April 21st-”Radio Free Dixie”-Chapter 10

Scholarly Source: http://books.google.com/books?id=AeU-m7YHL6oC&dq=books+on+freedom+riders&pg=PP1&ots=bEysRWxV0C&sig=3fWSkRTVaEF7TQ8rbvLeas-lYZ0&hl=en&prev=http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Books+on+Freedom+Riders&btnG=Google+Search&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail#PPA5,M1 (Book-Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice)

Public Discourse: http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/freedom_rides.htm

Internet/Electronic Source: http://www.iwfr.org/civilhistory.asp

Reactions/Responses to Chapter 10: In 1961, student activists launched the Freedom Rides which were started to challenge segregation on interstate buses and bus terminals. Riding from Washington, D.C. to Montgomery, Alabama, the rides met violent opposition in the Deep South, garnering extensive media attention and eventually forcing federal intervention from the Kennedy administration.  According to James Forman from the SNCC, Robert Williams became “a figure of growing importance,” who for many appeared to “symbolize the alternative to both tactical nonviolence and nonviolence as a way of life.”  This brought about new supporters and freedom riders from all different towns, states and cities from across the country.  Furthermore, riders wanted the physical presence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., however, the added violence against the riders, King found it to dangerous to actually be present at the rides.  Due to King’s no show, many African Americans began to criticize King for his willingness to offer only moral and financial support but not his physical presence on the rides. In a telegram to King, the President of the Union County NAACP Branch in North Carolina, Robert F. Williams, urged King to “lead by example,” continuing that “If you lack the courage [to ride], remove yourself from the vanguard.”  Many students were not happy with King and as stated by SNCC advisor Ella Baker, the incident caused some students to begin “to look at him as a man, and a man not with all the godlike qualities that had been…attributed to him.”  Despite the drama between the students of the Freedom Rides and Dr. King, the Freedom Rides eventually gained national recognition and helped to bring some stability and attention to the racial inequalities African Americans were subjected to.  

April 14th-Progress on and for Final Project

Scholarly Source: http://www.amazon.com/Civil-Rights-Movement-Photographic-History/dp/0789206560 (Book-The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68 )

Public Discourse: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/national/28till.html (How Photographs Became Icon of Civil Rights Movement)

Internet/Electronic Source: http://www.kingstonuu.org/mlk-photo3.htm 

Progress for and on Final Project: Though extremely time consuming, the gathering of photos for my final project, though no easy task, has been very interesting and I have come across some very controversial photos which I believe will help strengthen my final project.  Furthermore, I have also made some progress on my research for the essay portion of my final project.  I have found this somewhat difficult because it has been hard for me to find other scholarly sources that I can use which reflect the life and role of Robert Williams during the Civil Rights Movement as well as his hand in the beginnings of black power.  I believe this will be one of my more difficult tasks in completeing this final project.  The fact that I need more scholoary sources to help srengthen and analyze Robert William’s life will be particularly difficult since there are not too many books on or about Robert Williams except for Radio Free Dixie and Negores with Guns.  Other than that slight problem, my progress on my final project is coming along nicely and shoudl turn out rather good in the end, hopefully!

April 7th-”Radio Free Dixie”-Chapter 9

Scholarly Source:Freedom Riders : John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the front lines of the civil rights movement / by Ann Bausum ; forewords by Freedom Riders Congressman John Lewis and Jim Zwerg.

Public Discourse:  http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/freedomrides/a/freedomrides.htm (Article on Freedom Rides)

Electronic/Internet Source: http://www.watson.org/~lisa/blackhistory/civilrights-55-65/freeride.html

Reactions/Responses to Chapter 9: With the continuing struggle for equality and civil rights for African Americans in the United States, many black Americans sought a new and believed to be, more productive way of protesting white dominance and supremacy by taking what was called a “Gandhian nonviolence” approach by assembling “Freedom Rides.”  These nonviolent protests consisted of bus load after bus load of African American protestors who went from city to city in order to have their voices heard for the equality of African Americans.  Despite the many dangers and often attacks from unruly white mobs, these “Freedom Riders” still rolled from city to city in order to fight for what they believed a just cause for equality.  The one thing that stood out to me in this chapter was a comment made by a young black seminarian from American Baptist Theological Seminar whose name was Paul Brooks, who basically called out Martin Luther King Junior for not participating in one of the “Freedom Rides,” because he was on probation.  ”Brooks said later that he wished King had simply admitted that he was afraid. I would have respected him more.”  I found this to be very interesting especially since Martin Luther King was such an integral part of not only the assembly and functioning of the “Freedom Rides,” but also because King was one of, if not the most important and recognized figure in the civil rights movement, who was considered a leader, who in this instance decided to not lead by example, but sit on the sidelines.  I believe that because of this one instance, many African Americans decided to support Williams views of “flexibility” and “armed self-reliance” rather than King’s Gandhian Nonviolence approach.  

