Montgomery Bus Boycott

                               Don Craven/Time Life/Getty images

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a 42-year old African American woman who worked as a seamstress, boarded a Montgomery City Bus year old  to go home from work. On that bus on that day, she initiated a new era in the American quest for freedom, equality and justice.

Hers was a brave, spontaneous act of defiance  that sparked a flame of rebellion.

                                          Rosa Parks  

She was arrested and convicted of violating the laws of segregation, known as 'Jim Crow Laws' Mrs Parks appealed her conviction and thus formally challenged the legality of segregation. In cities across the South, segregated bus companies were daily reminders of the inequalities of American society.
The next day Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., proposed a city wide boycott of public transportation at a church meeting. The Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) coordinated the boycott, and its president, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., became a prominent civil rights leader as international attention focused on Montgomery. The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed.

The roots of the bus boycott began years before the arrest of Rosa Parks. The Women’s Political Council (WPC), a group of black professionals founded in 1946, had already turned their attention to Jim Crow practices on the Montgomery city buses. In a meeting with Mayor W. A. Gayle in March 1954, the council's members outlined the changes they sought for Montgomery’s bus system: no one standing over empty seats; a decree that black individuals not be made to pay at the front of the bus and enter from the rear; and a policy that would require buses to stop at every corner in black residential areas, as they did in white communities. When the meeting failed to produce any meaningful change, WPC president Jo Ann Robinson reiterated the council’s requests in a 21 May letter to Mayor Gayle, telling him, “There has been talk from twenty-five or more local organizations of planning a city-wide boycott of buses” (“A Letter from the Women’s Political Council”). 

A year after the WPC’s meeting with Mayor Gayle, a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin was arrested for challenging segregation on a Montgomery bus. Seven months later, 18-year-old Mary Louise Smith was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger. Neither arrest, however, mobilized Montgomery’s black community like that of Rosa Parks later that year. 

King recalled in his memoir that “Mrs. Parks was ideal for the role assigned to her by history,” and because “her character was impeccable and her dedication deep-rooted” she was “one of the most respected people in the Negro community”

Robinson and the WPC responded to Parks’ arrest by calling for a one-day protest of the city’s buses on 5 December 1955. Robinson prepared a series of leaflets at Alabama State College and organized groups to distribute them throughout the black community. Meanwhile, after securing bail for Parks with Clifford and Virginia Durr, E. D. Nixon, past leader of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), began to call local black leaders, including Ralph Abernathy and King, to organize a planning meeting. On 2 December, black ministers and leaders met at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and agreed to publicize the 5 December boycott. The planned protest received unexpected publicity in the weekend newspapers and in radio and television reports.

On December 5th, 1955, the Montgomery Bus Boycott began. Since African Americans made up about 75 percent of the riders in Montgomery, the boycott posed a serious economic threat to the company and a social threat to white rule in the city. Out of Montgomery's 50,000 African American residents, 30,000 to 40,000 participated. They walked or bicycled or car pooled, depriving the bus company of a substantial portion of its revenue.

The boycott lasted 381 days, and proved to be effective, causing the transit system to run a huge deficit.After all Montgomery's black residents were not only the principal boycotters, but also the bulk of the transit system's paying customers. The situation became very tense, with members of the White Citizens Council, a group that opposed racial integration firebombed Kings house.
In June 1956, a federal court found that the laws in Alabama and Montgomery requiring segregated buses were unconstitutional. However an appeal kept segregation intact until Dec 20, 1956 when the US Supreme Court upheld the district court's rulings.The boycott's official end signalled one of the civil rights movements first victories and made King one of its central figures.

                               Marin Luther King after Montgomery Bus Boycott
                               Time life/Getty images

With new self respect and a new sense of dignity , it was part of the beginning of a call for revolutionary change, the oppressed were determined to stand up and struggle until the walls of injustice had crumbled. It would be a long and hard journey, which would see them take on and triumph against the dominant  repressive forces of evil.

