Tag Archives: Civil Rights Movement

Obama Tells Black Graduates to Soar

By Robin Bates | Published: May 15, 2015

Michelle Obama used images of flight in a recent commencement speech at Tuskegee University. It was reminiscent of the way Toni Morrison uses flight in “Song of Solomon.”

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Selma’s Bloody History

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2015

Gregory Orr’s poem recalls his arrests in Alabama in 1965.

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Keeping the Civil Rights Dream Alive

By Robin Bates | Published: August 28, 2013

Great Civil Rights moments are great. Movements are better.

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Ain’t gonna let the SC turn me ’round

By Robin Bates | Published: June 28, 2013

The Supreme Court’s assault on the Voting Rights Act means we may have to break out the old freedom songs again.

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Harper Lee’s White Liberal Fantasy

By Robin Bates | Published: May 3, 2013

Important though it was, “To Kill a Mockingbird” was also a white liberal fantasy.

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The White Liberal in Civil Rights Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: February 25, 2013

White Liberals suffer a downward spiral in 1960’s Civil Rights Literature, from heroic Atticus Finch to “Radical Chic” Leonard Bernstein.

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MLK: A Diamond Molded by Pressure

By Robin Bates | Published: January 16, 2012

Nikki Giovanni’s “In the Spirit of Martin” talks about Martin Luther King and others in the Civil Rights Movement as having been molded by the immense pressure into crystalline diamonds.

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