Civil Rights & Social Justice

Three veterans of the civil rights movement fought segregation in St. Augustine, Fla., enduring violence and racism in America’s oldest city — The Washington Post Phelan M. Ebenhack/For The Washington Post Cora Tyson, 99, stands in front of her home in St. Augustine, Fla., on July 15. The plaque commemorates the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s stay at her home while he pushed for the racial desegregation of dining and lodging amid Ku Klux Klan violence. Read more ...

60 years after 1963 Klan rally in St. Augustine, Fla., White pastor and Black activist speak — The Washington Post Harold Valentine/AP St. Augustine Police Chief Virgil Stuart, right, watches a group of sign-carrying African American demonstrators as they march in front of the old slave market in the center of the city, May 30, 1964, St. Augustine, Fla. Read more ...

Podcast interview on campus social justice

Audrey Nell Edwards Hamilton with Martin Luther King III in 2011. She was arrested with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in St. Augustine, Fla., in June 1964. They were taken to the St. Johns County Jail, where she had already spent time after her arrest in 1963 for a lunch counter sit-in. (David Nolan) Audrey Nell Edwards was still a baby when Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color line in 1947. In 1963, when the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. proclaimed that it was

From the driver’s seat of his red 2014 Volvo, Dan Smith looked in on the huge protest thronging Sixteenth Street in the Northwest quadrant of Washington D.C. on Friday evening, June 5. Through the windows, he basked in all of the energy, all of the caring, all of the great messages — like the “Black and White Lives Together” sign held by his wife, Loretta Neumann. The protest, of course, had grown out of the killing of George Floyd on May 25 in Minneapolis. The gruesome eigh

An interview on public television, WGBY’s “Connecting Point”

Springfield College Professor of Communications Martin Dobrow recently spent a day at the Wilbraham & Monson Academy presenting to students about the enduring legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. Speaking at an all-school chapel event in the morning, Dobrow shared the story of Dr. King’s appearance at Springfield College in 1964. He also offered students his views on some of the critical lessons that Dr. King still teaches us a half century after his death.

From New Hampshire Gazette Last of four parts The renovated barn at the Montague Farm, as seen this month.  Credit: CAROL LOLLIS The second week of August is still high summer in New England. But up in the hills of Montague, Massachusetts, not quite 20 miles south of the Vermont border, it’s not uncommon to see the reddening of maple leaves, the first hints of death of the natural year. On Aug. 11, 1968, when Marshall Bloom returned to the Pioneer Valley, America was tearing

From New Hampshire Gazette Third of four parts A story Marshall Bloom wrote for the Amherst Student newspaper.  Credit: AMHERST COLLEGE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS   In early 1964, the spring of Marshall Bloom’s sophomore year at Amherst College, a new battleground for civil rights was taking shape in the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine, Florida. A quaint community with plenty of Florida schlock, St. Augustine was settled by the Spanish in 1565, decades before Jamest

From Daily Hampshire Gazette Second of four parts President John F. Kennedy arrived at Amherst College by helicopter.  Credit: AMHERST COLLEGE ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS When the life force known as Marshall Irving Bloom arrived in the Pioneer Valley from Denver, it was, technically speaking, the 1960s. It just didn’t feel like it. Back in September 1962 at Amherst College, hair was short. Many students hadn’t heard of marijuana. The No. 1 song in America was “Sherry” s

From Daily Hampshire Gazette PAUL BLOOM First of four parts Paul Bloom was mortified. His graduation from Amherst College, just the day before, represented the greatest achievement of his young life. But now, on June 4, 1966, he looked incredulously at the front page of The New York Times and thought his shining future was about to crash. Criticizing Amherst? Publicly protesting against the U.S. government? He would never do that. Bloom had absorbed two commandments from his

Interview on public television WGBY’s “Connecting Point”

From Vice Tony King, will not be wrestling with philosophical questions when he walks out to the mound around noon on Sunday. All week he has been brushing aside the idea that this ceremonial first pitch was significant. “It doesn’t make any difference,” he insists. “It’s just the idea of it, anyway. You let the ball go, and you go down. It’s just something to get the game started.” Watch: The All-Ivy League Ex Marine Trying to Make it to the Majors For weeks, he has been tos

She was not quite 4 when her daddy died. Deep in the recesses of her memory, Jessica Waddell Lewinstein, now 30, can still hear his voice. It was a voice that held contrasts: deep but soft, considered but sprinkled with mischief, nuanced with sadness and lilting with joy. Tom Waddell was a star athlete at Springfield College. Courtesy Springfield College Archives She remembers only snippets of conversations. Like the time he sought her advice on the best color for a car he ho

The untold story of a government plot, a maverick college president, and the most important figure of the civil rights era Their one and only meeting lasted barely a minute. On March 26, 1964, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X came to Washington to observe the beginning of the Senate debate on the Civil Rights Act. They shook hands. They smiled for the cameras. As they parted, Malcolm said jokingly, “Now you’re going to get investigated.” That, of course, was well underway. Re

Presentation at LBJ Presidential Library Martin made a presentation at the Educator Workshop at the Civil Rights Summit in Austin, Texas. The Civil Rights Summit was probably the largest civil rights conference in our nation’s history with presentations by Presidents Barack Obama, three former Presidents (Carter, Clinton, and George W. Bush) as well as a host of civil rights luminaries (Andrew Young, John Lewis, etc.). He served as the lone moderator for the ensuing hour-plus

WGBY’s “Connecting Point”

Londell Francis, 8, who has sickle cell anemia, cuts the nets with his LIU-Brooklyn teammates. Courtesy of Long Island University-Brooklyn The Sports Grinch is beaming. And why not? The athletic landscape in early 2013 is a veritable carnival of cynicism. Beneath the pedestals are huge piles of rubble. Hope is dying. To the Sports Grinch, the bad times never seemed so good. Manti Te'o playing his heart out for a dying girlfriend -- but the "love of his life" doesn't even exis