Civil Rights

A look back and forward at our country’s complicated relationship with Civil Rights.

Biden administration revives plan to put Harriet Tubman on $20 bill | US news | The Guardian

Biden administration revives plan to put Harriet Tubman on $20 bill | US news | The Guardian

The US treasury is taking steps to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, as was planned under Barack Obama.

She Came to Slay: Tubman biography looks beyond Underground Railroad Read more Harriet Tubman was a 19th-century abolitionist and political activist who escaped slavery herself, then took part in the rescues of hundreds of enslaved people, using the network of activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad.

In 2016, Obama decided Tubman should replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, leading to celebrations that an escaped slave would be honored instead of a slaveowner president.

Mason Temple Memphis

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land.

-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his prophetic "Mountaintop" speech in this church in Memphis, Tennessee, on the eve of his assassination--April 3, 1968.

Mason Temple served as a focal point of civil rights activities in Memphis during the 1950s and 1960s. Mason Temple was built between 1940 and 1945 as the administrative and spiritual center of the Church of God in Christ, the second largest black denomination. The temple is the centerpiece of a group of six buildings that form the church's world headquarters. Mason Temple is a vast concrete building capable of seating 7,500 people on two levels. The temple, designed with simplified Art Moderne styling and detail, was constructed for regular services as well as to house the annual national convention of church representatives.

https://www.nps.gov/places/tennessee-mason-temple-memphis.htm

When King Was Dangerous

When King Was Dangerous

Martin Luther King Jr was not a popular man. In 1963, just 41 percent of Americans expressed a positive view of him. Only Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was more unpopular. It went downhill from there. By 1966, two-thirds of Americans held a negative view of King. In his remaining years, King polled worse than nearly all other well-known Americans. Worse than Ted Kennedy would after Chappaquiddick. Worse than Haldeman and Ehrlichman would during Watergate. Even French president Charles de Gaulle failed to provoke the same hostility as King.