Nuyorican movement: A Brief Guide to Nuyorican Poetry

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April 19, 2023
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Nuyorican movement Facts for Kids

Nuyorican Poets Café

The Nuyorican movement is a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets, writers, musicians and artists who are Puerto Rican or of Puerto Rican descent, who live in or near New York City, and either call themselves or are known as Nuyoricans. It originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in neighborhoods such as Loisaida, East Harlem, Williamsburg, and the South Bronx as a means to validate Puerto Rican experience in the United States, particularly for poor and working-class people who suffered from marginalization, ostracism, and discrimination.

The term Nuyorican was originally used as an insult until leading artists such as Miguel Algarín reclaimed it and transformed its meaning. Key cultural organizations such as the Nuyorican Poets Café and Charas/El Bohio in the Lower East Side, the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, Agüeybaná Bookstore, Mixta Gallery, Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center, El Museo del Barrio, and El Maestro were some of the institutional manifestations of this movement. The next generation of Nuyorican cultural hubs include PRdream.com, Camaradas El Barrio in Spanish Harlem. Social and political counterparts to those establishments in late 1960s and 70s New York include the Young Lords and the ASPIRA Association.

Charas/El Bohio
- History
- Present day
Literature and poetry
Music
Playwrights and theater companies
Visual arts
Nuyorican writers and poets
In popular culture

Charas/El Bohio

Main page: Charas/El Bohio

History

Puerto Rico’s history and culture in the Lower East Side, known to much of its Puerto Rican community as Loisaida, is long and extensive. From early 1400s to the end of the 1800s, Puerto Rico had slavery and was dutiful to the Spanish Crown. With granted autonomy from Spain in 1897, Puerto Rico was allowed to elect and print their own currency for a year as a territory. In 1898, The United States seized control over the territory. Being a sugar cane and coffee dependent nation allowed for the United States to intervene and rule Puerto Rico politically and economically, with no intention of giving Puerto Ricans citizenship. In 1910, the American government grew fearful of an uprising. In order to keep Puerto Rico under control from being independent, the United States imposed U.S. citizenship, never consulting the actual people who resided. Since the United States only allowed or the production of sugarcane the people started to go hungry, leaving them with no choice but to leave the island in search for a better life in the United States. Puerto Ricans began migrate to places like New York City, specifically to Puerto Rican enclaves, such as the Lower East Side, San Juan Hill, and Spanish Harlem, creating a new identity, culture, and way of life.

With the formation of neighborhoods and culture, arose a Latin American gem formerly the P.S. 64 school building. The building was renamed Charas/El Bohio Community Center, repurposed, and appropriated into Puerto Rican immigrant life. CHARAS/El Bohio was a cultural center established in 1977. The center was built with the intention of revitalizing Loisaida, to encourage Latino pride and community action, to preserve the neighborhood and protect those still living there. The building, formerly PS 64, was abandoned by the Department of Education and taken over and remodeled by Adopt-A-Building. Much of the funding to renovate the building was provided by federal grants or directly from the City. CHARAS moved into the building shortly after, followed by the El Bohio Corporation. CHARAS was the continuation of the Real Great Society, and was spearheaded by Chino Garcia and Armando Perez.

Chino Garcia and Armando Perez were and are two of many founders and collaborators of CHARA/ El Bohio Community Center. More importantly they helped form many artists in the 1960s. They renovated classrooms into art studios and rehearsal rooms. This influenced the demographic of the Lower East Side profusely. The original organization was built in 1964 with the intention of helping youth gang members use their skills and ideals for positive use by encouraging business development and educational programs. CHARAS was also involved actively in urban ecology, developing many of the LES community gardens. El Bohio was more artistically based, hosting cultural performances and providing a space for Latino artists to showcase their work and celebrate Latino culture through the arts.

