Black History

Times change, but the objective of the demonstrations shouldn’t

THE BIRMINGHAM TIMES — Civil Rights Movement tactics may change, but the objectives shouldn’t.

Published

6 years ago

February 7, 2019

By Ameera Steward

Civil Rights Movement tactics may change, but the objectives shouldn’t, said Doris Gary, 85, who participated in the marches of the 1960s and lived in Collegeville when the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth was pastor of historic Bethel Baptist Church.

Doris Gary participated in the marches in the '60s and lived in Collegeville when the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth was pastor of historic Bethel Baptist Church. (Ameera Steward Photo, The Birmingham Times)

[/media-credit] Doris Gary participated in the marches in the ’60s and lived in Collegeville when the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth was pastor of historic Bethel Baptist Church.

“We’ve got so many people now that have so many different opinions about how things should be. We need to come together and be on one accord,” said Gary, who was a member of Shuttlesworth’s Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

“Now, you’ve got demonstrations all over the world, but they’ve got different issues. Ours was a collective effort to end segregation, and that’s what we accomplished at that time. New laws were passed.”

Iva Williams, 49, vice president of the Outcast Voter’s League, said he sees a younger generation that’s “fed up” but in a different way than in the past.

“Millennials have a different outlook,” he said. “It’s a different level of fed up, I think. They just refuse to be held back, if you will. … That’s why it’s incumbent upon guys like myself and … other people … to provide them some boundaries. We have to give them some things to think about. We have to hold them back because … these young people protest a lot differently.”

Some recent demonstrations have involved protests like the one Tuesday evening outside Hoover City Hall after Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said a Hoover police officer took justifiable action in the shooting and killing of 21-year-old Emantic “E.J.” Bradford Jr. at the Riverchase Galleria mall on Thanksgiving night.

Protesters have also made visits to the home of Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato and the Montgomery neighborhood of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall; and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) after its board rescinded a decision to present the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award, to renowned activist and Birmingham native Angela Davis, PhD—a decision the BCRI has since reversed.

The Rev. Arthur Price, 53, pastor of downtown Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, said the objective of protests remains to shine a light on injustices and inequity, so “the community at large might be able to see what this small segment of the population sees [and] to make sure they understand the blight that’s going on in the community.

Martez Files, a 27-year-old organizer for the Black Lives Matter movement and an African-American studies professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), said some often forget the goals of the marches, “why we were doing this in the first place,” he said, before Marshall announced his decision on the Bradford, Jr. shooting. “I know you get so caught up in, … ‘I gotta fight.’ ‘I gotta resist.’ ‘I gotta protest.’ ‘I gotta show up.’ … Then we lose [sight of] why we were doing it.”

“Hateful Acts”

In Birmingham 55 years ago, there was no doubt why the protesters marched.

“The enemy in 1963 was very obvious: [Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Theophilus “Bull” Connor] and the white establishment. They were the enemy, and they were very vocal and very pronounced in their determination to keep blacks in their place,” said the Rev. Dr. Christopher Hamlin, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in West Birmingham. “Now, the enemies … are not as well-known and obvious as they were in 1963. Those attitudes that were very obvious in 1963 may not be as obvious today, with the exception of the number of African-Americans that have been shot, killed, or gunned down by law enforcement officers.”

In addition to Bradford being shot and killed last year by a Hoover police officer, several other young black men have been killed under suspicious circumstances that generated national attention and outrage, including 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed in 2012 by a neighborhood watchman in Sanford, Fla.; 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot and killed in 2014 by a police officer in Ferguson, Miss.; 12-year-old Tamir Rice, who was killed in 2014 by a law enforcement officer in Cleveland, Ohio; and 32-year-old Philando Castile, who was shot in front of his girlfriend and her daughter in 2016 after being pulled over in Falcon Heights, Minn.

“In terms of beatings or violence, … especially upon African-Americans, they did it then, and we see in some of these cases now that this stuff continues to happen today,” Hamlin said. “In many of these situations, it’s all … racism. Racism breeds, produces, stimulates hateful acts. So, if someone exhibits racism or is a racist, that can come out in multiple ways.

