Dick J. Reavis :
We are the New Union Army!

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

It’s time to wear our colors as we work to
help finish the Civil War.

union cap

Drawing of kepi cap by Miriam Lizcano / The Rag Blog.

By Dick J. Reavis | The Rag Blog | July 12, 2015

In a recent book about the Southern Civil Rights Movement, professor, SNCC veteran, and author Charles E. Cobb tells a story that is useful to us today.

Among the people who turned out for the fourth day of the 1960 sit-ins in Greensboro, N.C., were the members of the football team at the historically-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College. When the team got to the downtown Woolworth’s store, the site of the sit-ins, it found that a mob of whites had formed a cordon around the place. So the team formed a flying wedge and as its members broke through, one of the jostled whites hollered “Who do you think you are?” “We’re the Union Army!” a footballer hollered back.
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The Rag Blog :
METRO EVENT | Bill Fletcher Jr. speaks in Austin on the struggle for justice

Posted on July 12, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer
bill fletcher jr lg

Bill Fletcher Jr. will speak in Austin on July 14, 2015.

Event: Talk by Bill Fletcher Jr.
Topic: From Ferguson to Jerusalem: The Struggle for Justice
Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2015, 7 p.m.
Where: St. James Episcopal Church
Address: 1941 Webberville Rd., Austin, TX 78721
Sponsors: Interfaith Community for Palestinian Rights and the People’s Task Force
Cost: Free to the public

AUSTIN — Noted progressive activist, author, columnist, and commentator Bill Fletcher Jr. will speak in Austin on Tuesday, July 14, at 7 p.m., at the St. James Episcopal Church. The topic is “From Ferguson to Jerusalem: The Struggle for Justice: Why the Lives of the Oppressed Mean Little to the Oppressor.”

Bill Fletcher Jr. is a racial justice, labor, and international activist. He was president of TransAfrica Forum, a nonprofit advocacy, research, and education center focused on justice for the African world; a Senior Scholar with the Institute of Policy Studies; an editorial board member of BlackCommentator.com; and a steering committee member of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
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Alice Embree :
METRO | Jefferson Davis has no place on
UT’s Main Mall

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Alice Embree

Students and the public are making their voices heard at forums on the UT campus.

jefferson davis ut

Jefferson Davis looks over the UT-Austin campus. Image from KXAN-TV.

By Alice Embree | The Rag Blog | July 7, 2015

What: University of Texas at Austin Public Forum
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Time: 3-5 p.m.; Sign up to speak 2:30-3 p.m.
Where: San Jacinto Residence Hall, Room 207
Address: 309 East 21st Street

AUSTIN – – Under pressure to remove Confederate statues from the University of Texas at Austin Main Mall, UT-Austin President Gregory L. Fenves has appointed a panel to gather input and deliver recommendations by August 1, 2015.

Public input can be given in person at the next public forum on Wednesday, July 15. Speakers must sign up between 2-3 p.m. before the hearing. Comments can be provided online here, or by calling 512-471-3183. The last day for public testimony is July 15.
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Jay D. Jurie :
Community between the anvil and the hammer

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Police violence against African-American communities continues to be a commonplace feature of national life and must be seriously addressed.

black lives matter

Image from Hands Up United.

By Jay D. Jurie | The Rag Blog | July 7, 2015

The Black Panthers: Early proponents of Black Lives Matter

Matthew Johnson, an unarmed 16-year old African-American with his hands in the air, was shot in the back and killed by a police officer in the Hunter’s Point district of San Francisco on September 27, 1966. In response, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, and several others formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense the following month.

Denzil Dowell, an unarmed 22-year old African-American, was shot and killed by police in North Richmond, California, on April 1, 1967. Police claimed Dowell was attempting to burglarize a liquor store and was killed by “a single shotgun blast” after he refused an order to halt. A coroner’s report found six bullet holes in Dowell’s body and evidence that he had been shot with his hands up and in the process of surrendering. Nonetheless, an all-white jury found this a case of “justifiable homicide.”
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Vikki Bynum :
Racial violence, history, and the debate over
the Confederate flag

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The Confederate flag symbolizes a sanitized and historically inaccurate version of the Civil War.

dylann roof and confederate flag

Dylann Roof: The Confederate flag was a favored symbol of racial hatred.

