The first segment (approx. 25 mins) of this week's episode of Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal's weekly webcast Left of Black features Michael and his daughter Aishah Shahidah Simmons discussing their work to end violence against women around the world. They also discuss the role that Michael played in Aishah's coming out process, and the importance of parental support at such a pivotal moment.
The second part of the episode features an interview with Prof. Meta DuEwa Jones discussing the legacy of jazz poetry.
* * *
If you've come to our blog by following a link from Left of Black, welcome! We encourage you to browse the blog to learn more about the events and activities of Ráday Salon and its founders, Michael Simmons and Linda Carranza.
From July 9 to 11, 2011, Michael and Linda were in Little Rock, Arkansas to attend a symposium focusing on the civil rights activism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Arkansas. The symposium was the official launching event for a new book on SNCC activism in Arkansas, Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas. The book includes a chapter authored by Michael about his experiences in Arkansas, which is where he began his work with SNCC.
Michael addresses the symposium on SNCC in Arkansas
The C-SPAN network filmed most of the symposium, so to see Michael's speech, see the video of the second panel discussion. (The link to the video should take you directly to Michael's segment. If you are viewing the full video of the panel, Michael's segment begins at about 2:35 minutes into the recording, and lasts about 12 minutes.)
In additon to the symposium, we attended a wonderful public commemoration event of the first Freedom Riders bus to arrive in Little Rock, Arkansas, 50 years earlier, to the day, on July 10, 1961. There is excellent coverage of both the symposium and the anniversary events on a website dedicated to the events at http://www.lrfreedomriders.org/.
This week is Pride week in Budapest. The festival hosts film screenings and discussions during the week and will culminate in a march this Saturday. For more information on events, check out the Budapest Pride 2009 website. (Link goes to English version, but a Hungarian version is also available - just look for the Hungarian flag.)
Although the Budapest Pride march was once a fun-filled event, in the last two years it has become the focus of violent extremists, and will be carried on this year (as last year) under heavy police protection. To learn more about the history of the Pride march, and to see videos of attacks on last year's pride march, click the "continue reading" link below.
This year, a number of neo-Nazi organizations had planned a demonstration in Budapest
for August 15, to mark the death of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. In
response, a large coalition of groups planned a "Day of Peaceful
Protest against the Far Right". With a week to go, the Budapest police officially banned the neo-Nazi demonstrations, but the Peaceful Protest
events still went on.
The Peaceful Protest events were organized by a group called the "Civelek a Szélsőjobb Ellen" Mozgalom (or the Citizens Against the Far Right Movement). The movement is an umbrella group of over 50 civil society organization including anti-Fascists,
Jewish organizations, Roma organizations, gay rights groups, green
organizations and humanists. The day included music, information tents, and short speeches -- including the one above by Michael.
You can read more (in Hungarian and English) about the day's events on the website linked above or here in PDF (English text near the end). Also, our friend JD, as usual, is on the case: You can find audio (Hungarian) and photos of more of the day's speeches on his blog at http://lmv.hu/redjade.
UPDATE - 3 Sept 09:
After we updated the video above to our blog, Michael's daughter Aishah posted it on her own facebook page. Later, Aishah wrote to Michael to share a comment she had received on the video from a friend on facebook:
Very cool to make the connections between history & contemporary
issues, but odd to speak out against Neo-Nazis in Eastern Europe
without once mentioning Jews or antisemitism ("Roma, lesbian, gay man,
African Muslim..." "racism, sexism, xenophobia Romaphobia"), especially
since the far right he speaks against continue to include Jews as
targets alongside the ethnic, racial and religious groups listed.
Aishah's friend was not the first to raise this point. Michael sent the following response to Aishah, who posted it it for her friend.
(Aishah), she is absolutely right. Most of the speech was done while I
was speaking and I only had a couple of notes. In fact, I significantly
changed my speech right before I spoke because I did not want to just
repeat what others had been saying. However, as soon as I left the
stage I realized my error--and it was an error.
This is not an
excuse but I may have been the only speaker, out of at least 10, who
did not mention antisemitism but also the only speaker who mentioned Muslims, LGBT, and Black and Asian folks. This does not excuse my
personal omission but please assure your friend that antisemitism was
well addressed at the rally.
-- Dad
For those who may be interested, here is some further reading on the attempted neo-Nazi demonstrations:
Back at the end of October/beginning of November, Michael and Linda traveled to Amman, Jordan for a conference sponsored by the United Nations University -- International Leadership Institute. The conference was actually a 5-day course, entitled Nonviolent Approaches to Conflict Resolution, Peace-Building, and Reconciliation; Michael participated as a faculty member, giving two presentations on the antecedents of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s non-violent philosophy, and its impact. We met passionate and committed leaders and activists from all over the globe -- people of all different ages and backgrounds, many from the Middle East, especially Israel and Palestine, but also from Africa, South America, Asia and Russia. They all had wisdom and experience to share, and were equally willing to hear and learn from others, and work together in the pursuit of non-violent solutions to seemingly "intractable" conflicts.
The course was a wonderful experience, bringing together such a diverse, talented, energetic, and truly dedicated group of participants, that the momentum built up during our time together continued well after the gathering. Although Michael and Linda talked much about the conference with our Budapest friends after our return, we haven't yet gotten around to putting anything on our blog about it. However, you'll soon be hearing and reading a lot more about it from us, as the success of the course led to the creation of a new organization -- the Global Network for Non-violence. A steering committee has officially been formed (of which Michael is a member), and Michael and Linda will be responsible for mainitaining a soon-to-be-launched website for the organization.
So we just wanted to give you a little preview. The video linked above was the brainchild of an amazing Israeli activist named Hagit (she's the last one to speak in the video) who thought through the concept, managed to corral all the participants (no small task, that), and enlisted a local cameraman to do the shooting.
We'll have more links and information in the weeks to come... In the meantime, you can check out:
Last night, Michael and Linda and many of our friends joined with hundreds and hundreds of others to build an enormous human peace sign in Budapest's grand Heroes' Square. People began gathering long before nightfall -- when we arrived at 5:30pm, the peace sign had already begun to take a clear shape. We walked all around the outside of the circle, marvelling at the sheer numbers of people who had come to join in the event. We found our section and met up with several friends already there. (Our friend JD was our "section" leader, responsible for filling one segment of the peace sign with eager volunteers.) People continued to arrive as darkness approached, and soon it was time for the official program to begin. After some words from the organizers, the moment had arrived to light the torches. Though we had to fight a brisk wind at first, the flames grew stronger and the mood of the crowd more and more festive. Together we created an enormous and moving visual symbol of our wish
for peace.
The idea for this demonstration came from a friend of ours, Tibor Varady (Jr.) (whom
some of you will have met already at our salons) several years ago as a
protest action against the war in Iraq. The first peace sign was held in Budapest in 2004. Since then it has grown every
year in size and scope, and now it is an international demonstration
opposing war and other forms of violence, with around 50 live peace sign demonstrations held this year around the world!!
We've got lots of links and media to share with you about this event.