“If you’re a police officer, it could very well be mistreatment of blacks or Hispanics. If you’re a loan officer, it could be to give someone a harder time to try to secure a loan for a home or a car. If you’re a realtor, you might put up a lot of roadblocks if someone wants to move into a certain neighborhood. That stuff continues to happen, unfortunately.”

Martez Files, a 27-year-old organizer for the Black Lives Matter Movement and an African-American studies professor at UAB. (Ameera Steward Photo, The Birmingham Times)

[/media-credit] Martez Files, a 27-year-old organizer for the Black Lives Matter Movement and an African-American studies professor at UAB.

Lessons Learned

Williams said the younger generation should be careful not to abandon all the principles of the past.

“Sometimes young people almost run away from anything that has been done in the past,” he said. “If our elders did a sit in at a lunch counter, [today’s young people] want to go in and take over the whole lunchroom. … It just seems like they want to take things a step further. Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s very dangerous because their wanting to take things a step further can sometimes challenge the law, and that’s something we are so intent on not doing. … We just want to exercise civil disobedience.”

Gary said there are lessons to be learned from what happened 55 years ago.

The Civil Rights Movement “accomplished what we wanted to accomplish,” she said.

“We were demonstrating against the injustice of segregation, and laws were passed during the times that we demonstrated. … They removed the [separate] water fountains. They removed the … ‘Colored’ and ‘White’ boards from the school buses. They integrated the school systems. [We] were able to get jobs. [We] were able to vote.”

This article originally appeared in The Birmingham Times.

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Activism

Four Bills Focus on Financial Compensation for Descendants of Enslaved People

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of loss property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

iStock.

Edward Henderson
California Black Media

Last week, California Black Media (CBM) provided an update on four bills in the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC) 2025 Road to Repair package.

The 16 bills in the Black Caucus’s 2025 “Road to Repair” package focus on “repairing the generational harms caused by the cruel treatment of African American slaves in the United States and decades of systemic deprivation and injustice inflicted upon Black Californians,” said the CLBC in a release.

This week, CBM examines four more bills in the package — each offering ways for Black Californians to receive restitution for past injustices — from housing assistance and reclamation of lost property to fairer pay and the establishment of a state agency charged with determining eligibility for reparations.

Here are summaries of these bills, information about their authors, and updates on how far each one has advanced in the legislative process.

Assembly Bill (AB) 57

AB 57, introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), would require that at least 10% of the monies in the state’s home purchase assistance fund be made available to applicants who meet the requirements for a loan under the home purchase assistance program and are descendants of formerly enslaved people.

The Assembly Judiciary Committee is currently reviewing the legislation.

Assembly Bill (AB) 62

AB 62, also introduced by McKinnor, would require the Office of Legal Affairs to review, investigate, and make specific determinations regarding applications from people who claim they are the dispossessed owners of property seized from them because of racially motivated eminent domain. The bill would define “racially motivated eminent domain” to mean when the state acquires private property for public use and does not provide just compensation to the owner, due in whole or in part, to the owner’s race.

AB 62 is currently under review in the Judiciary Committee.

Senate Bill (SB) 464

SB 464, introduced by Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles), aims to strengthen the existing civil rights laws in California concerning employer pay data reporting. The bill mandates that private employers with 100 or more employees submit annual pay data reports to the Civil Rights Department. These reports must include detailed demographic information — including race, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation — pertaining to their workforce distribution and compensation across different job categories. Furthermore, beginning in 2027, public employers will also be required to comply with these reporting requirements.

The Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment, and Rules is currently reviewing SB 464. A hearing is expected to be held on April 23.

Senate Bill (SB) 518

SB 518, introduced by Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), establishes the Bureau for Descendants of American Slavery to address and remedy the lasting harms of slavery and the Jim Crow laws suffered by Black Californians.

SB 518 is under review in the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing is expected to be held on April 22.