The bus boycott demonstrated the potential for nonviolent mass protest to successfully challenge racial segregation and served as an example for other southern campaigns that followed. In Stride Toward Freedom, King’s 1958 memoir of the boycott, he declared the real meaning of the Montgomery bus boycott to be the power of a growing self-respect to animate the struggle for civil rights.
This movement has echoes with the divestment movement  and the campaign of boycott against apartheid South Africa, and currently again against the policies of apartheid Israel.

                                          Montgomery Bus Protest

http://zinnedproject.org/posts/tag/montgomery-bus-boycott

Nocturnal Blue/ Silouettes

Nocturnal Blue

Past midnight, I went for a walk
down to the estuary to roam alone,
under the moonglow, where thoughts alighted
anquished anger welcomed strangers kindness.
It was cold but clear, and a freezing hum spoke to me
I have long believed in prophecy,
remembered beginnings, passing its time
between the gnarled roots and the shadows,
brooding upon heavy lidded eyes
shoots shouting, yes you can,
breath congealed, confused murmours
returned to me , again and again,
like a shaman, that had hit me full force,
then tumbled away. moved downstream
as the burnt clearing of memory
penetrated into the bowels of the earth.
Headed home, to plant seeds
chant some passionate verse,
to stubbornly repeat, the science of practice
pray to an unfathomable god
that has vanished from this world.
This heart gulped a glass full of wine, left out
concealed myself in another constellation
slowly dissapeared, underneath, unseen.

Silouettes

the afternoon rolls on, we follow the testimony of brothers and sisters, tonight, we will bask in defiant
thoughts, step by step, the same night fall, we speak to all or nothing at all, at first we tried to be
different, some of us boiling were left unattended, but hopefully now we share, hearts content with
nothing short of justice, joining hands, outside the world is ours.


 

Mary Harris Jones ( 1/8/1837 - 30/11/1930): Mother Jones - The Miner's Angel

Today marks the anniversary of the death of Mary Harris Jones. Dressmaker and militant activist. In her autobiography she claimed she  was born on May 1 1830, though others have put her actual birth as  August 1 1837. What is undisputed is that she was born in North Cork, Southern  Ireland, her grandfather  having been of Welsh stock, who had been hung for fighting for the cause of Irish freedom. Her own father was a Richard Harris, a Roman Catholic tenant farmer, who was forced to flee with his family to Toronto in Canada because of getting into trouble for political activities at the height of the Great Hunger. .
After  leaving school at 17,  Mary taught for a while before leaving Canada and moving to Chicago and becoming a dress maker. Going back to teaching, she moved to Memphis where she met and married the Welsh American George E Jones in 1861. He was an iron moulder who was an active member and organiser  of it's union.
However tragedy struck because her husband and their four children, all under the age of five died in an outbreak of Yellow Fever. Mary tried to recuperate by moving back to Chicago, to become a dressmaker once again, but yet again another misfortune occurred. In the great Chicago Fire  of 1871, she lost everything she ever owned. On her own in the world, she decided to dedicate herself  to the labour struggle for human working conditions, and so began  a life of relentless campaigning against suffering and exploitation.
She said "I would  look out of the plate glass windows and see the poor, shivering wretches, jobless and hungry, walking  alongside the frozen lake front.  The contrast of their condition with that of the tropical comfort of the people for whom I sewed  was painful to me. My employers seemed neither to notice or care.'From then on Mary became a voice for social justice, quitting her job and travelling the country assisting and organising  labor strikes and unions. 

She joined the Knights of Labour Movement and was to become involved in just about every  major industrial dispute in the next half century. From the 1870' to the early 1920's  she travelled to many strikes up and down the country, earning respect and admiration wherever she went,  she became known for her passionate eloquent speeches, that she delivered  to encourage the strikers, taking part in many militant actions, running educational meetings for the workers and their families. She lived amongst the workers, treating them all as equals, inspiring them. Coal miners and their families called her " the miners angel" and such was her empathy  for the workers she began referring to the miners as "her boys" and then they started referring to her affectionately as Mother Jones.

