and to receive cultural grounding.

Although MLK Day has taken on the idea of a national day of service in many cities, Black History Month has never had a specific action plan except to provide children with books on African Americans, information about African cultures, and classes and workshops about famous Black people. This is useful and necessary. What I propose for the month is “A Month of Awareness” where every day, those who want to celebrate learn something new for each day. Woodson put several projects and institutions in the service of Black history. He established the Associated Publishers, organized the Association for the Study of African American Life and History and wrote books for all ages. Our task is to make Woodson live in our daily activities by demonstrating awareness of who we are in the context of American and world history.

Children must be taught that the 300 or more African ethnic groups that were enslaved in the Americas came from a long history of civilization. Imhotep, the builder of the first pyramid was an African man. An African woman, Sobekneferu, was the first queen to rule a country in history. Almost all of the skills necessary for human survival were conceived and practiced and in Africa by humans long before migration out of Africa happened for Homo sapiens.

As you’ve demonstrated, Black History Month is certainly about education. What, for you, are the aims of education for Black people? And how might Black History Month resonate in the hearts and minds of Black people beyond February?

Education is different from training and ought to provide students with context, reason and knowledge. Without history, there is no context for students to understand what they learn. This means that reasoning is incomplete, and their knowledge is not a badge of achievement, but a weight around their necks. It is not alarmist to say that education, as a public system, has not always been our friend; indeed, the statistics of the condition of African American education suggest that education has often systematically robbed Black children of motivation, creativity, cultural identity and assertiveness. This means that children often leave school more damaged psychologically and culturally than they could or would, had they remained at home.

What I would love to see happen in the next iteration of Black History Month is a connection to a Pan African spirit. I have found people in Colombia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico, alongside people in the Caribbean and on the continent of Africa who have been inspired by the persistent and determined example set by African Americans to assert a common, nonhierarchal humanity.

At the current time, most schools treat Black History Month as a time for special emphasis on Black achievements, and there is nothing wrong with this idea; it was one of the wishes of Woodson. However, a more positive idea, now that we have the attention of the education system in many areas, is to integrate African American history and culture in every subject area in every classroom by inserting a fact or factoid in every lesson plan. Once this is practiced in any large urban district, it will catch on in others and be deemed a success. Every action takes political will and moral courage, without which it is impossible to succeed.

Beautifully stated, Molefi. I would like to end with a famous quote by Frederick Douglass, whose very birthdate has been erased by the white people who enslaved him and stole that part of his history: “This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”


GEORGE YANCY is the Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of philosophy at Emory University and a Montgomery fellow at Dartmouth College. He is also the University of Pennsylvania’s inaugural fellow in the Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellowship Program (2019-2020 academic year). He is the author, editor and co-editor of over 20 books, including Black Bodies, White Gazes; Look, A White; Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America; and Across Black Spaces: Essays and Interviews from an American Philosopher published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2020.