Present day

In 2017, Mayor de Blasio announced that he would be buying back PS 64 from Singer, and making efforts to revert the building back to a community center. The likelihood of this occurring was immediately shot down by Singer, who made a statement following Mayor de Blasio’s claiming he had no intention to sell the building. How Mayor de Blasio will respond is not yet known. Though perhaps one of the more powerful political leaders, he was not the first to make public attempts to retrieve the building. Councilwoman Rosie Mendez has shown open opposition to Singer during her time as councilwoman, an attitude which is held by current city councilwoman Carlina Rivera. When Rivera’s campaign was endorsed by the Villager, the author of the endorsement article discussed seeing Rivera as a teenager at a protest to save the community center when it was first lost. She has been a continuous threat to Singer since. During Rivera’s campaign, Singer distributed literature around the Lower East Side promoting three of Rivera’s rival candidates, encouraging the community to vote for any candidate besides Rivera. Despite his efforts, he must now attempt to work with Rivera, as she poses one of his greatest obstacles. Although Singer originally proposed a demolition of the building and the development of a twenty-story dorm building, his proposals have continuously been rejected by Community Board 2, as the demolition of the building coincides with the policies for construction on a landmarked building. A more recent proposal produced by Singer shows the building in its original form, remodeled only slightly, but still acting as a dorm building for college students. As of November 2017, community activists were advocating the city Department of Buildings to void the original sale of the building to Singer and to reacquire the building

Literature and poetry

Music

Nuyorican music became popular in the 1960s with the recordings of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va” and Ray Barretto’s “El Watusi” and incorporated Spanglish lyrics.

Latin bands who had formerly played the imported styles of cha-cha-cha or charanga began to develop their own unique Nuyorican music style by adding flutes and violins to their orchestras. This new style came to be known as the Latin boogaloo. Some of the musicians who helped develop this unique music were Joe Cuba with “Bang Bang”, Richie Ray and Bobby Cruz with “Mr. Trumpet Man”, and the brothers Charlie and Eddie Palmieri. Subsequently, Nuyorican music has evolved into Latin rap, freestyle music, Latin house, salsa, Nuyorican soul and reggaeton.

The development of the Nuyorican music can be seen in salsa and hip hop music. Musician and singer Willie Colón shows this diaspora in his salsa music by blending the sounds of the trombone, an instrument popular in the New York urban scene, and the cuatro, an instrument native to Puerto Rico and prevalent in salsa music. Furthermore, many salsa songs address this diaspora and relationship between the homeland, in this case, Puerto Rico and the migrant community, New York City. Some see the positives and negatives in this exchange, but often the homeland questions the cultural authenticity of the migrants. In salsa music, the same occurs. The Puerto Ricans question the validity and authenticity of the music. Today, salsa music has expanded to incorporate the sounds of Africa, Cuba, and other Latin American countries, creating more of a salsa fusion. In addition, with the second and third generations of Nuyoricans, the new debated and diasporic sound is hip hop. With hip hop, Nuyoricans gave back to Puerto Rico with rappers like Vico C and Big Pun, who created music that people in both New York and Puerto Rico could relate to and identify with. Other notable Puerto Ricans who made contributions to hip-hop were DJ Disco Wiz, Prince Whipper Whip, DJ Charlie Chase, Tony Touch, DJ Johnny “Juice” Rosado (Public Enemy/producer), Tego Calderon, Fat Joe, Jim Jones, N.O.R.E., Joell Ortiz, and Lloyd Banks. Currently, groups like Circa ’95 (PattyDukes & RephStar) are continuing the traditions as torchbearers of the Nuyorican hip hop movement. Thus the musical relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico has become a circular exchange and blended fusion, as embodied in the name Nuyorican.

Playwrights and theater companies

Spanish-language Puerto Rican writers such as René Marqués who wrote about the immigrant experience can be considered as antecedents of Nuyorican movement. Marqués’s best-known play The Oxcart (La Carreta) traces the life of a Puerto Rican family who moved from the countryside to San Juan and then to New York, only to realize that they would rather live a poor life in Puerto Rico than face discrimination in the United States. Puerto Rican actress Míriam Colón founded The Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre in 1967 precisely after a successful run of The Oxcart. Her company gives young actors the opportunity to participate in its productions. Some of PRTT’s productions, such as Edward Gallardo’s Simpson Street concern life in a New York’s ghettos. Other theater companies include Pregones Theater, established in 1979 in the Bronx and currently directed by Rosalba Rolón, Alvan Colón-Lespier, and Jorge Merced.