She developed a confrontational style, refusing to compromise on behalf of all that she considered suffering from oppression. In 1877, she was involved in the Pittsburgh Railway Strike, when twenty strikers were killed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877. She showed no fear to the intimidation and violence that was being perpetrated by the authorities, at a time when many radical leaders in the Labour Movement were being harassed, detained and silenced. Despite all this Mary Harris Jones carried on defending.and became involved in the strikes that led to the Haymarket riot in Chicago in 1886.

In 1898 she helped found the Social Democratic Party, which 3 years later became part of the Socialist Party of America. In 1905 she helped start the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). She was the only woman among 25 delegates, who called for a convention to organise all Industrial Workers. Known as the Wobblies, their famous motto was ' an injury to one, is an injury to all' https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2012/06/wobblies-happy-birthday-their-legacy.html

Famously she organised the childrens crusade of striking children from the textile mills of Kensington, Pennsylvania, across New Jersey to President Theodore Roosevelt's own front door in Long Island , New York in 1903. Though the President refused to meet the protestors, this crusade bought the issue of child labour  to the national attention.She made frequent stops to give speeches and tell the public about the effects of this exploitation, and her actions paved the way for the eradication of child Labour in the Unite States. Here she was at 73, still fighting for better conditions, you did not mess with Mother Jones.In 1903 the West Virginian District Attorney, Reese Blizzard dubbed  her ' the grandmother of all agitators, and the most dangerous woman in America.'
Typically clad in a black dress, her face framed by a lace collar and black hat, the barely five-foot tall Mother Jones was a fearless fighter for workers’ rights. She rose to prominence as a fearless organizer for the Mine Workers during the first two decades of the 20th century.Her size and grandmotherly appearance belied her fiery nature. A charismatic speaker, she was adept at staging public events to get publicity for striking workers and her physical courage was legendary. When she stepped on a stage, she became dynamic. She projected wide variations in emotion, sometimes  striding about the stag in a towering rage. She could bring her audience to the verge of tears or have them clapping or bursting with laughter. She was a good story teller and she excelled in invective, pathos and humor ranging from irony to ridicule. 

Mother Jones's low pleasant voice had great carrying power. It was unusual  because it did not become shrill when sh became excited, but rather dropped in pitch so that the intensity of it became something you could almost feel physically. When she rose to speak, Mother Jones seemed to explode in all directions and suddenly everyone sat up alert and listened. No matter what impossible ideas she bought  up, her energy and passion inspired men half her age into action and think she and they together could do anything and also compelled their wives and daughters to join the struggle. If that didn’t work, she would embarrass men to action. "I have been in jail more than once and I expect to go again. If you are too cowardly to fight, I will fight," she told them. 

Mother Jones' organizing methods were unique for her time. She welcomed African American workers and involved women and children in strikes. She organized miners’ wives into teams armed with mops and brooms to guard the mines against scabs. She staged parades with children carrying signs that read, "We Want to Go to School and Not to the Mines."

She was like an anchor to the workers, such was her dedication to their cause, arrested many times, using fearless tactics, with words and deeds, using revolutionary ideas, driven by her underlying passion. She got increasingly involved in the plight of the miners, becoming an organiser for the United Mine Workers Association, the miners themselves started to refer to her as their angel, such was their love for her. In 1911 she was involved in the Paint Creek Cabin Strike in West Virginia. In 1912 she was leading a march of miners children in Charleston, West Virginia. She was back again the next year, this time leading to her arrest. She had become a militant matriarch, uniting the family of labour through her words and her courage.
September 23, 1913 marked the beginning of a massive coal strike in Colorado, she brought news of the strike to the nation, and after the infamous Ludlow Massacre,when twenty people  were machine gunned down by guards after a walkout  by about ninety percent of the workers she made sure that the truth of this got out and that the news was not suppressed.

