Search Results for: malcolm x

Sonia Sanchez Speaks Truth to Power, Poetically [INTERVIEW]

Sonia Sanchez, great voice of the Black Arts Movement and beyond Consider it a creative insult to limit poetry’s national recognition to the month of April. Nonetheless, I thank the establishment (a.k.a. the Academy of American Poets) for establishing National Poetry Month, as readers politely dust the dirt off poetry titles too often neglected. For sure, every day African-American poets amass work worthy to be read, studied, praised and adored worldwide. What better authority than the legendary poet Sonia Sanchez to magnify the art form that pre-dates David’s psalms and continues to emerge through brilliant poetic voices—many of whom owe Sanchez praise for her tutelage? RELATED: AMIRI AMOUR: BARAKA IN MEMORIUM A formalist with wide poetic range, Sanchez’s vast body of work includes poems that delve into themes that resonate…
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The National Black Caucus of State Legislators – A Historical Reference

Black State Legislators from Reconstruction to the Present Legislative Black Caucuses The National Black Caucus of State Legislators The modern Voting Rights movement can be traced to the 1944 decision of the US Supreme Court in Smith v. Allright to outlaw the White Primary in Texas.http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/archive/html/vce/features/0503_01/smith.html .  This was a key decision argued by Thurgood Marshall. Prior to the Court’s ruling, the Democratic party in the South (Dixiecrats) was allowed to set its own internal rules. This meant that the outcome of the Democratic Primary determined the outcome of the election. Therefore, all white primaries meant that African Americans were effectively excluded from  political power.  http://books.google.com/books?id=npem7JszWfkC&pg=PA108&dq=smith+v+allright&num=8&client=internal-uds&cd=1&source=uds . As African Americans returning from fighting abroad in World War 11 began to advocate for more political representation, the white power structure (in the South) reacted to…
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