by James Melson | Jun 20, 2016 | 2016, Weekly Reflection
It has been just over a week since the tragic mass shooting in Orlando that left 49 innocent people dead and over 50 injured. Last week also marked the one year anniversary of the shooting deaths of nine innocent people at Mother Immanuel AME Church in Charleston. The...
by James Melson | Jun 8, 2016 | 2016, Weekly Reflection
At the recent graduation ceremony of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, a young African American man named Donavan Livingston gave a brief commencement address in the form of spoken word poetry. It captures the challenges and joys of both his own individual...
by James Melson | May 23, 2016 | 2016, Weekly Reflection
On May 20, 1961 Jim Zwerg, a white exchange student at historically black Fisk University, was among the Freedom Riders who were beaten severely at the bus station in Montgomery, AL. The local police coordinated with the KKK to allow the clan time to beat the freedom...
by James Melson | May 17, 2016 | 2016, Weekly Reflection
May 17 is the 62nd anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas in which the court ruled unanimously that segregation in public education is unconstitutional. Some see this as the start of what we now call the modern...
by James Melson | May 14, 2016 | 2016, Weekly Reflection
A Burning bus in Anniston, AL is one of the iconic images of the civil rights movement. On May 14, 1961 a Freedom Rider bus was intentionally disabled and burned. The Freedom Riders struggled to get off the bus before it exploded. A young girl who was the daughter of...