Woody Guthrie - Ludlow Massacre

When in January 1914  she tried to return she was arrested again. She was convicted  by a military court of Conspiracy to murder and the 83 year old was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Thousands gathered to protest which led to the commute of her sentence. Above all she had once again drawn the press into the plight of the miners and by her actions the Senate ordered an investigation into the conditions in the coalfields.
She went to Pittsburgh in 1919 to support the steelworkers,throughout the 1920s, her fight did not cease, still embracing the movement to her heart,supporting dressmakers in Chicago in 1934, supporting the Revolutionary cause in Mexico. In 1925 she published her autobiography. In it she defiantly wrote 'In spite of oppressors, in spite of false leaders the cause of the workers continues onward. Slowly his hours are shortened, slowly his standards of living rise to include some of the good and beautiful things in life. Slowly, those who create the wealth of the world are permitted to share it. The future is in labour's strong rough hands.' She remarkably continued making public appearances and fighting for the causes she believed in right into her 90's. Determined and strong to the last, when once introduced as a "humanitarian, " Jones argued, "I'm not a humanitarian, I'm a hell-raiser"

She died on November 30th 1930. She is  buried in the Union Miners' Cemetery at Mount Olive, Illinois, alongside the 4 victims of the 1889 Virden, Illinois, mine riot. Mother Jones , the Miners angel had been asked to be buried here. Her 80-ton granite monument  was erected there in 1936, dedicated before a crowd  of 50,000 people, 32,000 of whom had marched to the cemetery.
After her death the American authorities tried to erase her imprint from the history books, they still found her dangerous. But her memory and spirit was impossible to erase, she had overcome personal tragedy to raise peoples hopes , a spark in  the name of solidarity and resistance. She had become the mother of the downtrodden,and the voiceless, who had fought against suffering and exploitation. Across America, today, people still fighting for decent lives, fighting for social justice, raising their voices in defiance. This is Mother Jones's legacy, long may it be honoured. She is now memoralized through the non-profit publication " Mother Jones"

Mother Jones Speaks
filmed on the occasion of her 100th 

birthday 1930

The Most Dangerous Woman

- Ani di Franco & Utah Phillips

Further Reading:-

Autobiography - Mary Harris Jones

Mother Jones: The Most Dangeerous Woman in America
-  Elliot J Gorn.

Mother Jones speaks:
Speeches & Writings of a working Class Fighter
-Mary Harris Jones/ Philip S Glover
(1995) 

'Pray for the dead & fight like hell for the living'. - Mother Jones

Message for Stevie Wonder after finding out he is to provide IDF Soldiers with Support Through Song.

Hey we all kind of do funny things from time to time, seriously, we can get confused, we get invited to things, and the offer seems irresistable to refuse. You have just been invited to play for an upcoming Gala, in support of the Friends of the Israel Defence forces (FIDF) organisation. An annual event. It is  held this year on December 6th at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza in Los Angeles. Guaranteed to be a glitzy affair, their will be lots of other guests and will probably raise millions of dollors not  for charity but to support the Israeli army.
You probably did not want to turn down the invitation, because this gig is a must attend event for the Los Angeles community, and you would not want to be accused of being anti-semitic.  It is not being anti-semitic to not want to support the activities of the IDF however, or the policies of the state of Israel. You might , after standing up against racism and injustice, and  against apartheid South Africa, be accused of a little hypocricy , since lets face it the IDF are mainly known as the force that maintains Israels occupation of the West Bank, and the  ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the area, whilst propping up apartheid policies, taking part in land grabs and other war crimes.  The IDF are terrorists, who have been responsible for the demolishment of 200 houses in Gaza and seriously damaged 8,000 more. Coming  a week after Operation  Pillar of cloud,  your timing is impecabble.
Will you be playing 'I just called to say I love you',  if so I am definitely feeling a little ' uptight'.
Did you not used to talk about Martin Luther King and did you not used to share his ideas, walk along the same paths, with a man  who lived and died trying to break the chains of oppression and injustice.
Stevie the parallels between apartheid south africa and Israel are  clear to understand. An apartheid society is much more than just a 'settler colony'. It involves specific forms of oppression that actively strip the original inhabitants of any rights at all, wheras civilian members of the invader caste are given all kinds of sumptuous privileges.
The apartheid wall which the I.D.F prop up is designed to crush the human spirit as much as to enclose the Palestinians in ghettos. Its route cuts huge swathes into the West Bank to incorporate into Israels illegal settler colonies.

