Film: "Blood Done Sign My Name" (trailer)

I received my Ph.D. in modern U.S. History and African American Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2002. My primary adviser, mentor and friend there was Tim Tyson, one of the great Movement historians of our time. Tim taught me a lot about being a scholar and an activist, about being a storyteller, about being a citizen. The research I conducted for my M.A. thesis, which was titled, "'Communist Front Shouts Kissing Case to the World!' The Committee to Combat Racial Injustice and the Politics of Race and Gender during the Cold War," became a part of one of the chapters in Tim's first book, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power. His second book, Blood Done Sign My Name, is part Movement history, part autobiography. It focuses on the murder of an African American Vietnam veteran in Oxford, North Carolina, during the early-1970s and the social impact of that event on the local community and beyond. Tim's family participated directly in this saga. The incredible thing about this award-winning book is that it is also a personal meditation on race, remembrance and, ultimately, reconciliation. What do we do with these troubling pasts once we unearth them? How do we honor the past, while moving forward into the future... together?

Blood Done Sign My Name has been made into a feature film, starring Rick Schroeder as Tim's dad! Here is the official trailer:


It is rare that this type of story makes it to the big-screen, so I hope you will check it out. Here are a few things you can do:

1. Go see it.

2. Ask your local independent cinema theater to book it.

3. Help spread the word to other folks in your networks.


Here is another clip of Tim talking about the film:


And here is the song, "Blood Done Sign My Name":

Continuing Adventures in Racial Politics

Some good articles have appeared recently dealing with racial politics in the U.S. Check 'em out...

• The Defender has a nice piece on the Black Power Conference that took place in March.

• An excellent analysis of youth and the "post-racial society." Be sure to read the (scary) comments, too!

• A new study shows that college-educated African Americans lose more jobs than their peers across the racial line.

• Here is an AWESOME 1972 interview with Miraim Makeba by Nikki Giovanni.

• This is an important critical piece on Obama's back-peddling on justice for thousands of black farmers who were systematically screwed over by the feds for several decades.

• Colorlines has a nice article focusing on the business class and conservative pundits' attempts to scapegoat policies that are aimed at helping minority communities get access to credit as the supposed cause of the banking crisis.

Elizabeth Catlett, "Panther" (1993)

(click image to enlarge)

Yuri Kochiyama's Revolutionary Spirit

Most USians have never heard of Yuri Kochiyama. Her story is not taught in most schools. The lessons of her experience go unlearned. That is a real shame because Kochiyama has been one of the leading social justice advocates in the United States for more than 40 years:

• In a 1965 Life magazine photograph taken moments after the assassination of Malcolm X, Yuri is the woman in thick black glasses cradling his head in her hands as his bullet-riddled body lies splayed on the floor. As a longtime resident of Harlem, Yuri, a petite Japanese-American woman and mother of six, fought for black nationalism and Black Power.

• In 1977 Kochiyama was one of thirty people who stormed the Statue of Liberty and held it for nine hours to bring attention to the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.

• In the 1980s, Kochiyama and her husband -- whom she met at a World War II internment camp -- lobbied for reparations to Japanese Americans who were imprisoned by the government during that war.

• In recent years, Kochiyama has been a passionate critic of American foreign policy, drawing links between her internment during WWII and the detainment and harassment of thousands of Middle Easterners since September 11.

A 2002 article in the East Bay Express explains, "To mainstream America, the Movement may be dead, little more than textbook photographs of protesters marching arm in arm. But to Yuri Kochiyama, the Movement is alive and well and living in the Bay Area. And one of its most emphatic voices comes not from an idealistic Berkeley student, but from an eighty-year-old who gets around with a walker."

So who is Yuri Kochiyama? What is her story?

Yuri Kochiyama was born in 1921 in San Pedro, California. As teenagers, Yuri and her two brothers lived a red-white-and-blue, oh-so-apple-pie existence. Yuri taught Sunday school, volunteered for the YWCA and Girl Scouts, attended every football game in a town where high-school sports mattered above all else, and even joined the Women's Ambulance and Defense Corps of America, which preceded the Women's Army Corps.

Religious and baseball-obsessed, Yuri grew up as Mary Yuriko Nakahara in San Pedro, a port town just south of Los Angeles. Her father had come to America by himself, later returning to Japan to find a wife. He found her teaching at the school where his father was principal. In San Pedro, Seichi Nakahara owned a fish market. He often did business with Japanese steamships and sometimes brought ship officers home for dinner.

Most of the residents of Terminal Island, located just across the bay, were Japanese immigrants, but in the town where the Nakaharas lived the population was mostly white, working-class Italian and Yugoslavian immigrants. "We Japanese kids never felt embarrassed that our parents couldn't speak perfect English, because no one's parents spoke perfect English," Yuri said.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor radically changed Yuri Kochiyama's life:

But all that changed on December 7, 1941. Yuri had just returned home from Sunday school when a knock came at the door. Three FBI agents wanted to see her father. He was sleeping, having returned just the day before from the hospital where he underwent an ulcer operation. Within minutes, though, the agents rushed him into his bathrobe and slippers and whisked him away. The Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor.

