Ti Parker
"I have a dream." Thus began the most famous speech delivered by Martin Luther King Jr, during the United States Civil Rights Movement, envisioning a society free from racism and economic inequality. The civil rights movement began as a challenge to legal segregation in the United States South, but continued after the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act. As the struggle moved North, it radicalized, in the context of global revolt surrounding the Vietnam War. Martin Luther King Jr himself began questioning capitalism as the economic basis of inequality, and different organizations and figures - from Malcolm X, to the Black Panther Party - emerged as expressions of a new radicalism. This session explores the history and politics of the civil rights movement, and discusses its relevance for activists challenging racism today.