Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 818

The Politics of 'Freedom Summer' Style

Dorie and Joyce Ladner at the March on Washington
The Politics of 'Freedom Summer' Style by Tanisha C. Ford | special to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Recently, The Root ran a photo essay titled “Freedom Summer Style” that sparked much intergenerational debate on social media about whether or not Freedom Summer (a large scale grassroots voter registration drive held in Mississippi in 1964) should be remembered for its fashion.  The piece references the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer. The curators use Freedom Summer merely as a reference point to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of black fashion in the 1960s. Yet, the title raises interesting and important questions: is there such a thing as Freedom Summer style? And if so, what does it look like?
There was definitely a style aesthetic among Freedom Summer activists. The women and men from organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) who helped organize Freedom Summer were pioneers of a casual style of dress that was born out of practical and political imperatives. Their look soon became the signature fashion of their generation. SNCC women in particular learned very quickly that it was nearly impossible and impractical to wear the “respectable” look while working on the front lines of the movement. In 1960 when SNCC was founded, prevailing social norms mandated that women wear items such as dresses, pearls, and modestly heeled pumps. Their hair was to be straightened and neatly coiffed.  Activists found it was hard to maintain a press and curl after being covered in food during sit-ins, sprayed with high-powered water hoses during protest marches, and housed in cramped, humid southern jails. Many SNCC women started cutting their hair short and wearing it natural.  James Forman, Cleveland Sellers, Ruby Doris Smith and Stokely CarmichaelEven the men started forgoing trips to the barbershop (mostly due to lack of money), opting instead to grow their hair out. Both genders realized they would need more durable clothes that required less washing and ironing while offering more coverage and protection. This was particularly important for the women who faced threats of sexual violence. Overtime, SNCC women and men started wearing more casual clothing such as denim overalls and denim pants.
Though natural hairstyles and denim emerged out of practical concerns, the style became critical to SNCC’s formal politics. In its early years, SNCC was invested in mobilizing people across class, gender, and racial lines. Their overalls and natural hair became symbols of their political alliance with the sharecroppers they were organizing alongside in the rural South. SNCC also used the denim to distinguish itself as the radical “shock troopers” of the movement whose political views and tactics differed from those of elder members of the Southern Christian Leadership Council who believed fine clothing was an outward expression of their respectability. March on Washington in their Sunday BestBy 1964, the casual denim style was part of SNCC’s public image. Black women seeking membership were often told before joining that the younger women in SNCC did not wear their hair processed and few wore makeup because au naturel was the preferred look. White women who ventured South from northern colleges wearing low cut blouses, heavy makeup, and ornate earrings to volunteer for Freedom Summer soon received a sartorial baptism into SNCC’s mode of dress. Photographs of denim-wearing SNCC leaders such as Joyce and Dorie Ladner, Bob Moses, Stokely Carmichael, and James Forman were circulated in the media. Their images along with people’s personal stories of political and sartorial conversion mythologized SNCC in the press and branded its members radical celebrities. Seemingly overnight, they went from everyday college students to highly sought-after voices of their generation.
SNCC’s transformation occurred during a moment when college students across the country started forgoing more formal attire for “street wear.” This was an important shift particularly for students who attended historically black colleges and universities that had very strict dress codes. For example, Spelman College mandated that its students dressed “professionally,” which meant keeping their hair “well groomed” and wearing stockings instead of socks or going barelegged. But as more Spelman students joined organizations such as SNCC and developed a black consciousness they began pushing back against these restrictive policies. Much of this discourse around the political significance of the clothing of the working class came from social justice organizations such as SNCC.
James Baldwin, Joan Baez and James FormanCasual clothing and natural hairstyles were deemed transgressive by school administrators, even when worn by students who weren’t in the movement, because they challenged long held beliefs in American society about formal attire as a mFocusing on the adornment politics of Freedom Summer does not trivialize its political aims. It helps us broaden our understanding of “black freedom,” moving us beyond a definition that centers on the pursuit of equal access to public facilities. We know these things were important. But activists were also concerned with reaffirming the humanity of black people and the beauty of black culture. Having the power to adorn oneself on one’s own terms was a powerful way to claim, imagine, and embody freedom. SNCC’s embodied activism is, too, the legacy of Freedom Summer.
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Tanisha C. Ford is an assistant professor of Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of the forthcoming book Liberated Threads: Black Women and the Politics of Adornment (UNC Press). She has also written extensively on Hip Hop style politics in the U.S. and Britain and on the popularity of African fashion in the age of social media. Follow her on Twitter: @SoulistaPhD

