REMEMBER ORANGEBURG...REMEMBER JACKSON STATE...
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redpoet
May 7, 2010, 5:56:34 PM5/7/10
to 1960s
REMEMBER ORANGEBURG...REMEMBER JACKSON STATE...
Oread Daily http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/
There have been many commemorations this week of the killings at Kent
State. Forty years ago student strikes were underway everywhere.
Forty years ago last night, I was at a demonstration that trashed the
ROTC building at the University of Kansas.
Before Kent State was Orangeburg. After Kent State was Jackson
State. Black students were killed at Orangeburg. Black students were
killed at Jackson State. There was not a nationwide student strike.
A few of us took notice of both, but since the students weren't white,
well, the media and most others sort of yawned and said little.
The difference between the reactions to these three events is painful
and it is racist. Bringing this up does nothing to disparage those
killed at Kent State or the response to the killings. Bringing it up
does point out how the racial divide in America divides pretty much
everything...even the authorities gunning down students.
Kent State was a shock to America because white students weren't
supposed to be the recipients of deadly force. That was supposed to
be reserved for Black students, and Black Panthers...Blacks.
The murders at Orangeburg and the silence of most in reply helped set
up the atmosphere that led to many more murders.
So while you are remembering Kent State...
REMEMBER ORANGEBURG...REMEMBER JACKSON STATE...
The following is from Black Commentator.
Kent State, Jackson State, Race and Resistance
by Bill Fletcher, Jr.
2010 seems to be the year for anniversaries, and the killings that
took place at Kent State University (Ohio) and two weeks later at
Jackson State College (Mississippi) are two that will go down in
infamy.
It is difficult for me to forget May 1970. When word spread about the
inexcusable murders of the anti-Vietnam War student protesters at Kent
State, the USA just about exploded. As a high school activist at the
time, discussions took place all afternoon when we heard about the
killings leading me and another African American student to call a
meeting for immediately after school to plan a response.
That meeting and its aftermath taught me a great deal about activism.
Let me set the stage. The meeting was chaired by me and the other
African American activist. It was small, but diverse. Several white
self-proclaimed anarchist students played a very disruptive role,
challenging the fact that the meeting had any leadership. By the end
of the meeting it was agreed that there would be a follow up meeting
that evening at the home of one of the white students to develop more
in depth plans.
That evening I got to the meeting place on time only to discover that
the meeting had already started and that plans were moving forward
without my involvement or my co-chair from the earlier meeting. It
was amazing in that the fact that we had called the earlier meeting
was completely ignored, to the point that it was almost as if the
earlier meeting had never happened.
In any case, a plan was developed for a student strike and march on
City Hall. This was successfully accomplished with the high school,
for all intents and purposes, shut down. Our school joined with
countless others across the country protesting the US invasion of
Cambodia/Kampuchea and the killings at Kent State. The leadership of
the march—of which I was not apart given the ‘coup’ that had taken
place—had no plans for what should happen afterwards. We marched,
rallied, and…then were sent home.
A couple of weeks later word spread regarding the killings of two
Black students at Jackson State College (now University). These
students had been protesting the killings at Kent State, the Vietnam
War and the racist harassment that Black students had been receiving.
The police responded to the protest with bullets and the murder of two
students, an act that was broadly condemned.
Yet, here is the punch-line: there were no massive student strikes.
At my high school several Black student activists, most of us allied
with the Black Panther Party, went throughout the school agitating for
a walkout or, at least, a protest. Our cries met with little
response. In my mind’s eye I can see one of our leaders addressing
students in the cafeteria calling upon them to respond to these
murders, only to be largely ignored.
The lack of response to Jackson State was not isolated to my high
school. While it was certainly the case that there were responses,
none of it came close to mirroring the response to the Kent State
killings. Much was made of this at the time, and then, as weeks
became months, and months became years, Jackson State was largely
forgotten.
The contrasting responses to Kent State and Jackson State said so much
about race in the USA, and it will be interesting to see to what
extent any attention is actually focused on Jackson State this May
2010. As too often happens, Black, Brown, Yellow and Red death at the
hands of the forces of law and order may be viewed as unfortunate, if
not tragic, but to a great extent not a source of outrage by white
America. The killings and woundings at Kent State were, simply put,
not supposed to happen to good white students. That the shootings
could never be properly explained by the authorities compounded the
problem for the entire country. The murders at Jackson State, just as
with the murders two years earlier at Orangeburg, South Carolina and
two years later at Southern University in New Orleans, were the
killings of faceless individuals who, in the minds of far too many
white Americans, simply should not have placed themselves in harm’s
way.