Playwrights who pioneered the Nuyorican movement include Pedro Pietri, Miguel Piñero, Giannina Braschi, Jesús Papoleto Meléndez, and Tato Laviera. Younger artists such as Migdalia Cruz, Edwin Sánchez, and Lin-Manuel Miranda, the Tony-Award-winning actor and playwright best known for the musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. Piñero is the acclaimed playwright with Short Eyes, a drama about prison life which received a Tony Award nomination and won an Obie Award. Candido Tirado and Carmen Rivera, Obie Award-winner for her play La Gringa; and Judge Edwin Torres wrote Carlito’s Way.

Currently, spaces such as B.A.A.D. (the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance), established in 1998 by the dancer and choreographer Arthur Aviles and the writer Charles Rice-González in the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx, provide numerous Nuyorican, Latina/o, and queer of color artists and writers with a space to present and develop their work. Other theater groups use the theaters at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in Loisaida for their events.

Visual arts

The Nuyorican movement has always included a strong visual arts component, including arts education. Pioneer Raphael Montañez Ortiz established El Museo del Barrio in 1969 as a way to promote Nuyorican art. Painters and print makers such as Rafael Tufiño, Fernando Salicrup, Marcos Dimas, and Nitza Tufiño established organizations such as Taller Boricua. Writers and poets such as Sandra María Esteves and Nicholasa Mohr alternated and complemented their prose and lyrical compositions with visual images on paper. At other times, experimental artists such as Adál Maldonado (better known as Adál) collaborated with poets such as Pedro Pietri. During this time, the gay Chinese American painter Martin Wong collaborated with his lover Miguel Piñero; one of their collaborations is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the 1970s and 1980s, graffiti-inspired Nuyorican artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat achieved great recognition for their work. Installation artists such as Antonio Martorell and Pepon Osorio create environments that bring together local aesthetic practices with political and social concerns. In 1992, Nuyorican artist Soraida Martinez created the art of Verdadism, a form of hard-edge abstraction where each painting is accompanied by a written social commentary. Born in Harlem in 1956 and also influenced by the 1960s social movements, the artist created a painting depicting the Nuyorican experience, “Between Two Islands, 1996.” Since 1993, the Organization of Puerto Rican Artists (better known by its acronym O.P. Art) has opened a space for Puerto Rican visual artists in New York, particularly through its events at the Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural Center in the Lower East Side.

More recently painters and muralists such as James De La Vega, Jorge Zeno, Miguel Luciano, Miguelangel Ruiz and Sofia Maldonado have continued to expand this tradition. Gallerists, curators, and museum directors such as Marvette Pérez, Yasmin Ramírez, Deborah Cullen, Susana Torruella Leval, Judith Escalona, Tanya Torres, and Chino Garcia have helped Puerto Rican and Nuyorican art gain more recognition.

Nuyorican writers and poets

Miguel Algarín, co-founder of Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe
Jack Agueros
Giannina Braschi, author of the postmodern classics Empire of Dreams (poetry collection), Yo-Yo Boing! and United States of Banana
Julia de Burgos, author of Puerto Rican poetry classic “Yo misma fui mi ruta”
Jesús Colón
Victor Hernández Cruz
Nelson Denis
Sandra María Esteves
Tato Laviera
Felipe Luciano
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
Nancy Mercado
Nicholasa Mohr
Richie Narvaez
Pedro Pietri, co-founder of Nuyorican Poet’s Café best known for “Puerto Rican Obituary,” poet laureate of the Nuyorican movement
Miguel Piñero, dramatist best known for the play “Short Eyes”
Noel Quiñones
Bimbo Rivas
Abraham Rodriguez
Bonafide Rojas
Esmeralda Santiago, author of When I Was Puerto Rican
Piri Thomas, author of Down These Mean Streets
Edwin Torres (judge), author of Carlito’s Way
J. L. Torres, author of The Accidental Native and Boricua Passport
Luz María Umpierre
Edgardo Vega Yunqué (also Ed Vega), author of The Lamentable Journey of Omaha Bigelow into the Impenetrable Loisaida Jungle

In popular culture

The life of Nuyorcan movement poet Miguel Piñero was portrayed in the 2001 Hollywood production Piñero, directed by Leon Ichaso and starring Benjamin Bratt in the title role. In the film, Piñero’s love life, with both men and women, is depicted, including with his protégé Reinaldo Povod. The relationships are secondary to the life of the writer as an individual, as the movie shows a non-chronological portrayal of Piñero’s development as both a poet and a person. The movie blends visual and audio segments shot in short, music/slam poetry videos with typical movie narratives to show Piñero’s poetics in action.

