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Was Reconstruction a Success or a Failure? And Why It Matters - A Review and Commentary on This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed

Paul Richards, PhD Estuary Press
I celebrate Radical Reconstruction, a brief moment of glory, no matter how blindly and halfheartedly we, as a nation, did it. Did Reconstruction end racism? No. Does that make it a failure? No again. Considering it a failure is like considering the civil rights movement a failure because it only abolished segregation and not racism.

The Phenomenal Life and Legacy of Leon Letwin

Angela Davis Portside
[M]inority candidates will, with some frequency, come with unconventional political backgrounds and views as judged from majority perspectives. Regentally imposed political tests which assault the academic freedom of all will fall upon such candidates with unusual severity. (Leon Letwin's letter in defense of Angela Davis in 1969, relevant today as we defend faculty members such as Steven Salaita.)

Emmett Till's Cousin: `Murder Never Crossed My Mind' After He Whistled

by Ryan Loughlin & Joie Chen Al jazeera America
On the 60th anniversary of Emmett Till's murder, his cousin says history still hasn't told the whole story. His cousin recalls the night he last saw him. It's been 60 years since the murder of Emmett Till, but his story remains unfinished. His death helped spark the civil rights movement and frame the ongoing debate over racism in America.

Black Lives Caught in the Cross Hairs of Injustice

Re:Sound -- Third Coast Festival / WBEZ radio
As the movement for racial justice spurred by the seemingly endless series of police killings of African Americans grows we are reminded that the issues are not new, they are endemic in U.S. history. What happens after the headlines subside? The truth has been buried too often, and for too long and there can be no justice until these stories are resurrected, scrubbed of their racist falsehoods. U.S. history needs to be put right.

Between the World and Me: 10,000 Years From Tomorrow

James Forman Jr. The Atlantic
The permanence of racial injustice makes the struggle for the future necessary today, says James Forman Jr. Over the next few weeks, The Atlantic will be publishing a series of responses to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me. This is the first in a series. Readers are invited to send their own responses to hello@theatlantic.com, to follow along on Twitter at #BTWAM, or to read other responses to the book from Atlantic readers and contributors.
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