#historic-demonstrations

#historic-demonstrations

Trump claimed, 'I had the same exact crowd maybe a little bit more,' referring to his July 4th event compared to MLK's speech, despite estimates showing a significant difference.

The success of mass protests can be notoriously hard to evaluate. Even groups with focused messages, such as the antiabortion March for Life, can go decades before they achieve a tangible win.

Following presidential custom, Trump issued a National Black History Month proclamation on Feb. 3 that maintained "black history is not distinct from American history - rather, the history of Black Americans is an indispensable chapter in our grand American story." Yes, but: Its rhetoric, critics say, stands in tension with the Trump administration's recent actions, raising questions about whether commemoration without context ultimately obscures more than it honors.

If you know anything about the basic origins of Black History Month then you know that we weren't given' anything. The question of who owns and authorizes Black History Month holds particular relevance now, in its centennial year, and at a time when efforts to celebrate, preserve, and acknowledge Black people's past in this country are under attack.

She remembers walking with her big brothers down a sidewalk fractured by the roots of old oak trees while children played hopscotch on the playground. She remembers going outside and clapping erasers together so that plumes of chalk dust rose above her head. And she remembers being told that she was attending a school that many white parents had taken their children out of just a few years earlier because they didn't want them sitting in class with Negroes.

I'm concerned that all of the advances that we made for the last 61 years are going to be eradicated. Charles Mauldin, 78, one of the marchers who was beaten that day, expressed this concern about potential Supreme Court limitations on the Voting Rights Act.

On March 2, 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks' more famous act of defiance, Claudette Colvin, a Black high school student in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested after refusing to give up her seat on a public bus to a white passenger.