What white America could largely not accept was that Kent State
happened because the Orangeburg Massacre had been permitted to take
place. The relative silence in the face of such a profound police
injustice as was the Orangeburg Massacre of 1968 provided the
grounding that made other such police atrocities possible. Inevitably
that would spill over into white America. Yet, to the extent to which
white America saw Kent State in isolation, it ignored it as part of a
larger problem of police violence and state repression. To put it
another way, the outrage against the killings at Kent State was quite
sincere, but it was outrage within a bottle that saw in such an
atrocity an aberration from a system that was largely fair and just.
Thus, Jackson State was not seen as a continuation of state repression
and police violence but more an example of the particular and peculiar
forms of interaction that exist between Black America and the police
in the USA, at least from the standpoint of too many white Americans,
including otherwise liberal and progressive whites.
As we commemorate the Kent State killings, we should do the same for
those who lost their lives at Jackson State. We should use this as a
moment to discuss political repression in the USA, and the particular
form that it takes when targeted at the activities of people of
color. The frustration and dismay that I saw on the face of the Black
student activist who appealed—in vain—to his fellow students in our
high school cafeteria to walk out in protest over Jackson State goes
to the split that exists in a broad progressive movement in the USA: a
movement so necessary to take on corporate America and the political
Right, yet a movement that can only do so to the extent to which it
truly recognizes that an injury to one is an injury to all.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a
Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate
past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity
Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social
Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis
of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.
Oread Daily http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/
There have been many commemorations this week of the killings at Kent
State. Forty years ago student strikes were underway everywhere.
Forty years ago last night, I was at a demonstration that trashed the
ROTC building at the University of Kansas.
Before Kent State was Orangeburg. After Kent State was Jackson
State. Black students were killed at Orangeburg. Black students were
killed at Jackson State. There was not a nationwide student strike.
A few of us took notice of both, but since the students weren't white,
well, the media and most others sort of yawned and said little.
The difference between the reactions to these three events is painful
and it is racist. Bringing this up does nothing to disparage those
killed at Kent State or the response to the killings. Bringing it up
does point out how the racial divide in America divides pretty much
everything...even the authorities gunning down students.
Kent State was a shock to America because white students weren't
supposed to be the recipients of deadly force. That was supposed to
be reserved for Black students, and Black Panthers...Blacks.
The murders at Orangeburg and the silence of most in reply helped set
up the atmosphere that led to many more murders.
So while you are remembering Kent State...
REMEMBER ORANGEBURG...REMEMBER JACKSON STATE...
The following is from Black Commentator.
Kent State, Jackson State, Race and Resistance
by Bill Fletcher, Jr.
2010 seems to be the year for anniversaries, and the killings that
took place at Kent State University (Ohio) and two weeks later at
Jackson State College (Mississippi) are two that will go down in
infamy.
It is difficult for me to forget May 1970. When word spread about the
inexcusable murders of the anti-Vietnam War student protesters at Kent
State, the USA just about exploded. As a high school activist at the
time, discussions took place all afternoon when we heard about the
killings leading me and another African American student to call a
meeting for immediately after school to plan a response.
That meeting and its aftermath taught me a great deal about activism.
Let me set the stage. The meeting was chaired by me and the other
African American activist. It was small, but diverse. Several white
self-proclaimed anarchist students played a very disruptive role,
challenging the fact that the meeting had any leadership. By the end
of the meeting it was agreed that there would be a follow up meeting
that evening at the home of one of the white students to develop more
in depth plans.
That evening I got to the meeting place on time only to discover that
the meeting had already started and that plans were moving forward
without my involvement or my co-chair from the earlier meeting. It
was amazing in that the fact that we had called the earlier meeting
was completely ignored, to the point that it was almost as if the
earlier meeting had never happened.
In any case, a plan was developed for a student strike and march on
City Hall. This was successfully accomplished with the high school,
for all intents and purposes, shut down. Our school joined with
countless others across the country protesting the US invasion of
Cambodia/Kampuchea and the killings at Kent State. The leadership of
the march—of which I was not apart given the ‘coup’ that had taken
place—had no plans for what should happen afterwards. We marched,
rallied, and…then were sent home.
A couple of weeks later word spread regarding the killings of two
Black students at Jackson State College (now University). These
students had been protesting the killings at Kent State, the Vietnam
War and the racist harassment that Black students had been receiving.
The police responded to the protest with bullets and the murder of two
students, an act that was broadly condemned.
Yet, here is the punch-line: there were no massive student strikes.
At my high school several Black student activists, most of us allied
with the Black Panther Party, went throughout the school agitating for
a walkout or, at least, a protest. Our cries met with little
response. In my mind’s eye I can see one of our leaders addressing
students in the cafeteria calling upon them to respond to these
murders, only to be largely ignored.
The lack of response to Jackson State was not isolated to my high
school. While it was certainly the case that there were responses,
none of it came close to mirroring the response to the Kent State
killings. Much was made of this at the time, and then, as weeks
became months, and months became years, Jackson State was largely
forgotten.