March 31-”Radio Free Dixie” Chapter 8

Scholarly Source: Eyes off the prize : the United Nations and the African American struggle for human rights, 1944-1955 / Carol Anderson.Public Discourse: http://www.questia.com/read/99157920?title=American%20Communism%20and%20Black%20Americans%3a%20A%20Documentary%20History%2c%201919-1929Electronic/Internet Source:http://depts.washington.edu/labhist/cpproject/pinckney.htmResponses/Reactions to Chapter 8: With the revolution taking place in Cuba and the dethroning of Batista, there was also a revolution taking place in the United States.  As more and more African Americans became aware of the situation in Cuba and the rising communist party of Fidel Castro, so did the popularity of communism in the United States, especailly among civil rights leaders such as Robert Williams.  At this point, not too many African Americans really knew or understood the complexity of the situation in Cuba, however, they did know that or agreed with the ideals and support of Castro’s communist regime.  Though Communism was not what African Americans sought to follow and accept, but rather the ideals and views that people of all color should be accepted and treated as equals.  When Robert Williams was invited to be Castro’s personal guest, Robert Williams gained insight into how the communist party was run and he, like many other African Americans, loved what they heard and saw.  The communist involvement in the civil rights movement, though not directly correlated, played a large role in Williams’ future.  As Williams saw it, Cuba was fighting for the same equality as we African Americans during the civil rights movement.  ”It was an anti-imperialist movement, a movement against foreign domination and against national oppression.” (Page 237)  This view of communism taken up by most African Americans, especially Williams played and continued to play a large role in the civil rights movement in the United States.  This added support from Cuba helped bring the awareness of the situation in the United States to a world wide level, which helped to further fight the oppression of white supremacy and white domination in the United States.  Due to the support of Cuba and many other countries, African Americans now had support outside of the United States which would ultimately help the situation and the civil rights movement in the future.

March 23rd-”Radio Free Dixie”-Chapter 7

Scholarly Source:

Women in the civil rights movement : trailblazers and torchbearers, 1941-1965 / edited by Vicki L. Crawford, Jacqueline Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods.	1990.	SU
Bird-3rd Floor Call Number: E185.86 .B543 1990 V.16 Status: Available

 Public Discourse: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/22/opinion.22collins.htmlElectronic/Internet Source: http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1997/3/97.03.10.x.htmlReaction/Responses to Chapters 7 & 8: As the altercations between African Americans (whom were mostly defending themselves) and white supremacists increased, so did the support for Robert Williams.  However, the support was being rallied from unusual and typically unheard voices of the civil rights movement.  Women were now beginning to take a more active role in not only supporting NACCP leaders and activists such as Williams, but were also taking up leadership roles themselves in the fight for freedom and equality for African Americans. One of these unheard voices of the civil rights movement, Mae Mallory, became one of Robert Williams devoted followers and she herself began to rally for the support of Robert Williams.  After having heard his  speech to the NAACP convention where he stressed the need for black men to “stand up, defend their homes and families, and treat black women with respect,” Mallory began her fight with Williams by “instead of going to work that day, I got up and went in the streets and organized some support for Robert Williams, a man that i had never met.”Due to increasing support from not only black men, but now the increasing support of black women, Williams continued to gain more and more respect and support from African Americans nation wide.  While continuing to try and gain more support in Monroe, North Carolina, he also began to gain support throughout the country by stressing “black economic advancement, black pride, black culture, independent black political action, and what he (Robert Williams) referred to as  armed self-reliance.”  This increase in support not only brought in positive attitudes but negative ones as well because as Williams gained more power, he also gained more hatred and disgust from many white supremacists.In conclusion, the support and role of women in the civil rights movement is an underlying cause for the strengthening and added support for Robert Williams and his cause for equality and advancement of the African American race. 

