In his last days in office, Donald Trump reportedly ordered his dwindling circle of attendants never to mention Richard Nixon’s name in his presence. We can guess the reason: Nixon means failure. Even people who know nothing about politics know that. But even if Trump and Nixon ended up in roughly the same place—political oblivion—the roads they took to that destination could not have been more different.
Nation
Insurrection to Inauguration: Reflections on Violence & Healing
By Thomas Beller, Kristi Coulter, Benj DeMott, Richard Goldstein, George Held, Bob Ingram, Vida Johnson, Charles Keil, Greil Marcus, Dennis Myers, Zuzu Myers, Nathan Osborne, David Quigley, Budd Shenkin, Laurie Stone, William Svelmoe, & Peter H. Wood.
The Caning of Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate: White Supremacist Violence in Pen and Pixels
Peter H. Wood and Harlan J. Gradin place the attack on the Capitol in an American historical context…
Too Black, Too Strong: Henry Aaron R.I.P.
I am a third-generation baseball player. My grandfather, Robert McInnis, was an outfielder and catcher who barnstormed with Negro League players.
The Louisville Syndicate (Excerpts from William Klein’s Documentary on Muhammad Ali)
One Night in Miami sent your editor back to William Klein’s 1964 documentary, Cassius the Great (which Klein would go on to re-edit later with new footage as Muhammad Ali, The Greatest). The following bits from the movie are way less than a perfect compaction, but the opening scene, which limns the Louisville syndicate that once “owned” Ali, is for the Ages. B.D. (H/T Jeff Kreines)
Click Read More to see on a bigger screen.
Tweet Storm (& Whiskey Rebels): Terry Bouton’s Twitter Report on the D.C. Riot
History professor Terry Bouton’s eye-witness tweets on the storming of the Capitol—unrolled below—caught the essence of the event. (Bouton’s report reminded your editor of the indelible account of a Klan assault on a Civil Rights demonstration in St. Augustine, Florida written by Lawrence Goodwyn who was Bouton’s teacher.) Bouton’s twenty-two tweets have turned his own world upside down: “This has been one of the strangest times in my life. I went from 61 twitter followers to 28.6k in less than a week…” Yesterday he posted a letter (in five tweets) to the insurrectionists, comparing them to “Whiskey Rebels” of 1794. His history lesson for our traitors is attached as an addendum to his tweets from the capitol.
Insurrection Snapshots
Words aren’t swords, or bombs,
gunpowder, guns, dragons.
Not a scaffold with a waiting noose.
Words aren’t religion, airplanes,
torn-out panic buttons,
flagpoles or fire extinguishers.
Not a zip tie. Not a wick.
Just the flame.
The Storming of the Capitol
Now that the dust has settled, all too literally, on the events at the Capitol on Wednesday, I wanted to share a few thoughts on what it was like to be there, what it means to the country, and where we go from here.
Light Of Day: D.C. Riot & de Maistre’s Heirs
The climax of the Youtube video below, which documents the shooting of Ashli Babbitt by U.S. Capitol police during the insurrection at the Capitol on Wednesday, is beyond chilling. There’s the stunned look on the late Ms. Babbitt’s face as she lies on her back — her arms up like she’s a prisoner of forever. Then comes the cruelty of fellow rioters/voyeurs who shine their lights in her face, out to capture the moment when she’s done…But there’s more to the video than its End (which has been shown on network tv and at the Times website). The rest adds shadows to the distinguished thing on Ms. Babbitt’s blankening face.
Click to watch here
Rad
Even the ski bums have been radicalized.
Brotherman Thinking: Obama’s “A Promised Land”
Barack Obama’s A Promised Land tries to do God’s work as per Simone Weil:
It is absolutely false to imagine that there is some providential mechanism by which what is best in any given period is transmitted to the memory of posterity. By the very nature of things, it is false greatness which is transmitted. There is, indeed, a providential mechanism, but it only works in such a way as to mix a little genuine greatness with a lot of spurious greatness; leaving us to pick out which is which. Without it we should be lost.—”The Need for Roots”
Take the following essay on Obama’s memoir and the complementary posts on the legacy of Charles and Shirley Sherrod as a modest attempt to make First of the Month into another very human mechanism of historical transfer.
The Politics of Forbearance: Shirley Sherrod in Our Time
This story was originally published here at “The 19th.”
A decade after she was forced to resign as Georgia state director of rural development for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Shirley Sherrod says she “holds no ill will” towards Agriculture secretary nominee Tom Vilsack, who played a key role in her resignation. She hopes that if Vilsack is confirmed, he will return to the role — which he held under the Obama administration — with a focus on Black farmers.
On the Bus to A Promised Land (Riding with J. Charles Jones & the Sherrods)
At the website of the New Coummunities Inc., J. Charles Jones (one of SNCC’s founding members) and Charles & Shirley Sherrod talk about the success of the Southern Freedom Movement and the failure to hold on to what would’ve been the largest piece of land owned cooperatively by black Americans. This short ride down memory highway is full of information and inspiration. (Thanks to C. Liegh McInnes for his help with steering this post.)
The story of New Communities isn’t over. See the post below to learn more about how the Sherrods et al. have kept on moving…
Souls Grown Deeper: The Legacy of New Communities Land Trust
Feelings of a Prisoner
The author wrote this poem when he was detained in Tacoma ICE Processing Center. He has since been deported to Jalisco in Mexico. His poem is translated by David Golding.