Tuesday, August 25, 2015

The Latest From The Rag Blog

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Dick J. Reavis :
We are the New Union Army!

It’s time to wear our colors as we work to
help finish the Civil War.

union cap
Drawing of kepi cap by Miriam Lizcano / The Rag Blog.
By Dick J. Reavis | The Rag Blog | July 12, 2015
In a recent book about the Southern Civil Rights Movement, professor, SNCC veteran, and author Charles E. Cobb tells a story that is useful to us today.
Among the people who turned out for the fourth day of the 1960 sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C., were the members of the football team at the historically-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. When the team got to the downtown Woolworth’s store, the site of the sit-ins, it found that a mob of whites had formed a cordon around the place. So the team formed a flying wedge and as its members broke through, one of the jostled whites hollered “Who do you think you are?” “We’re the Union Army!” a footballer hollered back.
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Jay D. Jurie :
Community between the anvil and the hammer

Police violence against African-American communities continues to be a commonplace feature of national life and must be seriously addressed.

black lives matter
Image from Hands Up United.
By Jay D. Jurie | The Rag Blog | July 7, 2015
The Black Panthers: Early proponents of Black Lives Matter
Matthew Johnson, an unarmed 16-year old African-American with his hands in the air, was shot in the back and killed by a police officer in the Hunter’s Point district of San Francisco on September 27, 1966. In response, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and several others formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense the following month.
Denzil Dowell, an unarmed 22-year old African-American, was shot and killed by police in North Richmond, California, on April 1, 1967. Police claimed Dowell was attempting to burglarize a liquor store and was killed by “a single shotgun blast” after he refused an order to halt. A coroner’s report found six bullet holes in Dowell’s body and evidence that he had been shot with his hands up and in the process of surrendering. Nonetheless, an all-white jury found this a case of “justifiable homicide.”
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