Join me along with book Editor Dr. Charles McKinney and chapter author David Mason for a book launch to celebrate this edited volume that puts the Civil Rights Movement in Conversation with #BlackLivesMatter.
Taking its title from the misinformed slogan of Black youth of #BlackLivesMatter, my chapter is entitled“Sincerely, Your Grandparents’ Hands”: Elucidating Similarities between the Trayvon Martin Generation of #BlackLivesMatter and the Emmett Till Generation of the Civil Rights Movement.
The chapter seeks to promote intergenerational solidarity by highlighting similarities between the Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin Generations. In addition to both generations being radicalized by the white vigilante killing of a Black youth, the chapter highlights how the Grandparents of #BlackLivesMatter youth who are often viewed as passive and docile were actually the radical youth of the Civil Rights Movement who founded SNCC that birthed the Black Power Movement in 1966.
To achieve this, the chapter combats two master narrative myths of the Civil Rights Movement:
The myth of messiah leadership that is combatted by highlighting local, intergenerational grassroots organizing
The myth of passive nonviolence that is combative through highlighting the ways that armed self defense was a necessary aspect of the Civil Rights Movement.
