Darryl Fears, Washington Post, May 4, 2008
The new black revolution, as singer Gil Scott-Heron famously predicted, is not being televised.
It is raging online.
A growing cadre of young black activists is using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement. Bloggers with names such as the Cruel Secretary, and blogs called What About Our Daughters? and the African American Political Pundit, have railed against groups in the “black-o-sphere,” saying they do not understand young black Americans, are behind the times and react too slowly to incidents involving the younger generation.
The leaders of the fledgling movement—Van Jones and James Rucker of ColorOfChange.org—may not be familiar to many, but their work is. They circulated a letter and a petition last week promising that the Democrats will pay a “political price” if they overturn the will of black and young voters and choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y) as the party’s nominee over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Jones and Rucker were also the first to successfully raise awareness about the cases of six black teenagers initially charged with attempted murder for beating a white classmate in Jena, La. The campaign led to one of the largest civil rights marches in the South in recent years.
Blogger Gina McCauley, 32, who is organizing the first conference of nonwhite bloggers this summer in Atlanta, said that what Jones and Rucker have started “can potentially become a new Niagara movement,” a reference to the small contingent of black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who met near Niagara Falls in 1905 to form an organization to oppose segregation. The organization eventually became the NAACP.
Others have another name for the new efforts by black bloggers: Civil Rights 2.0. Blogger L.N. Rock said that if abolitionist Frederick Douglass, former congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and “people like that were around today, they would have blogs.”
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But overtaking traditional civil rights groups, which have built their reputations over time, will take more than words, computer savvy and bravado. The NAACP alone has more than 300,000 members who pay dues and an additional 325,000 who have signed up online, the group’s spokesman said. ColorOfChange.org has about 400,000 online members, Jones said.
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But, Jones said, groups such as the NAACP do not understand the hip-hop generation and never reached out, forcing young African Americans to find their own way. “We were raised by wolves in some ways,” he said.
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The NAACP, spokesman Richard McIntyre said, “was involved in Jena from the start. No one individual can claim credit. It was a community effort. We helped organize the march and the rallies. The NAACP worked with Harvard University and Southern University … to help develop a legal team for the defendants.”
He added: “The NAACP will always have detractors. There will always be people who think we’re not doing enough. In terms of any movement, there’s always been more than one organization. If the NAACP isn’t a fit for you, then we encourage people to get involved another way.”
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Original article
(Posted on May 6, 2008)
Comments
“We were raised by wolves in some ways,” Van Jones
Too funny. Civil Rights 2.0 may know a lot about hip hop but they don’t know a lot about White Nationalists…
Posted by Mr. Pibb at 9:41 PM on May 6
What I would like to see is the rise of a 21st century Marcus Garvey that would convince blacks in America move to Africa.
Posted by at 9:42 PM on May 6
They circulated a letter and a petition last week promising that the Democrats will pay a “political price” if they overturn the will of black and young voters and choose Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y) as the party’s nominee over Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).
Giving not-so-veiled threats to those who don’t buckle into their political demands, huh? Gee, it sort of reminds me of Al Sharpton’s recent comments about the Democratic Convention in Denver.
Besides using blogs, how are these individuals different from the “Old Guard” of black extortionists in any way?
Posted by ZKR at 10:08 PM on May 6
NIAGARA? or something else that sounds very similar?
Posted by enraged at 11:05 PM on May 6
What I would like to see is the rise of a 21st century Marcus Garvey that would convince blacks in America move to Africa.
Not a bad idea. You meant it to be malicious but I think Black Americans, Caribbean’s, and Africans should bring their best economists together to develop an international trade strategy and a multidimensional economic plan. Black Americans have the financing, Africans have the languages and cultures, and West Indians have Garvey and the revolutionaries. Instead of worrying about stripers at Duke this is what our Black leaders should be working on.
Hey, don’t forget you heard it from Inkpaduta first.
Posted by Inkpaduta at 3:23 AM on May 7
“Hey, don’t forget you heard it from Inkpaduta first. “
Thanks, Inkpaduta. I would strongly encourage this; do you think that YOU could be that person to jump start this? Fame and fortune awaits the Black man that could start a successful emmigration campaign from North America. Can you imagine a Black Boeing utilising Black aeronautical engineers, a Black General Electric designing and producing turbofans? Let’s put all that US government paid for Black college education to work in Africa; after all, why is it that all I ever see helpng the Africans White faces? Where are the Black faces from America helping their African ancestors?
Posted by at 11:50 AM on May 7
“What I would like to see is the rise of a 21st century Marcus Garvey that would convince blacks in America move to Africa.”
Well, get on it buddy. You seem well spoken enough to get the job done. If you spent as much time working on that as you do trolling AmRen, who knows what you could accomplish. Good luck and God Bless!
Posted by idareya at 12:40 PM on May 7
North American blacks have a 10-point IQ advantage over African blacks, Idareya, so a 21st-century version of Marcus Garveyism, if done in large enough numbers, would leave the immigrants in control.
I would expect three major problems:
The first is that the immigrants would have difficulty at first coping with the corruption normal to Africa.
The second is that they would have difficulty coping with the tribalism that persists there, as North American blacks have been detribalized - they are not Ibos, Xhosas, Zulus, Herreros and so-on, but just black. They would probably be considered a “tribe” of their own, as they are in Liberia.
That brings us to the third problem, which is that as perceived outsiders, they would be hated if they were successful.
It’s a shame, because they’re probably Africa’s only real hope.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:13 PM on May 7
I knew this Nigerian guy who hated American blacks and looked down upon them. He would never accept them in Africa.
Posted by Jasper at 7:11 PM on May 10