March 17th-”Radio Free Dixie”-Chapters 5 & 6

Scholarly Source:

Black power movement : rethinking the civil rights-Black power era / edited by Peniel E. Joseph.	2006.	SU
Bird-3rd Floor Call Number: E185.61 .B6 2006 Status: Available

Public Discourse: http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/history/785684,CST-NWS-high09.article (Sun Times-1969, Black Panthers)

Electronic/Internet Source: http://www.sea-urchin.net/buggers/williams.html

Response/Reactions to Chapters 5 & 6: In the aftermath of the Kissing Case, an incident occured in Monroe, North Carolina which would ultimatley test the ideals and views itterated by Williams, as well as character.  In 1959, a young black woman in her home was attacked by a white male who attempted to rape her.  Outraged at this Robert Williams went on television and stated that “if whites are going to come into our homes and use violence, then we must protect ourselves even if violence is necessary.”  This statement got Willaims in some dirt with the NAACP, whom after considering what was said, suspended Williams for six months on the account that he was projecting violence on whites as a self defense.  As a reader, some questions come into my head when facing this situation.  I do not understand why the NAACP would suspend Williams for saying that if violence is necessary, because you are being attacked, then do so to protect oneself.  If the NAACP is trying to push equality and justice for African Americans, then i do not comprehend why they would not support Robert Williams.  It is not as though Williams threatened whites by any means, which is what perplexes me about the punishment the NAACP gave to Williams.  Despite this setback, Williams continued to fight for equality for blacks, even if violence was necessary.  After having served his suspension, Williams began to push for the intergration of pools, which would be yet another obstacle in his way.

March 3rd-”Radio Free Dixie,” Chapters 3 & 4

Scholarly Source:Human rights at the UN : the political history of universal justice / Roger Normand and Sarah Zaidi ; foreword by Richard A. Falk.

Bird-4th Floor

Call Number: JZ4984.5 .N67 2008

Status: Available

Public Discourse: http://www.cnn.com/EVENTS/1997/mlk/links.html (Timeline of Civil Rights Movement-Dates and Descriptions)

Electronic/Internet Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0861704.html (History of United Nations General Assembly)

Response/Reaction to Reading: In the aftermath of World War II, the landscape of domestic politics was in a new era and was in a stage of transition, or at least an attempted transition.  Tyson talks about how the post war era of World War II gave “African Americans an unprecedented power to redeem or repudiate American democracy in the eyes of the World.”  With the approaching and contiuning realism of the Cold War and the “red scare,” the United Nations General Assembly was created, which as a State Department report conceded” has sometimes tended to follow a color line, white against non-whites, with Russia seeking to be recognized as the champion of non-whites.”  Furthermore, the dark-skinned peoples of the Third World, largely sought the formation of the United Nations General Assembly in efforts to compete with the superpowers and largely interms with their own racial and anticolonial concerns.  Like the leaders of these “dark-skinned” counrties, leaders of the NAACP saw the creation of the United Nations as a “powerful podium from which to adress racial issuses.”  In a 1947 petition to the United Nations, the NAACP stated that “it is not Russia that threatens the United States so much as Mississippi…not Stalin and Moloto, but Bilbo and Rankin (state sneators).”  This petetion released by the NAACP, which mainly decried for the “denial of human rights to minorities in the case of citizens of negor descent in the United States, created an international sensation.”  With the newly formed United Nations General Assembly, not only did dark-skinned leaders of Third World countires have a podium to discuss their racial issues, but even groups such as the NAACP had a stage as well where they could voice their opinions and concerns, where the entire world could hear them.  The formation of the United Nations was a major factor in the slowly growing recognition of the problem that was affecting the United States in the post World War II era, racism and the civil rights movement.

February 28th-”Radio Free Dixie”-Intro, Chapters 1 & 2

Scholarly Source: Southern struggles : the Southern labor movement and the civil rights struggle / John A. Salmond ; foreword by John David Smith, series editor.

Bird-3rd Floor

Call Number: HD6515.T4 S25 2004

Status: Available

Public Discourse: http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1231&context=ilrreview (A History of Southern Labor Since World War II)

Electronic/Internet Source:http: www.britannica.com/eb/article-9082763/civil-rights-movement (Civil Rights Movment-Encyclopedia Britannica)