The New Black by the Mavrix
 ( a collaboration between South Africa and Palestine)
South African band, the Mavrix and Palestinian Oud Player
Mohammed Omar

It's never to late  to reconsider, and I'm talking as a fan, I remember how you supported the international call to boycott south africa and your  refusal to perform in their at the time of apartheid, so why would you support an apartheid state now, which side are you on , how come you  now seem to be supporting the oppressors? Their is always time to wrestle with your conscience, identify with the struggle, ,not to get carried away, time  to admit, perhaps, that   if you did this one gig, that you might have something to   regret. I really hope so , because their is no one blinder than those who REFUSE to see between right and wrong.
Thought I'd end with a video of an old song you used to sing, that has much resonance with what you might be about to do,  and a link to  two  petitions that  perhaps someone could have a look at for you, a lot of fans are signing,  they've respected you for a long time, I do hope for a long time to come, so please I am urging you to cancel this performance and stand with the values of justice. You have used your wonderful singing voice to  spread messages  of hope and love, so please Stevie, don't sing for Apartheid.

Stevie Wonder - It's Wrong ( Apartheid)

Petition: Stevie Wonder, don't play for an occupying army
(The Israeli Defence Force)
http://www.causes.com/actions/1708640

Petition: Stevie Wonder: Don't play at the IDF gala fundraiser in LA on Dec 6th
http://www.change.org/petitions/stevie-wonder-don-t-play-at-the-idf-gala-fundraiser-in-la-on-dec-6th

Remi Kanazi - Normalize This! /Coexistence

I have posted some Remi Kanazi before,http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/poetiv-injustice-writings-on-resistance.html a powerful performace poet from New York, thought it apt to publish some more.

Twitter :https://twitter.com/Remroum
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/RemiPoet
Website:http://www.Poeticinjustice.net
Purchase Poetic Injustice http://www.poeticinjustice.net/purchase.aspx~.U13EKGnuVv1

Producer: Tami Woronoff
Cinmatographer:Mike McSweeney
Editor: Mathew C.Levy
Sound: Steve Burgess

Nor-mal-iza-tion:

a "colonization of the mind" whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor's reality is the only "normal" reality... and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with.

Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression, or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with.

In an attempt to whitewash its violations of international law and human rights, Israel attempts to re-brand itself or present itself as "normal" - even "enlightened" through an intricate array of relations and activities encompassing hi-tech, cultural, legal, LGBT and other realms.

Normalization applies to relationships that convey a misleading or deceptive image of normalcy, symmetry, or parity despite a patently abnormal and asymmetric relationship of colonial oppression and apartheid.

-PACBI ( The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel)http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1850

For more infomation on cultural and academic boycott in the US please visit
http://www.usacbi.org/

Remi Kanazi - Coexistence
(taking to the stage Nablus 2010 )

His only Welsh date on his upcoming UK tour is at the Ebbw Vale Institute, Church Street, Ebbw Vale NP23
Saturday December1st 2012.
Supported by the award winning poet Patrick Jones.
Tickets cost £5 Advance £6 OTD
Box Office- 01459 708022
or online at http://www.wegottickets.com/event/192455
Doors open 7.00 p.m, start 7.30 p.m

Prosiect Datblygu

Will be off to see new film by director Owain Lyr  tonight  about my old friends band Datblygu.One of the main reasons I started learning the Welsh language. The premier is in Theatre Mwldan's new digital cinema,  in Cardigan/Aberteifi . 23 Nov, 24 Nov, 25 Nov, 26 Nov at Mwldan 3
You can book your tickets herehttps://mwldan.ticketsolve.com/shows/873486242/events?locacle=en-GB