The next day, agents returned and rifled through everything in the house. For days the family didn't know where their father was. Finally, a lawyer located him in a federal prison across the bay on Terminal Island. Yuri's mother pleaded with authorities to take him to the hospital and send him back to jail when he was better. Meanwhile, Yuri's twin brother Peter, then a student at UC Berkeley, hitchhiked home, since no one would sell him a train ticket. By December 10, both her brothers tried to sign up for military service. Peter was accepted even though his father was accused of spying.

When Seichi Nakahara was finally returned to a hospital, his bed was the only one in the ward bearing the sign "Prisoner of War." The children were allowed to visit only once. Peter came in his uniform, and his father quivered when he saw him. Unable to recognize his son, he thought that someone had come to interrogate him. A week later, on the evening of the 20th, the hospital sent Seichi home in an ambulance. Overjoyed at first, the Nakaharas soon realized he was dying.

"Because he couldn't talk, we didn't know if he could hear," Yuri said. "We waved our fingers in front of his eyes, but he didn't move."

By next morning he was dead at age sixty. The FBI called to warn that anyone attending the funeral would be under surveillance. Friends defied the five-mile travel ban placed on Japanese Americans to show up at his service. FBI agents stood at the doors.

And, of course, internment made a deep and lasting impression on Kochiyama:

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order No. 9066, authorizing the military to remove people of Japanese ancestry from their homes to prison camps. Yuri considers her family lucky because they had more than a month to prepare, while some only had forty-eight hours. After being forced to live for six months in a horse stall at the Santa Anita racetrack, Yuri, her mother, and oldest brother were tagged, numbered, and loaded onto cattle trains. No one knew where they were going. The Nakaharas ended up in a concentration camp in Jerome, Arkansas. Two of Yuri's brothers joined the U.S. military during the war.

They lived in barracks, twelve to a block. The camps ran self-sufficiently. Everyone had a job. First-generation Issei women ordered cloth from the Sears-Roebuck catalogue to make curtains for the toilet stalls. Yuri continued to teach Sunday school. Many of the second-generation Nisei GIs were stationed in the south and would visit by the busloads on the weekends. The young women formed their own USO in the camp for them.

Here is Sandra Oh reading the words of Yuri Kochiyama from Howard Zinn's Voices of a People's History:


Because of her experiences during the Second World War, Kochiyama is most riled by unjust imprisonment -- whether of Movement revolutionaries, Iranians during the Iran-Contra affair, or Middle Eastern immigrants today. She tirelessly follows hundreds of cases of Americans she considers political prisoners, including Mutulu Shakur, Yu Kikumura, George Baba Eng, Bashir Hameed, Abdul Majid, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Mumia Abu Jamal, Ed Poindexter, Mondo we langa, and others. She writes regularly to many of these prisoners and publishes her own newsletter.

Here is a nice segment from Democracy Now! that features Yuri Kochiyama discussing her internment during WWII as well as the assassination of Malcolm X:


She is also featured in a documentary, titled "Freedom Fighters":


So, what makes Yuri Kochiyama unique?

First, as an Asian American, she represents a history, a set of experiences, a perspective, a community that is often ignored, or overlooked, both in the broader U.S. culture, as well as in Movement annals.

Similarly, the same could be said about the fact that Kochiyama is a female activist/organizer/leader. Although we know that women were integrally involved in all of the social movements of the 1960s-era, their contributions are often ignored altogether or overshadowed by male public leaders who hogged the limelight.

Third, Kochiyama is "unusual even among activists. While many pay lip service to the notion of diversity, few, if any, have worked for so many causes and embraced so many distinct ethnic groups. 'I don't think there are too many people you can really say were involved simultaneously in cross-cultures in a real day-to-day basis,' said family friend Nyisha Shakur, who used to make prison visits with Yuri on the East Coast. 'I don't think I know of any others.'"

Here is a good video clip on this point:


Fourth, Yuri Kochiyama's is a profound example of a "life led in struggle." She embodies "a revolutionary spirit," a total commitment to social justice.

More should know about her. Spread the word...

Rumble in the Jungle

H+B Gallery out of Los Angeles has posted a collection of Howard L. Bingham's photos of the "Rumble in the Jungle," the epic 1974 boxing extravaganza in Zaire between George Foreman and Muhammed Ali.

To see the thrilling final round of the fight, including Ali's shocking knockout of Foreman, click here. To see the mayhem afterward as well as Ali's post-fight interview, click here. To see more footage and hear Norman Mailer's recollections and analysis of the fight, click here.