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Arts and Culture

BOOK REVIEW: Love, Rita: An American Story of Sisterhood, Joy, Loss, and Legacy

When Bridgett M. Davis was in college, her sister Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Love Rita Book Cover. Courtesy of Harper.

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Bridgett M. Davis, c.2025, Harper, $29.99, 367 Pages

Take care.

Do it because you want to stay well, upright, and away from illness. Eat right, swallow your vitamins and hydrate, keep good habits and hygiene, and cross your fingers. Take care as much as you can because, as in the new book, “Love, Rita” by Bridgett M. Davis, your well-being is sometimes out of your hands.

It was a family story told often: when Davis was born, her sister, Rita, then four years old, stormed up to her crying newborn sibling and said, ‘Shut your … mouth!’

Rita, says Davis, didn’t want a little sister then. She already had two big sisters and a neighbor who was somewhat of a “sister,” and this baby was an irritation. As Davis grew, the feeling was mutual, although she always knew that Rita loved her.

Over the years, the sisters tried many times not to fight — on their own and at the urging of their mother — and though division was ever present, it eased when Rita went to college. Davis was still in high school then, and she admired her big sister.

She eagerly devoured frequent letters sent to her in the mail, signed, “Love, Rita.”

When Davis was in college herself, Rita was diagnosed with lupus, a disease of the immune system that often left her constantly tired and sore. Davis was a bit unfazed, but sympathetic to Rita’s suffering and also annoyed that the disease sometimes came between them. By that time, they needed one another more than ever.

First, they lost their father. Drugs then invaded the family and addiction stole two siblings. A sister and a young nephew were murdered in a domestic violence incident. Their mother was devastated; Rita’s lupus was an “added weight of her sorrow.”

After their mother died of colon cancer, Rita’s lupus took a turn for the worse.

“Did she even stand a chance?” Davis wrote in her journal.

“It just didn’t seem possible that she, someone so full of life, could die.”

Let’s start here: once you get past the prologue in “Love, Rita,” you may lose interest. Maybe.

Most of the stories that author Bridgett M. Davis shares are mildly interesting, nothing rare, mostly commonplace tales of growing up in the 1960s and ’70s with a sibling. There are a lot of these kinds of stories, and they tend to generally melt together. After about fifty pages of them, you might start to think about putting the book aside.

But don’t. Not quite yet.

In between those everyday tales, Davis occasionally writes about being an ailing Black woman in America, the incorrect assumptions made by doctors, the history of medical treatment for Black people (women in particular), attitudes, and mythologies. Those passages are now and then, interspersed, but worth scanning for.

This book is perhaps best for anyone with the patience for a slow-paced memoir, or anyone who loves a Black woman who’s ill or might be ill someday. If that’s you and you can read between the lines, then “Love, Rita” is a book to take in carefully.

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Activism

Faces Around the Bay: Author Karen Lewis Took the ‘Detour to Straight Street’

“My life has been a roller-coaster with an unlimited ride wristband! I was raised in Berkeley during the time of Ron Dellums, the Black Panthers, and People’s Park. I was a Hippie kid, my Auntie cut off all our hair so we could wear the natural styles like her and Angela Davis.

Published

3 days ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Karen Lewis. Courtesy photo.

By Barbara Fluhrer

I met Karen Lewis on a park bench in Berkeley. She wrote her story on the spot.

I got married young, then ended up getting divorced, raising two boys into men. After my divorce, I had a stroke that left me blind and paralyzed. I was homeless, lost in a fog with blurred vision.

Jesus healed me! I now have two beautiful grandkids. At 61, this age and this stage, I am finally free indeed. Our Lord Jesus Christ saved my soul. I now know how to be still. I lay at his feet. I surrender and just rest. My life and every step on my path have already been ordered. So, I have learned in this life…it’s nice to be nice. No stressing, just blessings. Pray for the best and deal with the rest.

Nobody is perfect, so forgive quickly and love easily!”

Lewis’ book “Detour to Straight Street” is available on Amazon.