The contrasting responses to Kent State and Jackson State said so much
about race in the USA, and it will be interesting to see to what
extent any attention is actually focused on Jackson State this May
2010. As too often happens, Black, Brown, Yellow and Red death at the
hands of the forces of law and order may be viewed as unfortunate, if
not tragic, but to a great extent not a source of outrage by white
America. The killings and woundings at Kent State were, simply put,
not supposed to happen to good white students. That the shootings
could never be properly explained by the authorities compounded the
problem for the entire country. The murders at Jackson State, just as
with the murders two years earlier at Orangeburg, South Carolina and
two years later at Southern University in New Orleans, were the
killings of faceless individuals who, in the minds of far too many
white Americans, simply should not have placed themselves in harm’s
way.
What white America could largely not accept was that Kent State
happened because the Orangeburg Massacre had been permitted to take
place. The relative silence in the face of such a profound police
injustice as was the Orangeburg Massacre of 1968 provided the
grounding that made other such police atrocities possible. Inevitably
that would spill over into white America. Yet, to the extent to which
white America saw Kent State in isolation, it ignored it as part of a
larger problem of police violence and state repression. To put it
another way, the outrage against the killings at Kent State was quite
sincere, but it was outrage within a bottle that saw in such an
atrocity an aberration from a system that was largely fair and just.
Thus, Jackson State was not seen as a continuation of state repression
and police violence but more an example of the particular and peculiar
forms of interaction that exist between Black America and the police
in the USA, at least from the standpoint of too many white Americans,
including otherwise liberal and progressive whites.
As we commemorate the Kent State killings, we should do the same for
those who lost their lives at Jackson State. We should use this as a
moment to discuss political repression in the USA, and the particular
form that it takes when targeted at the activities of people of
color. The frustration and dismay that I saw on the face of the Black
student activist who appealed—in vain—to his fellow students in our
high school cafeteria to walk out in protest over Jackson State goes
to the split that exists in a broad progressive movement in the USA: a
movement so necessary to take on corporate America and the political
Right, yet a movement that can only do so to the extent to which it
truly recognizes that an injury to one is an injury to all.
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a
Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate
past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity
Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social
Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis
of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.
marcus
May 7, 2010, 10:06:39 PM5/7/10
to 1960s
On May 7, 5:56 pm, redpoet <redp...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> REMEMBER ORANGEBURG...REMEMBER JACKSON STATE...
> Oread Daily http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/
>
> There have been many commemorations this week of the killings at Kent
> State. Forty years ago student strikes were underway everywhere.
> Forty years ago last night, I was at a demonstration that trashed the
> ROTC building at the University of Kansas.
>
> Before Kent State was Orangeburg. After Kent State was Jackson
> State. Black students were killed at Orangeburg. Black students were
> killed at Jackson State. There was not a nationwide student strike.
> A few of us took notice of both, but since the students weren't white,
> well, the media and most others sort of yawned and said little.
>
> The difference between the reactions to these three events is painful
> and it is racist. Bringing this up does nothing to disparage those
> killed at Kent State or the response to the killings. Bringing it up
> does point out how the racial divide in America divides pretty much
> everything...even the authorities gunning down students.
>
State, I have read and seen videos and TV coverage of them, and have
one good friend who has been to several...in short, there is much
attention paid to Jackson State at the May 4th Kent State events.
This is not a recent honoring of those killed and wounded at Jackson
State, it's been going on for decades.
I knew about the killings at Jackson State when they happened, as did
many others, but that was because I listened to Pacifica radio, and
read alternative newspapers.
However, I think one must look at the poor coverage of Jackson State
murders within the context of the mass media at the time in 1970.
There was no 24/7 coverage of news, if something like that had
happened since CNN first aired, there would have been a lot of
coverage...in fact, as I recall, coverage of Kent State in May 1970
was quite low in porportion to the seriousness of the murders. The
major news media, rightly or wrongly at the time in 1970, fed into
what they thought their audience wanted...they saw that many in their
mainstream "white" audience had became jaded by viewing the multitude
of photos and film of mistreated civil rights workers, the riots in
Newark and other cities, and the assassination of Martin Luther King
Jr. They viewed the killings of the Kent State dead as a "man bites
dog" type story, and they saw their ratings of the 1968 Chicago Police
Riot the same way...to their "big story" mentality, Jackson State
didn't make the cut.
I say the above, not to condone the lack of coverage of Jackson State
by TV and the print media, but merely to explain the commercial media
mindset of that time.
What really pisses me off is how on every anniversary of Kent State,
someone from the Right will puff up their chest and say, "What about
Jackson State...how come no one says anything about that?", thinking
that they have exposed some kind of hypocrisy of white Leftists, and
that they are now claiming some moral high ground on their supposed
sympathy for those who died and were beaten at Jackson State...when in
reality they couldn't care less about the victims of either Kent and
Jackson.
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