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More from @Sifill_LDF

Sherrilyn Ifill

@Sifill_LDF

14 Feb

Like many who were enslaved when they were born, #FrederickDouglass did not know his birthdate. He adopted February 14th as his birthday. He remains among the most brilliant, fierce, eloquent, prescient Black leaders and American patriots in our history. Heed his words. 1/

In January 1865 Douglass gave a speech “What the Black Man Wants” in which he pressed for the right to vote. Among the reasons:
“I believe that when the tall heads of this Rebellion shall have been swept down...& blotted out, there will be this rank undergrowth.....” 2/

“...of treason... interfering with the quiet operation of the Federal Govt in those States. You will see traitors handing down, from sire to son, the same malignant spirit which they have manifested & which they are now exhibiting....with broad blades & bloody hands....” 3/

Read 6 tweets

Sherrilyn Ifill

@Sifill_LDF

31 Jan

@sundancefest

So excited. Starting now, the world premiere of #MyNameIsPauliMurray at @sundancefest.

#PauliMurray was another among a litany of women like Ida B Wells, who many don’t know also challenged segregation in public transportation years before Rosa Parks #MyNameIsPauliMurray

Born in #Baltimore, raised in Durham, NC. Her mother died; her father institutionalized. Raised by her aunt (a teacher) in Durham. “The classroom was my second home.”

Read 16 tweets

Sherrilyn Ifill

@Sifill_LDF

31 Jan

https://twitter.com/strobetalbott/status/1355881567852367874

Gentlemen, my problem with this argument is that they were teaching civics in school during Massive Resistance to Brown; during the violent resistance to the Little Rock 9, racist violent resistance to busing in Boston & to integrated housing in Cicero, IL.

https://twitter.com/strobetalbott/status/1355881567852367874

I’m a proponent of civics - a deeper, richer study of history, democratic governance here & abroad, economics, the rights & responsibilities of citizenship, &!guidance in how to read critically. All undergirded w/the essential foundation of race, gender & class.

Nostalgic Americans should be haunted by the experience described in Beth Roy’s book Bitters in the Honey, of a white student at Central High School in Little Rock as she watched out of her classroom window as a white mob chased a Black reporter.

Read 8 tweets

Sherrilyn Ifill

@Sifill_LDF

29 Jan

So the top line story is that Trump has hired as one of his impeachment attys an atty who was found to have struck Black ppl firm jury service 3 yrs after the SCOTUSreinforced the unconstitutionality of the practice. But the undercard is pretty impt. 1/ huffpost.com/entry/trump-im…

Because here’s what happened to this lawyer who violated the Supreme Court’s admonition in Batson v Kentucky:

Jury service is, like voting, one of the core expressions and rights of citizenship. Keeping Black ppl from jury svc is unconstitutional and is as ugly and pernicious as voter suppression.

Read 5 tweets

Sherrilyn Ifill

@Sifill_LDF

13 Jan

If you’ve studied white supremacist lynch mobs then what we are seeing is devastatingly familiar - including the defiance vs. law enforcement. When the MD Gov called the National Guard to arrest the men who lynched George Armwood in 1933 another mob formed to challenge the Guard.

This stand-off is in the town of Salisbury, MD a month after Armwood was lynched. The mob even turned a fire hose on the the Guardsman who were there to arrest the suspected lynchers of Armwood. This is what lynch mobs were like. Are like.

Is it still a lynch mob if they don’t succeed in lynching? Yes. I wrote about the near-lynching of George Davis in 1932. Lynch mobs went to 4 different county jails on the Eastern Shore of MD looking for him after a white woman alleged Davis attempted to assault her.

Read 5 tweets