There is also an excellent documentary on the fight and surrounding craziness called "When We Were Kings." Here is what Salon had to say about the film. Here is a review of the soundtrack. It earned a 97% "fresh" rating over at Rotten Tomatoes... virtually unanimous critical opinion that the documentary is great.

I've selected some highlights from the Bingham collection and tried to post them chronologically, for the most part, so that they have a kind of loose narrative flow...































Here is the link to the H+B site... check out all the photos in the exhibit there.

The Music of the Civil Rights/Black Power Movement

When I teach about the civil rights and Black Power movements, I like to use a lot of music. Here is the 2-CD set I put together this semester...




CD1 - "'Freedom Songs': The Music of the Civil Rights Movement"

• A few earlier “race songs” (the blues impulse):
Track 1: Hellhounds On My Trail, Robert Johnson
Track 2: Black, Brown, And White Blues Song, Big Bill Broonzy
Track 3: Strange Fruit, Billie Holiday
Track 4: Mannish Boy, Muddy Waters

• The gospel impulse:
Track 5: We Shall Overcome, SNCC Freedom Singers
Track 6: This Little Light of Mine, Odetta
Track 7: Oh Freedom, Gospel Choir
Track 8: Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, Julius Lester
Track 9: Keep Your Eyes On the Prize, Mahalia Jackson
Track 10: Woke Up This Morning with My Mind Set on Freedom, SNCC Freedom Singers
Track 11: Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, Julius Lester
Track 12: I shall not be moved (1992 version), Ry Cooder & Pop Staples (from Staple Singers)

• The jazz impulse:
Track 13: Alabama (excerpt), John Coltrane

• Songs from/about Mississippi (the folk impulse?):
Track 14: I'm Going Down to Mississippi, Phil Ochs
Track 15: Mississippi Goddamn, Nina Simone
Track 16: The Ballad of Medgar Evers, Bob Dylan
Track 17: Freedom School Song, Jack Landron
Track 18: Shadows on the Light, Mathew Jones
Track 19: Ella's Song, Sweet Honey In The Rock
Track 20: Fannie Lou Hamer, Sweet Honey In The Rock

• Soul music as freedom music:
Track 21: Keep On Pushin', Curtis Mayfield
Track 22: A Change Is Gonna Come, Sam Cooke

CD2 - "'Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)': The Music of the Black Power Movement"

Track 1: "Power To The People,” Huey P. Newton
Track 2: Living For The City, Stevie Wonder
Track 3: Chocolate City, Parliament
Track 4: Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud), James Brown
Track 5: Blackenize, Hank Ballard
Track 6: Am I Black Enough For You, Billy Paul
Track 7: Mighty Mighty (Spade And Whitey), Curtis Mayfield
Track 8: Dance to the Music, Sly & the Family Stone
Track 9: Makes Me Wanna Holler, Marvin Gaye
Track 10: We're A Winner, Curtis Mayfield
Track 11: Why? (The King Of Love Is Dead) [Live], Nina Simone
Track 12: The Backlash Blues, Nina Simone
Track 13: I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open the Door and I'll Get It Myself), James Brown
Track 14: Fight The Power, The Isley Brothers
Track 15: Give The People What They Want, The O'Jays
Track 16: (For God's Sake) Give More Power To The People, The Chi-Lites
Track 17: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, Gil Scott-Heron
Track 18: Whitey On The Moon, Gil Scott-Heron
Track 19: "Change It,” Kathleen Cleaver

Enjoy!

Headin' to "the Selma of the North"

I'm heading to Milwaukee tomorrow for the 40th anniversary celebration/commemoration of that city's landmark open housing demonstrations. From 1966-1968, housing, along with police brutality, was one of the most important, but contentious, issue in the northern struggle for racial justice. In 1966, thousands of white erupted in violence outside of Chicago when Martin Luther King led a march for fair housing. In Milwaukee, from August 1967 through April 1968, Vel Phillips, Fr. James Groppi, the NAACP Youth Council and Commandos led 200 consecutive nights of marching in order to force passage of a city-wide fair housing ordinance. In response, thousands of hostile local whites attacked peaceful marchers on the white ethnic south side of the 16th street viaduct in scenes eerily similar to the violence at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Yet, local activists and their supporters were not deterred. When Fr. Groppi made an ecumenical call for support, hundreds of people from across the country poured into the city to bear witness and march. With Black Power sweeping the Movement, the Milwaukee open housing campaign was seen by many as a "last stand for an integrated, non-violent, church-based movement." In the wake of King's assassination in early April, 1964, the Milwaukee Common Council finally passed a tough local ordinance barring racial discrimination in the sale or rental of local property. The Milwaukee campaign also contributed to passage of the historic 1968 Fair Housing Act.

