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This Week in People’s History, Dec 4–10

Portside
A 1969 Black Panther Party poster by Emory Douglas Black Panthers Under the Gun - I (1969), Teddy Roosevelt Gives U.S. Imperialism the Nod (1904), Racist Terror in Vicksburg (1874), Black Panthers Under the Gun - II (1969), Coltrane Lays Down a Masterpiece (1964), A Rocky Start for Gay Rights (1924)

The Canonization of Saint John Coltrane

M.H. Miller New York Times
The intensity of the jazz legend’s music has always inspired passion, but in the 1960s, one group of devotees was so stirred they founded a church in his name.

John Coltrane. A Love Supreme: Live in Seattle

Mark Richardson Pitchfork
A previously unknown recording from a small Seattle club in 1965 documents one of the saxophonist’s signature works—spiritual, searching, unstoppable—as never heard before.

A Sound Supreme

John Fordham The Guardian
John Coltrane learned his trade with Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk - and eventually outshone them all. John Fordham celebrates the great saxophonist.

Friday Nite Videos -- January 23, 2015

Portside
Rhiannon Giddens -- She's Got You. Love Letters to Richard Dawkins. 'Alabama' John Coltrane and Martin Luther King. The History of Vaccines. Majority Retort.

'Alabama' John Coltrane and Martin Luther King

The composition "Alabama" was released in 1963 shortly after the horrific murder of four little girls in a church in Birmingham, AL. Some jazz writers claim that the tune is not about these four girls. Steve Rowland disagrees and thinks that Coltrane might have based his composition on Martin Luther King's moving eulogy. See what you think!

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