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On Belonging to the Nuyorican Literary Movement

By Myrna Nieves

If I was asked whether as a poet I belong to the Nuyorican literary movement or not, my answer to that question is: yes and no. Most of the persons that make up that movement were born and/or raised in New York City. I was born in Puerto Rico but migrated to New York during the early 1970’s; therefore I have been living here longer than in Puerto Rico and, in that respect, I belong to the movement. However, I grew up in Puerto Rico as a child and the early influence of my family and town culture in Puerto Rico have determined my literary language, which is mainly Spanish. It has also determined some of my concerns or literary themes. Themes such as the metaphoric nature of reality, dreams and the oneiric world, as well as the permeability of the lines between life and death—those themes/elements I believe come from the early upbringing with my family in a small town of Puerto Rico, far from the metropolitan areas. On the other hand, themes such as the City, the emigration to New York, and the creative capacity of our people—those themes I owe to the life in New York City and the dynamics of the community here. The latter themes can be found in my poetry, particularly in some of the poems written in English.

The writers of the Nuyorican Literary Movement write mostly in English, and that language is important for the writers because it is, among other things, how “home” is created in the mainland and the rebellious use of English in that context has political implications. I believe that the issue of language has other complexities to it. I write in both Spanish and English, although writing in Spanish is primary. I have asked myself: Why I write in English? In 2012 I edited an anthology of 46 Puerto Rican women writers in New York, Breaking Ground/ Abriendo caminos, and found that there are many variations regarding the spoken and written language in literary expression among the women writers that were active in New York since the 1980’s: they are producing literature in English, combining English and Spanish in a text, writing in Spanglish, and writing in Spanish. Most recently, I was invited to be part of a virtual publication (also for Centro) about writing in Spanish in New York City. I wrote an essay explaining the influence of my childhood and adolescence in Puerto Rico and stated that I write mostly in Spanish because it is one of the modalities of our diasporic culture; a cultural possibility that reflects our richness. I firmly believe that writing in Spanish in the United States should also be upheld (because that is part of who are, too).

Now, I must explain why I write in English. I think that with me, it has to do with my audience and the listener, particularly if my poem is a dialogue with an imagined or real person who was born and/or raised in New York and for whom English is his/her primary language. It is sometimes difficult to describe “primary language” because it is not necessarily the person’s “emotional/ family based” language, but the language acquired through instruction: the language that she/he was taught in school and which organizes the intellect in a formal manner. Whichever the reason, I tend to write in English if I feel that the listener and potential responder’s language is English, or if my work reflects an experience in their company. Also, when I write semi-historical poems or epic-like poems about the great migration from Puerto Rico to New York, I sometimes write them in English, while keeping myself open to words in Spanish that may also emerge in that particular poetic expression.

As stated before, I have lived in New York City for forty years in several places, most of them densely populated by the Puerto Rican community: the South Bronx, Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and now in East Harlem’s El Barrio; all places where the Nuyorican literary movement was born. I worked in the education of Puerto Ricans, other Latinos and African Americans in Boricua College, and participated in many efforts to build our community despite marginalization and the lack of access to services and entitlements. Yet, my literary production does not focus explicitly on the social and political circumstances nor on the oppressive conditions suffered by my community, which historically have been important themes in the Nuyorican Literary Movement. I believe that my poetry and fiction reflect the internal pain caused by inhuman conditions suffered by my people—and all people– and the intense longing and nostalgia caused by the separation from my “geographical” homeland and the family that was lost in the emigration process. These feelings and images may not be explicitly stated; they may have to be inferred from the literary text, like “through a glass darkly”, or like a critic stated, “through the crack in the door.” It may suggest the overwhelming feelings of the diasporic speaker, the transformations that she goes through as she tries to reorganize her cognitive maps, and the philosophical impact of the “human tragedy”, to put it in a universal context.