One of the interesting dynamics of the Milwaukee civil rights era is the unique leadership of Fr. James Groppi, a white Catholic priest who served as the advisor to the local NAACP Youth Council and Commandos. Groppi grew up on the city's heavily Catholic white ethnic South Side, so was seen as a religious and race traitor by many. The Youth Council constituted the shock troops of the local Movement. The Commandos were a self-defense group formed in 1966 after a Klan bomb blast destroyed the Milwaukee NAACP office and thousands of angry whites threatened violence in suburban Wauwatosa during a peaceful protest outside the home of Judge Robert Cannon. The Commandos practiced what they called "not violence." They walked along the outside of march lines, didn't carry weapons or start any violence, but fought back if provoked or attacked by white onlookers or racist police. In this way, they offered a compelling tactical alternative to pure Kingian non-violence as well as other Black Power groups, like the Black Panthers, who carried weapons, or advocated revolutionary violence as a tool for liberation. Together, Groppi, the Youth Council and Commandos stood at the vanguard of Milwaukee struggle for racial justice from 1965 through 1969.

Oh, there are lots of fascinating dynamics to the Milwaukee Movement story, but you'll have to wait until my book comes out to read all about 'em... (smile)

"Burn, Baby, Burn"

Between 1965 and 1968, hundreds of American cities, big and small - Detroit, Newark, Harlem, Tampa, Watts, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Rochester, Cambridge, Danville, Chicago... - erupted into racial violence, the legacy of systematic racial inequality, poverty and urban decay. The violence climaxed during the summer of 1967 and in the wake of Martin Luther King's assassination in the spring of 1968. Later that year, the Kerner Commission report stated that the civil disorders were the result of racism and poverty and warned that "our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white - separate and unequal."

For a time during the late-1960s and early-1970s, there were some who attempted to address the deep problems of urban America and a few modest gains were even achieved, but as Kevin Boyle, author of "Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights and Murder in the Jazz Age," writes in his essay (below), "In the late 1970s and '80s, the national commitment to the urban poor unraveled, destroyed by a furious white backlash and a resurgent conservatism that vilified big government and sanctified the free market. With that shift in American politics, hope gave way to neglect. It has been 30 years since the federal government really invested in America's inner cities. The only time anyone talks about segregation is when the Supreme Court prohibits another school district from employing the mildest of racial remedies. The welfare state has been eviscerated, not expanded. Even progressives prefer to focus more on the needs of the middle class than on the burdens of the poor. And on the streets of Detroit and in other urban cores, life grows inexorably grimmer."

Today, the "urban crisis" remains one of the most persistent problems confronting the United States. Unfortunately, for most white Americans, the urban crisis is little understood and often distorted. Mainly it is avoided or ignored. I'd like to suggest that in order to understand the ongoing chasm of caste and class in America, and ultimately fix it, we need to first delve into the roots of the problem. Recently, there have been a flurry of "40 years later" reports in the media about the riots of 1967 and their contemporary meanings. If you want to take a look, here are some examples:

Detroit riot of 1967, the largest of the era:
Kevin Boyle on 1967 Detroit riot, the largest of the era
Detroit News Special Series: "Panic in Detroit: Forty Years Later"
Detroit Free Press: "Lessons from the '67 Riot"
NPR: "Remembering the Riots: Detroit 40 Years Later"
NPR: "40 Years Later, Detroit Slowly Sees Renewal"
NPR: "Mayhem in the City: The Detroit Riots"
NPR: A Voice from the Detroit Riots: Loretta Holmes
NPR: Eyewitnesses to Detroit's Chaos
NPR: Blog of the Nation - A Long, Hot Summer in Detroit
NPR: Painting Depicts Desperation of Detroit Riots

Newark riot of 1967:
NYTimes: "With 40-Year Prism, Newark Surveys Deadly Riot"
NPR: Examining the Newark Riots 40 Years Later
Current TV: Newark Riots Forty Years Later
NPR: 40 Years On, Newark Re-Examines Painful Riot Past
NPR: Newark Still Affected by Decades-Old Riots

Other cities:
YouTube video on Watts Riot
Series of stories by NPR on 1965 Watts Riot
Hough (Cleveland): This One Was Planned (TIME Magazine)
Hough (Cleveland): The Jungle & the City (TIME Magazine)
NPR on 1967 Cambridge, MD, racial violence
NPR on 1967 Plainfield, NJ, racial violence
Chronology of 1967 Milwaukee Race Riot

Kerner Commission, or National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders:
excerpts from the 1968 Kerner Commission report
Kerner Commission, 30 Years Later

The Impact of 1960s racial violence:
Study: Economic Impact of 1960s Riots
Study: Economic Impact of 1960s Riots on Small Businesses
Study: Labor Market Effects of 1960s Riots

Other Relevant Stuff:
NPR: 'Root Shock': Urban Renewal and Black Neighborhoods