By Vikki Bynum | The Rag Blog | July 6, 2015

Victoria Bynum studio smListen to Thorne Dreyer’s July 3, 2015, Rag Radio interview with Victoria Bynum about issues raised in this essay, here:

As a historian, I have long regretted the widespread popularity of a flag that represents the cause of Southern secession during the American Civil War, and which was flown in defense of racial segregation during the Civil Rights Era.

In the wake of Dylann Roof’s massacre of nine African-American men and women while they worshiped in the historic Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, we have learned that the Confederate flag was a favored symbol of the racial hatred that burns within Roof’s heart. His horrifying crime, in turn, quickly reinvigorated the long debate over whether that flag should continue to fly over state buildings in South Carolina and other southern states.
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Thorne Dreyer :
RAG RADIO PODCASTS | Interviews with Victoria Bynum, Richard Pells, Maria Svart, Patricia Vonne, and Ray Hill

Posted on July 5, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

We discuss little-known Southern history (& the Confederate flag); the ‘War Babies’ generation; Democratic Socialism; pioneering gay activism in Houston — and we listen to way cool live music!

patricia vonne 3

Rocker and actress Patricia Vonne, from left, with musicians Robert La Roche and Rick Del Castillo, on Rag Radio, Friday, June 12, 2015. Photo by
Roger Baker / The Rag Blog.

Interviews by Thorne Dreyer | The Rag Blog | July 6, 2014

The following podcasts are from recent Rag Radio shows. The syndicated Rag Radio, produced in the studios of Austin’s cooperatively-run KOOP-FM, has an international audience and has become an influential platform for interviews with leading figures in politics, current events, literature, and cutting-edge culture.

∗ Historian Victoria Bynum on Southern History, Racial Violence & the Confederate Flag

Victoria Bynum studio smRead the show description and download the podcast of our July 3, 2015 Rag Radio show with Vikki Bynum here — or listen to it here:

∗ Richard Pells, Author of ‘War Babies: The Generation That Changed America’

richard pells 2 smRead the show description and download the podcast of our June 26, 2015 Rag Radio interview with Richard Pells here — or listen to it here:


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Beverly Baker Moore :
METRO | TRUE CRIME | Beverly’s great escape

Posted on July 2, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

I had gotten most of myself outside the window and was hanging onto the only thing I could, the drainpipe that ran up the side of the building.

bev drawing 1

“I was dangling at a dangerous angle, holding onto the falling pipe.” Drawings by Beverly Baker Moore / The Rag Blog.

By Beverly Baker Moore | The Rag Blog | July 2, 2015

It was an old-time Austin jailbreak.

It was a jailbreak marriage, actually. The term was one of many pop sociology/psychology terms batted around 50 years ago. “Jailbreak marriage” was an appropriate description for those times, though, because for most young women the only acceptable and/or available way out from under their father’s roof was to marry.

That same 50-plus years ago, my family moved to Bergstrom Air Force Base from somewhere or other up north. Inside the windows of my high school classroom across the highway from Bergstrom, Austin beckoned in the distance. I didn’t know very much about it. Just another town our family got transferred to… there had been so many. This time was just a bit different, though. This time I would turn 18 in six months. This time I might have a say in where I would live next. This time I was paying attention.
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Johnny Hazard :
Marathon three-day protest at Bellas Artes
in Mexico City

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

‘Plantón’ at cultural center plaza remembers 43 disappeared education students.

hazard bellas artes 1

Photo by Citlali Téllez / Somos.elmedio.org.

By Johnny Hazard | The Rag Blog | July 2, 2015

MEXICO CITY —  Nine months after the forced disappearance of 43 education students, a three-mile march culminated in the “plantón” known as “43 x 43 por Ayotzinapa,” a three-day occupation of the plaza of Bellas Artes, the principal museum and cultural center in Mexico, which is adjacent to the Alameda Central.

This June 26-28 action began the day after the opening of a major exhibition of works by Michaelangelo and DaVinci. The cultural and political events took place before a captive audience of 10,000 gallery visitors on Saturday and many more on Sunday.
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Lamar W. Hankins :
METRO | Some questions for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Where do you draw the line on accommodating the religious beliefs of public officials?