Decoding the Father Factor: Playing Rough-and-Tumble

WSJ Digital
Fathers who spend time with their kids help instill self-control and social skills, numerous studies show, but exactly how fathers do that is a mystery. WSJ columnist Sue Shellenbarger and father of two Greg Kessler join Tanya Rivero on Lunch Break to decode the father factor. Photo: Greg Kessler

5 Negro Spirituals Every American Should Know

The Fisk Jubilee Singers 5 Negro Spirituals Every American Should Know
*List compiled by Luke Powery, Dean of the Chapel, Duke University
Nobody Knows the Trouble I Seen
“Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” stands as testimony to the travails of African-Americans from slavery and beyond “freedom,” but also resonates universally for its focus on isolation from family and community.  Recorded by many, including Paul Robeson, Marian Anderson, Sam Cooke, and Louis Armstrong, who in this version from 1962, introduces the song as a “light” spiritual.
Were You There? (When They Crucified My Lord)
Published in 1899, “Were You There” is one of the many melodies improvised by enslaved Africans on American plantations.  Beyond its obvious symbolism, the song also captured the reality of the losses that were experienced within communities under siege.  In Max Roach and the JC White Singers' version of the song,  from 1971, the target of mourning could have been any number of figures, including Martin Luther King, Jr.
Wade in the Water
The ripple in the water, as Black bodies escape to freedom—a timeless metaphor for the desire for escape,  and a more timeless reality, that the Fisk Jubilee Singersfirst published at the dawn of the 20th Century.  Here the legendary Sweet Honey in the Rock speak directly to the timelessness of the song.
This Little Light of Mine
Thought of as simply a children’s song, “This Little Light of Mine” was composed by Henry Dixon Loes and later collected by audio archivist John Lomax. The song was transformed in to a freedom anthem via the Black Liberation Movement of the post-World War II era, often performed in sync with Civil Rights marches.  In this version of the song, which appears on Nikki Giovanni’s classic Truth is on the Way album (featuring the New York Community Choir), it is re-imagined as tribute to H. Rap Brown.
Go Down Moses
Another spiritual brought to wider audiences courtesy of the Fisk Jubilee Singers,  “Go Down, Moses”—with the powerful refrain “Let My People Go”—re-orients the story of  Hebrew enslavement in Egypt to speak directly to the conditions of Blacks in America.   Arguably, Paul Robeson is only voice you can imagine singing this song.

Filmmaker Yoruba Richen: What the Gay Rights Movement Learned from the Civil Rights Movement

Ted Talks
As a member of both the African American and LGBT communities,Yoruba Richen, filmmaker and director of The New Black, is fascinated with the overlaps and tensions between the gay rights and the civil rights movements. She explores how the two struggles intertwine and propel each other forward — and, in an unmissable argument, she dispels a myth about their points of conflict. A powerful reminder that we all have a stake in equality.

