Tags: politics

Jo Freeman writes: When Unite the Right announced it would hold another rally on the anniversary of the one it held in Charlottesville in 2017, it caused a great amount of consternation. They received a permit to hold it in Washington, D.C., at Lafayette Square across from the White House, raising specters of carnage in the nation’s capital. Violence had permeated the 2017 event, resulting in the death of a counter-protestor. In their effort to avoid a crisis, DC police spent weeks in planning. The officers turned out in such great numbers that the scene almost resembled a uniform convention. There was only one arrest in DC. more »

On June 8, 1968, three days after the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, his body was carried by a funeral train from New York City to Washington, DC, for burial at Arlington Cemetery. The exhibit looks at this historical event through three distinct works. The first is a group of color photographs by commissioned photographer Paul Fusco. Taken from the funeral train, the images capture mourners who lined the railway tracks to pay their final respects. The second work features photographs and home movies by the spectators themselves. The third is a 70mm film reenactment of the funeral train's journey, inspired by Fusco's original photographs. more »

"Abstinence-only programs violate adolescents’ rights, ignore their needs and do not work. Adolescents have a basic human right to complete and accurate information about their sexual and reproductive health. The abstinence-only-until-marriage approach withholds comprehensive information on effective ways to reduce the risks of unintended pregnancy, HIV and other STIs, which violates adolescents’ right to information and also requires educators to disregard basic ethical standards by providing incomplete and potentially harmful information to students." The Guttmacher Institute more »

Jo Freeman reviews and writes: Alan Venable was one of Hope’s kids. A junior at Harvard, he joined 18 students from Brandeis University and four from other Boston area schools to go to Columbia S.C. for ten weeks. After two weeks, six of them moved to Calhoun County. When they started canvassing only 490 blacks were registered to vote in that county. They registered 114 in July, under the very restrictive registration rules typical of the Southern states, which were generally applied to blacks but not to whites. When the VRA became law on August 6, it removed the literacy test. Another 500 registered in the next two months. more »