Moving and Intersecting Images
Kwanzaa Animation, James Meredith's March hats, and Bayard Rustin in film
Another CSUN interdisciplinary collaboration resulted in the animated short film "Kwanzaa," exploring the holiday's origins. Faculty and students animated the video using an interview from the Black Power Archives, showcasing the Bradley Center’s commitment to interdisciplinary and creative exploration. A 1966 photograph reveals a symbolic hat linking James Meredith's March Against Fear and the Farmworker Movement, symbolizing unity across social movements during the Civil Rights era. And finally, Colman Domingo's Oscar nomination for Rustin brings attention to civil rights and labor activist Bayard Rustin. The film, produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, explores Rustin's role in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. Recently, Rustin has been getting more attention with the premier of a musical and the publication of a new book exploring his wide-ranging legacy.
“Kwanzaa”, a CSUN Animated Short Film
The animated short film “Kwanzaa” on the founding of this annual holiday which celebrates African and African American culture, is an interdisciplinary collaboration between CSUN’s Bradley Center, the Art Department, and the Music Department. Featuring an interview conducted in 2016 with Kicheko Davis by Dr. Keith Rice and Dr. Karin Stanford, part of the Black Power Archives at the Tom & Ethel Bradley Center. CSUN animation, design, motion, and music students worked with their professors to create the video. Professor Anglaia Mortcheva guided the animation team, Professor Shirin Raban oversaw the Motion Graphics Team, and Professor Kyle Simpson directed the Advanced Media Composition Team. A screening and event is scheduled at the CSUN Art Gallery on Monday, February 26, at 3:00 pm
Hats of solidarity—Mississippi and California
by Marta Valier
While working on the Farmworker Movement Collection we found a photograph by Emmon Clarke, depicting a supporter of the Farmworker Movement standing next to a store where picketers are organizing a boycott. He is wearing a straw hat. On the hat, there is a cloth band with the word “FREEDOM” written around it and the typical button with the symbolic black eagle and the words, “Huelga NFWA.” Captured in late 1966 in California, the image establishes a connection between the events there and those unfolding in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement.
This hat, we discovered, is the same hat some of the marchers wore during the March Against Fear, a 220-mile walk during the period of the Civil Rights Movement led by activist James Meredith from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi, and it underscores the unity among diverse social movements.
The Meredith’s March for Freedom started on June 5, 1966, when the civil rights activist decided to challenge Black voter suppression and racism. A year prior, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act into law but despite its commitment to equality, voter registration remained dangerous, marked by intimidation and unjustified roadblocks. Meredith's peaceful initiative in June of 1966 faced immediate brutality. On the second day, a sniper wounded him in the neck, head, and back. James Meredith had previously confronted hostility when he applied to the segregated University of Mississippi, triggering a legal battle that led to the admission of Black students; he faced protests and violent white riots from both state officials and residents. Following Meredith’s shooting as he marched to Jackson, the state of Mississippi conducted primaries. Despite 140,000 new Black registrations resulting from the Voting Rights Act, only a quarter participated in the voting process, many attributing the low turnout to the fear lingering after the shooting.
Unable to continue the march he initiated, Meredith gained support from major civil rights groups. Martin Luther King and Floyd McKissick, the national director of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), met with Stokely Carmichael, Cleveland Sellers, and Stanley Wise from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They agreed to join forces and despite encountering harassment, intimidation, and local resistance, the groups successfully coordinated the three-week march. In alignment with Meredith’s goals, they marched advocating for the Black people of Mississippi through voter registration and political education. They created a manifesto urging President Johnson to enforce the already existing laws, asking him to deploy federal registrars to 600 Deep South counties, to allocate a budget for Black poverty, and to expedite integration in the 1966 Civil Rights Bill. Recovering from his injuries, Meredith joined the march towards the end, when 15,000 marchers arrived at the Jackson finish line, contributing to the largest civil rights march in Mississippi.
The Emmon Clarke photograph and other images by Bob Fitch featuring Martin Luther King Jr. and Hosea Williams wearing similar hats not only strengthen the ties between these social movements but also enhance the visual connections among photographic collections nationwide.
Bayard Rustin in the spotlight
By Marta Valier
Colman Domingo’s recent Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his main role in the film Rustin thrusts the life of civil rights activist and organizer Bayard Rustin into the limelight. The movie centers on Bayard Rustin’s role as organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. After being mostly obscured in history because of his pacifism, sexual orientation, and political preferences, Bayard Rustin is currently experiencing a strong revival beyond Hollywood. In the summer of 2022, the musical Bayard Rustin: Inside Ashland premiered in Pennsylvania and it focuses on his imprisonment as a conscientious objector. Last fall, the book Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics, edited by Michael G. Long, was published, bringing to the readers a more comprehensive view of Rustin’s legacy.
As explained by historian John D'Emilio in his book Lost Prophet, Rustin has been among the most significant social justice activists and organizers in the U.S. in the last century. As a teenager, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, he actively stood up against racial segregation. He moved to New York in the late 1930s and briefly joined the Communist Party. Throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, he participated in the peace movement and joined organizations like the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Wart Resisters League. In the 1940s and 50s, Rustin pioneered the use of nonviolence, inspired by Gandhi, to draw attention to segregation in the U.S. He organized the first Freedom Ride, predating their popularity in the 1960s.
Rustin was an advocate against nuclear weapons, and when the Montgomery Bus Boycott began in late 1955, he traveled to Montgomery, Alabama to use his expertise in civil disobedience. He became a key advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and introduced him to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence. Rustin wrote the plans for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). In 1963, Rustin became the chief organizer, under his mentor A. Philip Randolph, of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where a quarter of a million people demonstrated for economic justice, employment, voting rights, housing, and equal opportunity. After 1963, he directed his efforts towards running the A. Philip Randolph Institute is an organization uniting African American unionists, fostering collaboration between the labor and civil rights movements.
The movie Rustin is centered on the preparations for the March on Washington and it shows the resistance to the most radical aspects of Rustin’s original plans for the march by Democratic Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and others. Regardless, as Long’s new book indicates, “It’s still shocking that a pacifist, socialist, ex-convict, former communist, openly gay, Black man was largely responsible for planning and executing the most significant event in US protest history.” Being conscious of the potential disruptive impact of the march and himself, Rustin arranged for the Washington, DC police department to place white officers on the periphery of the downtown area so that they could intercept white provocateurs.
For a more in-depth exploration of Rustin's life, you can also watch the 2003 documentary Brother Outsider on Kanopy. Directed by Bennett Singer and Nancy Kates, it's accessible with your library card.