I firmly believe that the Nuyorican Literary Movement is part of the History of Puerto Rican Literature. It is also part of the History of American Literature, particularly that of the United States. I believe that there is a literature written by Puerto Ricans in the USA and that the Nuyorican literary movement is one of its modalities; possibly the most important one up to date. Sometimes I feel that I don’t belong in a Puerto Rico-based literary tradition nor in the Nuyorican Literary Movement, if considered separately. Sometimes the above stated classifications are used to exclude people rather than to explain a wealth of cultural expressions. Sometimes I am treated as marginal in all classifications. I have felt both honored and rejected by both Nuyorican and Puerto Rico-based authors/historians. It is surely a strange place to be at, a place of instability, confusion and sadness; but also a place with an intense sense of freedom and uniqueness, which is used to create.

It is precisely the kind of nostalgia (not despair) described above—an existential status that can be both painful and creative—a characteristic that I have in common with Nuyorican literature. What I most admire about this literary tradition is the capacity to evoke the imagined or “real” ideal (life in the “island paradise” and/ or love for the country and family in Puerto Rico) and how that source of strength is used. The strength that comes from those memories or images is used—along with the influence of other USA “liberating and radicalizing conditions,” such as the Civil Rights Movement, the “revolutionary praxis of the sixties” and the African American movement—to confront, denounce or inspire, but also, in some authors (my favorites), to play and often display a sense of humor that emphasizes the absurdist yet endearing character of our existence. A Nuyorican friend told me once, “When something fortunate happens, we dance. If we have a death or a tragedy, we dance. If we have money, we dance, and when we are “broke” we dance, too.” Nuyorican Literature demonstrates the resilience of a people that continues to create —“dance”— in the midst of all changes and challenges. That is what I call “life force”.

Putin commented on the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA

https://ria. ru/20210616/blm-1737306992.html

Putin commented on the Black Lives Matter movement in the USA 06/16/2021

Putin commented on the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States

Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, said that Russia sympathizes with the people of the United States, but does not want this to happen… RIA Novosti, 16.06 .2021

2021-06-16T20: 21

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GENEVA, June 16 – RIA Novosti. Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, said that Russia sympathizes with the people of the United States, but does not want this to happen on its territory, and will not allow this. “America has recently faced the most difficult events after the well-known events, after the murder of an African American and the creation of a whole movement of Black Lives Matter.I will not comment on this now, I just want to say that this is what we saw – pogroms, what we saw breaking the law and so on and so forth.We sympathize with the Americans and the American people, but we do not want this to happen on our territory. And we will do everything to prevent this,” Putin said during a press conference following the Russian-American summit in Geneva. He also recalled that after elections, the President of the United States, people with political demands entered the US Congress, one of the participants was shot by a policeman on the spot, although she did not threaten the policeman with a weapon. “Against 400 people were excited criminal cases, they face a prison sentence of up to 20, and maybe up to 25 years. They are declared internal terrorists and accused of a number of other crimes. Seventy were arrested immediately, and only 30 of them are still under arrest. It is also unclear on what basis, because none of the official authorities of the United States informs us about this, “Putin added.

https://ria.ru/20210422/floyd-1729346303.html

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GENEVA, June 16 – RIA Novosti. Russian President Vladimir Putin, commenting on the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States, said that Russia sympathizes with the people of the United States, but does not want this to happen on its territory, and will not allow this.

“America recently faced the most difficult events after the well-known events, after the murder of an African American and the creation of a whole Black Lives Matter movement. I will not comment on this now, I just want to say that this is what we saw – pogroms, what we we saw violations of the law, and so on and so forth. We sympathize with the Americans and the American people, but we do not want this to happen on our territory. And we will do everything to prevent this,” Putin said during a press conference following the Russian American Summit in Geneva.

Three times guilty of murder. What awaits the US police after the high-profile verdict

April 22, 2021, 08:00

He also recalled that after the elections, the US President, people with political demands entered the US Congress, one of the participants was shot by a police officer on the spot, although she did not threaten police weapon.

