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.”
USA
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.
Oral History Interview with Antonio Salazar-Hobson
This oral history interview was conducted by Gabe Sanders with Antonio Salazar-Hobson, a tribal and labor lawyer who has worked with Cesar Chavez. Below is a summary of the oral history, as well as the transcript itself.
Vel Phillips: Wisconsin Civil Rights Trailblazer and the March on Milwaukee
According to Vel Phillips, it is hard to describe the wonder of the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. to those who haven’t seen them because nothing compares.
Resurrecting King and Resurrection City: Opposing Memories of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and a Forgotten Moment in His Legacy
Every year, come the third Monday of January, Americans flip through news channels reflecting on the legacy of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Individuals active on social media—depending on the political affiliations of their peers—view a long series of posts listing the bastardization of King’s memory on both sides of the aisle.
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.
How Black Milwaukeeans Won the Fight for Fair Housing
The proposed legislation, its author declared, was “doomed to a violent death the moment it was uttered… like so many other issues pertaining to racial discrimination that have been sent to the Mayor’s office.”
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.