The Walk to Freedom was a mass march during the Civil Rights Movement on June 23, 1963 in Detroit, Michigan. It drew crowds of an estimated 125,000 or more and was known as "the largest civil rights demonstration in the nation's history" up to that date.

Various ministers and leaders of local and national organizations including the Mayor of Detroit were in attendance and gave speeches. Among them was Martin Luther King Jr. who after the Walk to Freedom March gave an impassioned speech. It was a precursor to his famous "I Have a Dream" speech given weeks later in Washington, D.C.. The march itself was, to King and his supporters, partly a practice run of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.[1]

Due to the greater size of the March on Washington, the Detroit Walk to Freedom has been somewhat lost to obscurity outside of local Detroit history.[2] At the time, Dr. King called it “one of the most wonderful things that has happened in America.” [3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detroit_Walk_to_Freedom

A probationary Detroit firefighter who was terminated for delivering an enormous watermelon wrapped in a pink bow to a predominately black fire station as “a welcome gift” has filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming he was fired because he is white.

The lawsuit by former firefighter Robert Pattison claims he was racially discriminated against because the Detroit Fire Department “would never have discharged a black employee for gifting a watermelon.”

Pattison, who has a checkered employment past, made national headlines when the department fired him on Oct. 5, declaring the watermelon “was deemed offensive and racially insensitive.” Even most of Detroit’s white firefighters defended the firing, and the firefighters’ union declined to take up Pattison’s case.

Watermelons have been used since the 1860s to denigrate black people, who were portrayed in caricatures as impish, lazy, unclean and mindless buffoons. In the 20th century, the vile depictions of African Americans, often with oversized, blood-red lips, raggedy clothes and very dark skin, showed up on postcards, ashtrays, cookie jars, board games, souvenirs and during minstrel shows. When Obama was elected president, photoshopped images of watermelon patches on the lawn of the White House became popular memes, and a Boston Herald cartoonist illustrated the commander in chief brushing his teeth while a man in the bathtub asks, “Have you tried the new watermelon flavored toothpaste?”

Donald Trump has been obsessed with race for the entire time he has been a public figure. He had a history of making racist comments as a New York real-estate developer in the 1970s and ‘80s. More recently, his political rise was built on promulgating the lie that the nation’s first black president was born in Kenya. He then launched his campaign with a speech describing Mexicans as rapists.

The media often falls back on euphemisms when describing Trump’s comments about race: racially loaded, racially charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. And Trump himself has claimed that he is “the least racist person.” But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a racist. He talks about and treats people differently based on their race. He has done so for years, and he is still doing so.

Here, we have attempted to compile a definitive list of his racist comments – or at least the publicly known ones.

Thirty-five years after it was first imposed, a judge has lifted a consent decree barring the Republican National Committee from pursuing “ballot security” measures.

In their 1981 lawsuit to stop the RNC from engaging in certain practices at the polls, the Democratic National Committee attested that in a New Jersey gubernatorial election, the RNC had sent sample ballots to communities of color, and then had the names for each ballot returned as undeliverable removed from voter rolls. Democrats also alleged that the RNC hired off-duty cops to patrol majority-minority precincts, wearing “National Ballot Security Task Force” armbands. These details were enough to secure a consent decree between the two party organizations and the court in 1982, stopping the GOP from engaging in such voter-intimidation practices.

Except, Democrats alleged, they didn’t stop. The consent decree was updated in 1987 after Republicans created a voter-challenge list of black voters from whom letters had been returned as undeliverable, with an RNC official saying that the list could “keep the black vote down considerably.” The decree was modified again in 1990 after a court ruled the RNC had violated it by not telling state parties about its provisions, which had led to the North Carolina GOP sending 150,000 postcards to potential voters listing voting regulations, in an apparent attempt at intimidation. The GOP violated the court order again in 2004 after yet another voter-challenge list targeted black voters.

With that history of behavior in full view, federal courts moved to allow the decree to expire in December 2017, a decision that was finalized Tuesday by a federal district court. For the first time in three decades, the RNC can pursue ballot-security measures without court preclearance.

Amanda Golden‏ Verified account @amandawgolden

Just received this alert in Hawaii



1:09 PM - 13 Jan 2018