       Born in a bedroom in Cardigan thirty years ago, the  band  Datblygu were  hailed as
       the first truly modern Welsh-language group, their uncompromising, immense music
       has been described as genius, and their influence on Welsh music as immeasurable.
       Fronted by the charismatic and anarchic rebel poet David R. Edwards, the group
       came to define what T Gwydwr's Gareth Potter calls 'the soul of the Welsh
      underground scene in the 1980s. Datblygu's acidic take on modern Wales - the
      artistic bourgeoisie and politicians were typical targets - liberated a whole
      generation of bands and artists. Five Peel sessions with legendary Radio 1 DJ John
      Peel is some measure of the effect they had on the converted. Championed by Peel but
      ironically ignored by mainstream Welsh media, the band was part of an energetic
      underground scene which also included Y Cyrff, Yr Anhrefn, Ffa Coffi Pawb and
      Llwybr Llaethog, in a random alliance which re-defined Welsh language popular
      music. This new independent film from Director Owain Llyr celebrates 30 years of
      Datblygu, and features extensive interviews with David R.Edwars and Patricia
      Morgan from the group, as well as notable others who remember this anarchic
      ensemble in its prime. Prosiect Datblygu premieres at Theatr Mwldan.
      SUBTITLES

Spoke to Dave the other night , both he and Pat are hoping to make an appearance. It coincicides too with the release of a new four track E.P, which on all accounts ( haven't heard it yet) recalls the classic Datblygu sound and line up of Pat and David. Looking forward to getting hold of it.

This limited edition release will be on sale tonight and through the ankst websitehttp://www.ankst.net/.

A link to earlier post I did is here,  http://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/david-r-edwards-y-teimlad-feeling.html since when David has come on leaps and bounds
and link to wonderful unofficial site for all things Datblygu here http://www.datblygu.com/ and here's a link to another group of lovely people is here.....http://www.facebook.com/Datblygu30

If you want to pop along, I suggest you hurry up, tickets are running out fast, should be a big crowd.

Looking forward/edrych ymlaen.l

Rights Groups Condemn 'Killer Robots'

They're being called 'killer robots' - machines that decided independently on  targets to strike without being told to any human.

Alhtough they do not exist, the world's most powerful armies are taking steps in that direction - and are believed to be available in the next few decades or sooner.

A report this week by Human Rights Watch and the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic titled " Losing Humanity: The Case Against Killer Robots" outlines the danger of these fully autonomous weapons

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Personal Opinion

Once upon a time this was a thing I would read about in Science Fiction novels. Asimov comes to mind who wrote a story back in 1950 called I robot. In his story he chronicles the development of the robot, from its primitive origins to its ultimate perfection in the not so distant future, a future in which humanity  itself may be rendered obsolete.

I find it strange that we never take note of warnings from the past even if it is a work of science fiction.

In an earlier short  story from 1942 ,  called "Runaround" he introduced 3 principles of the robot.
They were:-

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The prospect of developing autonomous wearpons with the capacity to evaluate targeting options themselves is now a distinct possibility.  On a personal note , humanitarian considerations should be put before any military ones, we have so much to lose and much  to fear.
The technology is already out their, we have drones used to kill,  unmanned aerial vehicles, remotely operated killing machines, raining hellfire missiles on inncocents in Pakistan and the Middle East. Since 2008  remotely piloted U.S drones have killed up to 3,000 people  in Pakistan alone.
I guess all wars lead to the erosion of ethics, and humanity seems  to have developed an inate ability to keep killing one another. Perhaps it would  be a better idea, that humanity seeks ways to control their own actions and feelings  without developing robots that can carry out our destructive needs without feeling. After all, certain military strategists aided by politicians  have probably worked out that  they can create machines that make less mistakes, but can carry out nevertheless, more deadly precision killing.
 I strongly feel that the devlopment of and use of autonomous weapons or killer robots should be explicitly prohibited, because I feel they are an abuse of humanity's real needs. Otherwise I fear,   it really will be too late.
Humanity should be seeking ways to find peace, and  getting rid of  existing injustices, instead of marching onwards to a dystopian world, that would mean that we all cease to exist.