In music, syncopation can be understood as a site of invention, an off-beat from the given beat of an arrangement. For example, if a piece of music were in a 2/4 time signature, a syncopated beat would be an experimental site of play that precedes, follows, or interrupts the given two beats of the measure. In a conversation with the scholar and musician Dr. Kwami Coleman, the idea of syncopation was expanded to “something new.”
United States Protests
The Occupation of Alcatraz Island: Roots of the American Indian Movement (1969-1971)
Prior to European colonization, over 10,000 indigenous people called the coastal area between Point Sur and the San Francisco Bay home. Alcatraz Island was part of this land, known primarily for its infamous prison and notorious criminals. However, the history of Native Americans in connection to this penitentiary is less known. Starting with the first prisoners of Alcatraz, many of whom were Indigenous Californians imprisoned for resisting the invasion of settlers and miners during the Gold Rush.
Appealing to Emotion: The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) rattled cities across the United States with their passionate demonstrations that emphasized strategic emotional appeal and civil disobedience.
Students of Madison Lead the American Anti-Apartheid Movement: Madison Area Committee on Southern Africa
Though UW-Madison has had protests and civic engagement throughout its history, the era that gave UW-Madison its reputation as a “protest school” began in the 1960s. Anti-Apartheid activism influenced politics in Madison long before the American Anti-Apartheid Movement gained momentum in the 1980s, becoming one of the first communities in the United States to recognize apartheid as a critical issue that required American activism and solidarity.
Investigating the Meaning and Application of Civil Disobedience Through Thoreau, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.
Disclaimer: The following blog post is not a reflection of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s opinion on the below topics. By Evie Erickson I mean to discuss the practice of civil disobedience and its significance using the …
The Young Lords in El Barrio: Latino Revolutionaries of the Civil Rights Era
In the early 1960s, El Barrio, Manhattan’s Spanish Harlem, was teeming with life. Home to a large Puerto Rican and Latin American community after mass migrations post-World War II to New York City, El Barrio has been a multicultural hub since the early 20th century. Yet, even with U.S. citizenship, migrants have been treated as foreigners and not Americans, their community deemed second-class citizens, effectively invisible to the rest of the city.
News Flush: O’Hare Restrooms Occupied in the Greatest Protest That Never Happened
The Woodlawn Organization (TWO) was born in 1960 out of squalor and neglect. Located on the southern outskirts of the University of Chicago: Hyde Park, the neighborhood of Woodlawn had been pulverized by the pervasive “racial discrimination, metropolitan residential segregation, and unequal schooling”—not to mention collapse of industrial employment—that defined the 1950s.
A Brief History of the Protest Song (in the USA)
Protest music has existed long before the creation of the United States, likely it has been around since the invention, or perhaps discovery of music itself. Music has the unique ability to give a voice to the oppressed and form a genuine organization of people that can stand up to their oppressors when all together.
Free Breakfast for Children: Nonviolent Legacies of the Black Panther Party
For many marginalized groups, nonviolence is but one of many tactics used against the powers oppressing them. The Black Panther Party’s nonviolent actions, particularly their community programs, were far more than a tactic though.
Chaos in Chicago: The 1968 Democratic National Convention Protests
The year was 1968; MLK was assassinated, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, thousands of Americans had been killed in Vietnam, the United States of America was a powder keg, and it was ready to blow.