“Criminal cases have been initiated against 400 people, they face imprisonment of up to 20, or maybe up to 25 years. They are declared internal terrorists, accused of a number of other crimes. Seventy were arrested immediately, and only 30 of them are still in prison under arrest. It is also unclear on what basis, because none of the official authorities of the United States informs us about this, “Putin added.

From Civil War to Black Lives Matter. How the black rights movement changed the US

Andrey Kozenko
BBC

June 20, 2020

Image copyright EPA

Black Lives Matter protests continue in the United States following the death of black man George Floyd in Minneapolis. This is the largest movement for equal rights for blacks and whites in the history of the United States, and it is supported in many other countries of the world. Today’s events have a huge backstory. Professor of the London School of Economics and Political Science Vladislav Zubok recalled its main stages and spoke about the consequences of the current demonstrations.

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“These feelings cannot be ignored. ” Monuments to slave traders will be demolished in London

Vladislav Zubok: The story of today’s events should begin from the time of the Civil War. All the prerequisites for the events of 2020 in Minneapolis remained there, in the 19th century.

Now not everyone remembers what started the civil war. Thirty years before it began, the abolitionist movement appeared in the United States – white people from the North who advocated the abolition of slavery. It was based on the Protestant religion, which unequivocally said that the idea of slavery is contrary to the Bible.

Historical background

Slavery and segregation

In April 1861, the American Civil War broke out. President Abraham Lincoln, who came to power, began it against 11 southern rebellious states that did not recognize him and announced their withdrawal from the United States. The key issue of this war is slavery. The industrial and migrant North demanded its abolition. The agricultural and slave-based South was against it.

The war lasted until 1865, more than 600 thousand people died on both sides. This is more than in any other war involving the United States. The North won, slavery was abolished by amendments to the US Constitution.

But the abolition of slavery did not make white and black citizens equal. In the South, blacks were persecuted by racists from the Ku Klux Klan. At the end of the 19th century, segregation laws appeared there. They were collectively known as “Jim Crow Laws”, that was the name of a comic character whose face was painted with charcoal. African Americans and whites lived in different neighborhoods, traveled in different train cars, interracial marriages were impossible. The illiterate, that is, almost all African Americans, were deprived of the right to vote by the laws.

In the cities of the North, blacks settled in ghettos, where the standard of living was much worse than in white areas.

Photo credit, Library of Congress

Photo caption,

Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery, and the fight for equal rights has continued in the United States for more than 150 years

The first mass clashes between two racial groups occurred in 1919 in Chicago and in 1921 in Tulsa (Oklahoma). It was not at all like the riots taking place in the United States now: then, in both cases, whites united and, with the non-intervention of the police, attacked African Americans.

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Vladislav Zubok: Now there is some distorted idea about this war. According to him, in the South lived wonderful gentlemen from the movie “Gone with the Wind” – just the ideal of a white Anglophile civilization. Somewhere in the background flashed black people, who, of course, were not equal to whites, but who were treated very well. And in this idyll, ordinary workers from the North, led by Lincoln, intervened.

This interpretation is believed, first of all, by Southern Americans themselves. But many of our compatriots also like this version of events.

After the war, blacks were given land, and this was unthinkable for their former masters. In the southern states, they immediately responded with the creation of the Ku Klux Klan and terror.

In the northern states, the black population moved to the cities. Especially with the outbreak of the First World War, when the white guys went to fight, and their working hands had to be replaced. (Segregation did not allow whites and blacks to serve together; approximately 370,000 black soldiers from 4 million recruits participated in the First World War from the United States – BBC).

In such cities as Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, black areas and ghettos appeared, they still exist. And it was there that the first pogroms took place.

After the Second World War, the white population left the city centers. Some raised their standard of living, bought cars and left for the suburbs, the second fled from the fact that the ethnic composition and order in their areas began to change dramatically.

This situation continued until the 1960s – and then there was a new explosion.

Historical background

Bus and Martin Luther King

Since the mid-1950s, the struggle for equal rights between whites and blacks has become a mass phenomenon. In 1955, 42-year-old Rosa Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger – she was attacked. After that, the black population boycotted all city transport for a year. And Parks has become one of the symbols of the struggle for equality.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption

Rosa Parks on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, December 1956. By this point, the US Supreme Court had ruled bus segregation illegal. It invented and borrowed peaceful protests, in which tens and hundreds of thousands of people took part. Equality was one of their main themes.

