By Lisa Hix — Two black men walk into a coffee shop, ask to use the restroom, and are denied. They sit down at a table, and within two minutes, the store manager calls the police. The officers immediately arrest the men and lead them out of the store in handcuffs. It might sound like a scene from a civil-rights sit-in at a lunch counter the South in 1960, but if you've been following the news, you know it took place at a Philadelphia Starbucks in April 2018. The men, who had a business meeting at the...

From Yosemite to Bears Ears, Erasing Native Americans From U.S. National Parks

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Immersed in the American West during the early 19th century, artist George Catlin made it his goal to capture idyllic scenes of nature, often featuring the frontier’s many Native American inhabitants. Catlin was concerned about the destruction white settlers would bring as they moved west from the urbanized East Coast, reshaping the landscape for agricultural and industrial uses, and he wanted to document scenes of indigenous life before it was forever altered. His artwork captures vibrant...

Black Panther Women: The Unsung Activists Who Fed and Fought for Their Community

By Lisa Hix — The 50th anniversary of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense was thrust into the mainstream early in 2016, when Beyoncé paid tribute to the revolutionary group during her performance of “Formation” at Super Bowl 50 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The pop superstar and her dancers were decked in leather costumes, with the dancers wearing characteristic black berets and the singer herself sporting crossed bandoliers. Not only did Beyoncé honor a defiant radical organization, she also...

The Struggle in Black and White: Activist Photographers Who Fought for Civil Rights

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — July marked the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Yet after half a century of adjustment to a world where such discrimination is illegal, the United States still hasn’t overcome its legacy of racism. Photographs and videos taken in Ferguson, Missouri, during the past few months bear a chilling resemblance to the images of protests, riots, and police clashes in...

Trailing Angela Davis, from FBI Flyers to 'Radical Chic' Art

By Ben Marks — On August 18, 1970, Angela Yvonne Davis's name was added to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for kidnapping, murder, and interstate flight. Davis was already a darling of the left for her membership in the Communist Party and outspoken support for the Black Panthers, which caused then-California governor Ronald Reagan to personally orchestrate the 26-year-old's dismissal from a teaching post at UCLA. Being hunted by J. Edgar Hoover for a crime she clearly did not commit took Davis's celebrity...

War on Women, Waged in Postcards: Memes From the Suffragist Era

By Lisa Hix — "Do hormones drive women's votes?" That headline is not from a newspaper published in 1892 or 1922, but from CNN online in 2012. Posted just last week, the story survived all of seven hours, weathering ridicule from the blogosphere, before the news hub "determined that some elements of the story did not meet the editorial standards of CNN." "Should women with school-age children work? Should men co-parent? We're having the same debates." No kidding. Check out the lead: "There's something...

Blueprint for the Occupy Movement? Read the Protest Manifestos of the 1960s

By Ben Marks — When I was invited into collector Rick Synchef’s home several months ago, I was drawn by the promise of signed rock posters from the San Francisco music scene, as well as first-edition copies of Beat poetry by such luminaries as Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. But it was Synchef’s collection of flyers, pamphlets, and other ephemera, distributed by groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Yippies, that made the greatest impression on me. "I was tear-gassed...