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at February 18, 2015 press conference. Photo by Erich Schlegel / Getty Images.

By Lamar W. Hankins | The Rag Blog | June 30, 2015

SAN MARCOS — In his official opinion as the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton summarized his conclusions about the duty of certain public officials to issue same-sex marriage licenses if they have sincerely held religious beliefs against same-sex marriage:

County clerks and their employees retain religious freedoms that may provide accommodation of their religious objections to issuing same-sex marriage licenses. Justices of the peace and judges also may claim that the government forcing them to conduct same-sex wedding ceremonies over their religious objections, particularly when other authorized individuals have no objection to conducting such ceremonies, is not the least restrictive means of furthering any compelling governmental interest in ensuring that such ceremonies occur. Importantly, the strength of any particular religious-accommodation claim depends on the particular facts of each case.

These conclusions give rise to questions about the duties of various other government officials in Texas who may have religious objections to the behaviors of some Texans.
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David P. Hamilton :
Mapping the Middle East mess

Posted on June 29, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

The artificial boundaries after the British and French carved up the region are increasingly irrelevant.

sykes-picot map of 1916

Sykes-Picot map of 1916: “A” goes to France, “B” to Britain. Image from the National Archives / Public Domain.

By David P. Hamilton | The Rag Blog | June 29, 2015

“One day during the [Versailles] Peace Conference [ending WWI], Arnold Toynbee, an adviser to the British delegation, had to deliver some papers to the prime minister. “Lloyd George had forgotten my presence and had begun to think aloud. ‘Mesopotamia, yes, oil, irrigation, we must have Mesopotamia; Palestine, yes, the Holy Land, Zionism, we must have Palestine; Syria, h’m, what is there in Syria? Let the French have that.’”
— Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan, p. 381

It took more than the musings of British Prime Minister Lloyd George to make it happen, but that’s more or less how the current countries of the Middle East were created. Their boundaries were essentially drawn by the British and French after WWI to suit their own interests.

The Ottoman Empire, having joined the wrong side in the war, was being dismembered by the victorious European colonialists. The British forces occupied Baghdad and controlled the valleys of the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers. Hence, they got the oil, which they knew to be there in abundance, plus Palestine for sentimental reasons. The French got the leftovers, primarily the coastal regions where the French-speaking Maronite Christians lived plus a bunch of desert to the east.
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Marilyn Katz :
Whose race, and gender, is it anyway?

Posted on June 27, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal trigger an important conversation about identity and society.

caitlyn jenner vanity fair 2

Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair.

By Marilyn Katz | The Rag Blog | June 27, 2015

CHICAGO — Gender and race are not static but socially-created identities that can and should be questioned.

So much has been said in recent weeks about Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal and the porous boundaries of gender and race. But neither the questions nor answers are definitive.

As most everyone who is digitally aware knows, Jenner says she is a woman. Former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal says she “identif[ies] as black.”
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Elaine J. Cohen :
METRO | Casting Judith’s ashes into the big river

Posted on June 23, 2015 by Thorne Dreyer

Josefina gently poured Judith Rosenberg’s ashes from the bag in the carved wooden box from Mexico.

rosenberg ashes

Julia Quiñones, left, and Josefina Castillo pour Judith Rosenberg’s ashes into the river. Photos by Sister Pam Buganski of the South Texas Human Rights Center (STHRC), Falfurrias, Texas. Special to The Rag Blog.

By Elaine J. Cohen | The Rag Blog | June 24, 2015

AUSTIN — The muses are, once again, tugging at my sleeve. Kleio, Kalliope, and Polyhymnia are jockeying for lead position. Recently I joined a small pilgrimage to Mexico with the ashes of our friend, Judith Rosenberg. We met activists from both sides of this border, on the banks of the Rio Bravo, to cast the last materia of Judith into the fast flowing river that separates Mexico from the USA.

Before we left Austin, I asked Josefina if it had been Judith’s explicit wish to have her ashes put into the Rio Bravo/Rio Grande. Josefina answered that Judith had simply asked that they be put into a river. Then she looked at me and we both shared an almost Gallic shrug as she said, “What other river could it be? There is only one river in our story. It is the river that is the border that shapes our work.”
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