Response/Reaction to Reading: After reading through the first few pages of the first chapter in Tyson’s novel, Radio Free Dixie, I stumbled upon somethign that I found quite Interesting as well as a little dissapointing and upsetting.  On page 7, Tyson talks about southern labor history and especially focuses on National Textile Workers Union, which consisted of many cotton mills.  In addition, Tyson places an exert from the Southern Textile Bulletin, written by David Clark, which read; “the Communists may harangue until judgement day, but they can never convince the cotton mill operators of the South that negroes are their equals.”  I found this very interesting because even though slavery had been abolished by this time, the South, as portrayed by David Clark, still held its hostility towards the notion that African Americans were and are not equals.  Furthermore, though the South still did not except negroes as their equals, white men and black men worked in the same cotton mills.  This caused a lot of tension, and as Robert Williams learned, “the bloody history of race and class conflict in the piedmont made it clear that white supremeacy and the bitter legacy of slavery divided workers far more powerfully than self-interest could unite them.”  Though this was one of Robert William’s so-called “wake up calls” to the hostiltiy in the South and the growing power of white suprmeacy and the Klu Klux Klan, it would not be his last, for he would have to learn how to deal with the constant hardship of racism and hatred for negroes in the South.

Reactions/Responses to “Talk To Me”

Scholarly Source: http://www.emanuellevy.com/article.php?articleID=6205 (“Talk to Me”)

Public Discourse: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/29/AR2006072901054.html (The Black Power of Petey Greene)

Electronic/Internet Source:

http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_3773.shtml (Petey Greene)

Reactions/Responses to Talk To Me and Voice Over:

With the looming shadow of the civil rights movement and the rising power of the Black Panthers, tension was definitely surmounting.  Despite what was going on in the streets, the face of radio was also changing.  With new disc jockeys such as Petey Greene, who lead the forefront of a new era in Black Radio, radio and the personnel on radio were about to make a drastic and more “real” change.  In the movie Talk to Me, Petey Greene is a convict or a miscreant as he would like to be called, who while in prison took up the hobby and art of disc jockeying, where he became a legend.  Once out of prison Petey pursued his dream of becoming a big time radio host and disc jockey by joining WOL of Washington.  Though it wasn’t easy for Greene to get the job, he eventually made his way on to the airways, where his straight forward, street slang talking real approach grabbed the attention of Washington’s black community.  Petey Greene was a new and fresh talent on the airways who furthered himself from the typical white sounding and acting disc jockeys of the time.  The movie Talk to Me relates to the book Voice Over in many ways.  In parts five and six of Voice Over, Barlow describes the changes taking place on the airways after World War II and before the civil rights movement.  At this point in time, disc jockeying was changing its voice and face.  As the Black Panthers gained more and more support as the civil rights movement intensified, characters like Petey Greene were taking over the airways with such force that not only were people tuning in to listen to the music, but also to gain insight and advice.  This switch from black disc jockeys imitating white radio hosts to a more real and harsh aqpproach changed radio airways for the next century.  Disc jockeys such as Petey Greene brought about a new era which was focused towards “the people, for the people, by the people.”

Voice Over-Parts V and VI

Scholarly Source: Radio and the struggle for civil rights in the South/ by Brian WardBird-5th Floor           Call Number: PN1991.8.A35 W37 2004                Status:Available 

 Public Discourse: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE2DE123BF932A05750C0A96F948260&scp=12&sq=black+power+radio&st=nyt (The New York Times-Black Talk Radio) 

Electronic/Internet Source:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/reviews_in_american_history/v033/33.2boyle.pdf 

 Reading Response to Voice Over Parts V and VI: As the rampant growth of the civil rights movement continued to transform the nation’s political landscape another change was taking place on the airways.  Like many changes throughout black radio history, the transformation of radio in the early 60′s was not one to be overlooked.  With the momentum of the civil rights movement, black popular music began a new transformation from its post World War II era.  Music in the 60′s was not focusing so much on Rhythm and Blues but rather was changing their views and giving way to “soul” music.  This new “soul” sound was not a sound departed from its close cousin of Rhythm and Blue, but rather a variation.  Soul music incorporated Rhythm and Blues, but also intertwined gospel song structures, chord progressions, harmonies, and vocal styling as well as positive lyrical messages in the music.  This new era of soul music helped to popularize radio especially throughout the black community, and was able to unify a community to withstand the added and negative pressure of the Jim Crow laws as well as the civil rights movement in general.  As soul music spread like wildfire throughout the airways and the chitlin circut, so did the popularity of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and the Drifters.  This new sounding soul music produced messages with a more social nature rather than a religious one.  This new era in black radio history would one day pave the road for what would one day become pop and hip-hop.  Without the transition of soul, music would not have been able to make the drastic change to a more loud, direct/in your face, up beat sound of pop and hip hop.