What Happened When I Was a Breastfeeding Mama in Public

The author with her young son What Happened When I Was a Breastfeeding Mama in Public by Stephane Dunn | NewBlackMan (in Exile)
So here’s the real deal. From July 23, 2009 through June 2011, my breasts were, well, in service to a calling I'd imagined very little in my life. Here’s where you should stop reading if breasts actually breastfeeding are TMI for your grown self to handle and you think of it as a doctor-encouraged thing that should somehow get done without you ever having to know orbe close to it in public. There's really not a worldwide secret mama breastfeeding cult; chances are you’ve been sitting on the same train, bus, plane, or at an office, concert, store, or movie, where an infant was attached to a breast and thank the baby for not punching that handy flap, blanket or jacket wide open as babies do and letting you know it was happening in your public space.
There were times when my then baby son made it downright difficult to breastfeed in secret. By the time he was six months old, he didn’t easily accept having material thrown over him or the darkness. He liked eating and seeing. He never felt inclined to adjust himself to public PC and couldn’t stand being shielded no matter how nice the covering was, and the older he got the less sense it made. He was a flap puncher and kicker. This forced me into many a dilemma. Yes, most times I’d brought the bottle (s); I timed the feedings, but then I had to wait in line longer than expected or the plane was delayed or it was just a lot of trouble getting to the ammo in the bags or he just plain wasn’t having the bottle which he never really loved and kept going for the sure thing.
Hey, I could’ve let him holler his demand and really get on some people’s nerves. Still, I felt pressured to pull it off as a secret between my baby and me. To breastfeed or not -- I couldn’t be sure I could do it and make sure no polite strangers talking loudly on cell phones or burping loudly or slobbering all over each or showing me the crack of their behinds every time they bent over wouldn’t be disturbed by the sight of me doing that doctor-prescribed good thing and be forever scarred by a glimpse of a part of my breast.
I understood the unwritten rules. Nipples flashed and breasts barred are okay if they're in a nude shimmery thing on the red carpet at a music or fashion show or ditto on the red carpet or safely encased in the pages or the cover of a fashion magazine sold at the local grocery store or if it Like I said, nobody had to give me any written down rules of the American book of breastfeeding decorum. A 2012 Save the Children report on the most breastfeeding supportive industrialized countries ranked the US as the worst on matters such as maternity leave. I initially felt embarrassed about having to do it at inopportune times.  Ditto with the leaking thing, oops so sorry, I keep forgetting people will read this publicly, but in the spirit of full disclosure chances are if not me, you’ve sat right beside some breastfeeding mama who was seconds away from literally spouting the evidence.
I flashback sometimes to running through the airport with some precious milk I’d expressed while away on an overnight business trip. It hit me that I’d not only have to explain the contents of my freezer bag in security, but I was worried that they wouldn’t survive my travel day and on top of that I was leaking already. You know how difficult it is to walk around seeping through your breast pads contemplating where in the universe of a plane it will be remotely comfortable to express that milk? There is no such place; you just wish you could teleport your infant’s mouth and handle business.
I’m just saying what happened to me when I was that breastfeeding mama trying not to make it public. I spent much of my time breastfeeding while carrying on a business call – via phone and video sometimes from the neck up, writing, and yes going out in public shopping, traveling, hanging out, etc. I began to silently fume at what a generally unfriendly breastfeeding culture we have when it comes to public spaces and people in public. I bore my discomfort quietly until my baby was almost done with breastfeeding. I went uh huh, yeah whenever I googled and read how women in a few other countries breastfeed at will without much attention and for far longer than mammas do on average here with real maternity leave time. 
My discomfort eased towards the end; I was supportive in thought and sometimes verbally of women I peeped that were uncomfortable when it was clear they needed to do the deed in less than ideal moments and locations. It riled me every time the subject came up, in public, cause another mama had done the deed in public causing the debate to swirl. Like now.
Congratulations, Ms. Karlesha Thurman.  You handled your most important business and some more excellent business, graduating from college, simultaneously. Some are crying disgrace – what did one blogger say – something like you should have been studying in third period instead of getting pregnant? Ouch. It doesn’t negate the fact that you determined to finish college, improving the possibilities for not only your life but your child’s as well. That picture of you, a woman, a black woman, breastfeeding, graduating, in that moment and in that space, joyful in both roles, it’s the kind of powerful public shout out that says this is part of the story of who women have been and who we are too in the 21st century.  This is who I’ve been too, quietly kept.
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Stephane Dunn, PhD, is a writer who directs the Cinema, Television, & Emerging Media Studies program at Morehouse College. She teaches film, creative writing, and literature. She is the author of the 2008 book, Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films (U of Illinois Press). Her writings have appeared in Ms., The Chronicle of Higher Education, TheRoot.com, AJC, CNN.com, and Best African American Essays, among others. Her recent work includes the Bronze Lens-Georgia Lottery Lights, Camera Georgia winning short film Fight for Hope and book chapters exploring representation in Tyler Perry's films.

