Frenesi

[Terrance]

Wasn't even born yet. I didn't have a tube when I was a kid. I learned
about this stuff reading  books and listening to scholars reinterpreting
the movement in narrow ways. I got the idea that it was a single epoch
(late 50's to early 70's) involving the persistent effort of minorities
and their white supporters to secure civil rights. Young people, young
Black Americans, the books said, the professors told us, were swept up
in a campaign   (P has a lot of fun with this in GR, Katje and Pirate in
Hell discussing the broom of history that swept up young Catholic boyz)
that was merged into the anti-war protest later on. The most important
cat was MLK, who inspired them to demand access to policy makers and
initiate advocacy programs for their own communities. Meanwhile,
students and cool professors fought to legitimize Afro-American studies
and Women's Studies, and all that good for ya stuff, into the curricula
and for representation of minorities in American society. These books
and lectures were cogent, tightly organized, and well-received by the
audience of students who were mostly  Bloomindale's models. Of course us
poor mother fuckers sitting there with them didn't feel no better about
all that guilt and indignation we knew was gonna turn up soon or later
and backlash us crowing Jims. Problem was, the reinterpretation in those
books and in those lecture halls was wrong in every aspect.  

Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 1/4/04 6:40:04 PM, lycidas2 at earthlink.net writes:
> 
> << Yeah, those who took part in the mass struggles of the 1960s and early
> 1970s will know that the birth of the struggle coincided not with the
> initial campaign for civil rights but with the demand for black
> liberation; that the leading influence was not Martin Luther King, Jr.,
> but Malcolm X. >>
> 
> I disagree, but one trace an evolution, especially of the role
> the media played. I can remember sitting spellbound in front
> of the tube watching the federalized national guard of Alabama
> confronting George Wallace standing in the doorway of the U.
> of A. attempting to block the matriculation of the first two
> Afro-Americans in that school's history. I was probably eating
> Sugar Smacks at the time, but it was breathtaking, and inspiring,
> too.
> 
> http://www.npr.org/display_pages/features/feature_1294680.html