Human rights activist and preacher Martin Luther King organized several such non-violent actions – and at 1964 received the Nobel Peace Prize for this.

In 1962, riots took place in the state of Mississippi – a black resident James Meredith tried several times to enter a local university, but he was refused. His case was considered by the US Supreme Court – and decided to enroll him. The state authorities refused to comply with this decision, the ensuing riots led to the fact that martial law was declared in the state and the National Guard was introduced. In 2006, a monument to James Meredith appeared at the university.

In 1965, mass demonstrations began in the Los Angeles suburb of Watts after police arrested the entire family of a young man who was suspected of driving while intoxicated. The riots lasted a week, 34 people were killed, more than a thousand were injured.

In 1967, a similar story happened in Detroit, mass demonstrations lasted five days, 43 people died, the police arrested 7200 people.

Image copyright, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Martin Luther King fought for equality, which America still strives for

On April 4, 1968, American human rights activist and preacher Martin Luther King – the main fighter for the rights of blacks in those years – was shot dead in Memphis. Actions of protest and disobedience took place throughout the country.

The movement of the 1960s brought the first generation of black politicians to the United States. Officially, segregation was over, but inequality, including economic inequality, remained.

Vladislav Zubok: For a hundred years after the formal abolition of slavery, oppression existed in no less disgusting and savage forms.

Why did it explode in the 1960s? Several serious prerequisites. Rosa Parks was poisoned by dogs, and this especially outraged the Jewish youth and rabbis – too direct associations with Nazism and concentration camps. So the movement for equality gained new supporters.

And in general, the demand for changes in society has greatly increased.

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A civil rights march in Selma, Alabama. March 1965

Southern newspapers were controlled by corrupt politicians who no one wanted to mess with. They were elected almost for life, and dominated the House Finance Committee for years. But TV came along and made America more open.

Americans began to borrow and master the forms of non-violent protest – after all, not everyone was ready to clash with the armed police.

Finally, the cold war factor kicked in. Americans positioned themselves as the leaders of the free world, and they were not comfortable with segregation at home. And politicians – first John F. Kennedy, and then Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded him – took a decisive position, despite the resistance of the southerners.

The hatred for Kennedy in the south was colossal – he was also killed there, in Texas. But Johnson continued his work, and in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed, which destroyed segregation.

Of course, blacks could breathe easier, they were no longer treated as second-class citizens. But they didn’t get much in the economic sense either. Poverty alleviation programs have begun. Everyone who did not have a job began to receive social benefits – welfare, and this turned out to be a very insidious thing.

Already in the early 1970s, sociologists, conservative sociologists, so to speak, began to cite research data that welfare leads to the degradation of society. People received artificial financial support, were not motivated to work.

Education Preference Law was introduced: black children were sent to white schools. Only parents, for example, in Boston, almost rebelled because of this.

These were extremely difficult and traumatic steps forward – perhaps now it can be viewed as such. This has been the case from the 1970s to the present day.

Background

Bandits and human rights activists

In March 1991, Los Angeles resident Rodney King was driving his car while intoxicated. He was speeding, the police noticed this and ordered him to stop. King drove even faster: he was not allowed to meet with the police in this form. He was released early from prison for robbery, and a new offense would send him back to jail.

The police caught up with King, who received 55 blows with rubber truncheons and two electric shocks. His beating was filmed by a random witness – and took the film to television.

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A real war broke out in Los Angeles after a police officer was acquitted in the beating of Rodney King

century of racial clashes. 63 people died, about 5.5 thousand buildings were destroyed. Los Angeles International Airport stopped its work, because the city was not visible from the air – there was such a smoke above it.

The damage from the pogroms amounted to 1 billion dollars. The LAPD considers this episode to be one of the darkest in its history. After him, civil and human rights organizations for the first time gained access to control over the actions of law enforcement agencies. The police officers who beat King the second time were found guilty.

Rodney King appeared before the protesters and said a phrase that is still quoted today: “Why can’t we [blacks and whites] just get along?”. He received a $3.8 million settlement from the Los Angeles Police Department, but continued to commit minor offenses. He spent part of the funds received on the fight against drug addiction.

