But you are absolutely right. The story of the struggle for civil rights is too important and complex to allow it to be reduced to the broadest of outlines.

But you are absolutely right. The story of the struggle for civil rights is too important and complex to allow it to be reduced to the broadest of outlines.

It's like the Great Pyramids, and leaving out fact that an ARCHITECT desinged it and the BUILDER'S HANDS contructed it.

It is like building the Great pyramids, but leaving out the facts that an ARCHITECT designed it and the BUILDER's HANDS were used to build it.

Sadly, the notion of sexist intimidation isn't far fetched.

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Correct. I didn't write a clear sentence. I meant that the complete history of Rosa Parks' choosing isn't all that flattering, as you argue, not that Rosa Parks herself was unflattering.

Bayard Rustin was a man. But he was marginalized by Black male patriarchy as well. The FBI even wanted to sully MLK with guilt by association. If he was Rustin's friend, then he, too, must be gay.

A complete history must include these discussions.

Rosa Parks was selected to be the catalyst for the bus boycott because she was older, married, well-educated, trained in civil disobedience, a veteran of the struggle and in possession of an impeccable character and most importantly, an unblemished reputation.

The year before, a young, unmarried, pregnant girl [she was 16 or 17 if I recall correctly] was forced to move seats and when she refused she was kicked off the bus, etc. When she asked the NACCP and other local civil rights organizations to take up the matter they demurred–she was not the sort of person the movement could back as she lacked middl-class respectability. Is this the unflattering part of the story you refer to? If so this does not reflect back on to Rosa Parks but rather casts aspersions onto the political strategies of the civil rights movement in the early 1950s.

Additionally, as to the matter of why histories of the civil rights struggle undercut the role of women in the struggle, the answer is complex. Yes, women are self-denigrating but it is more than that. It has everything to do with the low status of African American women in the academy one of the long-standing truisms is that “all the men are black and all of the women are white” which means that black studies courses and books focus on African American men and women's studies courses and books tend to focus on white women. Additionally, AfAm women are marginalized by their community because of the struggle for black men to assert their identity as men, as patriarchal men thus many movements have sought to downplay the leadership role of women as they amplify the leadership roles of the community's men. This happened among 'progressive' whites in the 1960s. Read Todd Gitlin's self-serving memoir on the 1960s and you see how common how this pattern holds up among whites.

They myth of Rosa Parks was created by those who put Rosa Parks front and center.

If we don't include that, then we aren't being complete and we aren't learning our lessons.

There's a discussion about Bayard Rustin.

Safe to say, most Black folks have no idea who he is and what debt they owe him.

Because he was gay.

Let's talk about that history, too.

I cannot even begin to type how much.

In some circles, he's called the father of the Civil Rights Movement.

It's too bad that Samuel Jackson took the bait without doing the homework. And it is just as bad for everyone who does not know the full story and who will take at face value what he said just because he's a celeb. This is why we need blogs, history books, college courses on this stuff, etc. because you aren't going to learn this in your regular K-12 public school curriculum.

There was a whole lot of sh*t happening on inauguration day in relation to this 'radio host' and we're going to confront it.