Selma’s 50th anniv. march inspires JACL resolution to study African American reparations

“Frederick Douglass said we should have 40 acres and a mule.” Instead, America left blacks “penniless and illiterate after 244 years of slavery,” said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He calculated economic losses at $20 a week for 4 million slaves adding up to $800 billion in 1968. “They owe us a lot of money.” […]

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE MOVEMENT: An Asian American family visits the civil rights South

“Why’d y’all come to Birmingham?” the white cashier at Niki’s Restaurant incredulously asked when we mentioned we’d come all the way from Sacramento, Calif. “We came to see the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute,” we replied. “Well, y’all be sure to tell folks in Sacramento to come visit us, you hear,” he said. This was part […]