King died in June 2012. His daughter Laura has created a charitable foundation that is engaged in social programs and pays educational scholarships to young African Americans.

Vladislav Zubok : In large US cities there are areas where there is not even a McDonald’s – why open it if they will inevitably be looted. There is poverty, crime, drug trafficking.

The case of Rodney King can be considered an illustration of the processes that began at the end of the 1960s. Previously, a policeman was a king and a god, especially when he entered a black area. Then this changed, for example, the Black Panthers appeared – radicals who responded to police terror with their own terror.

At the grassroots level, there was no difference between black rights activists and criminals in those years. They could be ideological guys, and in their free time they could sell drugs. Territory redistribution and gang warfare were the norm.

Clashes with the police were inevitable, and here, too, one must understand: people who patrol poor and dangerous neighborhoods at the risk of their lives are, by definition, risky guys. Corruption and sadism were the norm among them. But these police were flesh and blood of the society they protected0003

Historical background

Police and police again

It is the problem of police violence that has been the cause of the unrest in the past few years. In 2001, authorities in Cincinnati were forced to declare a curfew – riots began due to the fact that 19-year-old black delinquent Timothy Jones was shot dead by white police officers. During the pogroms, 60 people were injured.

From August to December 2014, riots took place in various US cities due to the events in Ferguson (Missouri). The reason is similar: police officers killed 18-year-old Marcus Braun while trying to arrest him.

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The Black Lives Matter slogan emerged in response to police brutality back in 2015

In 2016, the National Guard had to be deployed in North Carolina after police killed Keith Scott, a black man. He allegedly got out of the car with a weapon in his hands, his relatives insisted that it was a book.

On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin choked George Floyd with his foot for nearly nine minutes. He died. Previously convicted Floyd was suspected of trying to pay in a store with a counterfeit bill. Demonstrations and riots because of this continue to this day. They went far beyond the United States.

The protests enjoy unprecedented support in the US and the rest of the world. In several American cities, the police got down on one knee, demonstrating their solidarity with the protesters. At the same time, representatives of different ethnic communities took part in all the actions that took place.

Video: How the police show support for anti-racism protesters

The Black Lives Matter hashtag was supported by politicians, show business stars, representatives of big sport. Football players in the English Premier League play with this hashtag on their backs instead of their names. All in all, the killing of George Floyd took the discussion of equality to a whole new level, it became a serious political challenge for today’s youth – all this is happening for the first time.

Vladislav Zubok: The event is happening right now, and, of course, we need a time distance to estimate its scale.

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American liberals have fully supported the protests, because for them it is also a speech against Donald Trump

many were proud. And after Obama came Trump, who does not hide his racial prejudices and stereotypes at all. The contrast is serious.

The hatred of my acquaintances – liberal-progressive white Americans – for Trump is boundless, it goes off scale. They react to any problem like this: let’s first topple Trump, and then think about how to solve it.

People with such beliefs supported the Black Lives Matter movement with all their might. In general, this is the largest involvement of the white educated population in the struggle for the rights of blacks. In combination with the scale of the performances of the blacks themselves, this is a powerful synergy.

A mass of people of various persuasions, the middle class, hope that this movement will help to bring down Trump. I, as an analyst of contemporary American politics, do not think so, but I understand why they believe so strongly in this: there were simply no events of this magnitude.

Dashing people join any great popular movement. People from the ghetto, city gangs, and not just housewives and students are protesting. They make up for their anger by looting white neighborhoods. After all, robbery is an immediate compensation for your rage. An educated person, wanting to protest, writes an angry blog or goes to a demonstration, an uneducated person takes a stone.

We can say that the polarization of society is getting worse. Two camps have formed that cannot hear each other, a split is going on among acquaintances and their families.

The culture war will rage, the movement has already begun and will continue, which says: our ancestors were racists, and now we repent. There will be attempts to give blacks new preferences in education and culture.

But this is in the short term, but in the long term: social inequality in America has reached its maximum since the beginning of the twentieth century. A crisis is piling up on this: as soon as the economy began to recover from a long recession, the coronavirus threw it back.