BYP100 Announces #CriminalizedLives Video Campaign to Document Criminalization of Black Youth

Black Youth Project

Chicago, IL - BYP100 has announced a national call for Black Americans between the ages of 13-35 to submit 1 to 3 minute videos sharing a message they want to send to law enforcement about how they've been criminalized by the police.

BYP100 will use the stories submitted by young Black Americans to develop its public policy agenda and direct action campaigns across the country. These videos should be sent to byp100videos@gmail.com no later than July 31st, 2014.This is a first step in a long-term campaign to end the criminalization of Black youth who are disproportionately arrested, stopped and frisked and profiled by the police. The campaign was sparked after a group of BYP100 members were racially profiled on the campus of Princeton University. This same group actually had a healthy dialogue with the police officer that was recorded, posted online, and quickly went viral. But they know that this story is not the standard response from police when confronting many young black people.
"As Black youth we don't feel like we get the benefit of the doubt," says Devin Barrington-Ward, a BYP100 member based in Washington, DC.
There are certainly many police officers that carry out their duties with honor and integrity. Sadly, there are numerous law enforcement officials who continue to criminalize and abuse Black youth through racial profiling, abuse and unlawful arrest. However, this is not a campaign only meant to highlight the actions of bad police officers. BYP100 wants to highlight the many ways that young Black people are thought to be and treated as criminals instead of citizens.
Black youth are constantly reminded that in the minds and actions of the system of law enforcement, they are people to be contained, monitored, detained and arrested-that is a criminalization of their lives. Young Black people are all too often seen as criminals and not humans with rights that must be respected. It is time that we hold the police and all those who would criminalize us accountable for their actions; one crucial way of doing this is by empowering youth to speak truth to power.
"Through the #CriminalizedLives campaign, we will move closer to ending criminalization by amplifying the stories of young Black people, young women and men, Black LGBT and queer youth who have been criminalized by the police and turning their stories into action," says BYP100 National Coordinator Charlene Carruthers. 
Visit http://bit.ly/criminalizedlivesvideo for more information on this campaign.

How BBQ Transcends Race, with Michael Pollan

Big Think
Michael Pollan explains that there are times when barbecue has proven to be more important than race. Pollan is the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma. His latest is Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.

Intersection: Congo's Sunday Fashion

New York Times Video
In Goma, Sunday is the day that people dress up and Kwame Lebon Ekumali Longange, a self-professed sapeur who designed his own unique tie skirt, is no exception.

The Ladies of 'Raisin in the Sun' on WSJ Cafe

WSJ Digital
The Ladies of "Raisin in the Sun"--Anika Noni Rose, LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Sophie Okonedo--on WSJ Café talk Tonys, Lorraine Hansberry, and stage fights.

HuffPost Live: Pastor Jamal Bryant Under for Fire Sexist & Homophobic Language

HuffPost Live


A controversy is brewing after Maryland pastor Jamal Bryant of Empowerment Temple referenced Chris Brown's song "Loyal" during a church sermon. Did his use of the lyrics "these hoes ain't loyal" go too far, or are we missing the message?Hosted by: Marc Lamont HillGuests:

Dr. Brittney Cooper @ProfessorCrunk (New Brunswick, NJ) Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University
Pastor Leslie Callahan @fifthpastor (Philadelphia, PA) Pastor of St. Paul's Baptist Church
Dr. Tamura A. Lomax (Richmond, VA) Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University
Will Mega @MrWillMega (Philadelphia, PA) Political Activist and School Administrator