http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y-zZpo_jEw

Cynthia Yee, a teacher at the Josiah Quincy School, describes how the 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which desegregated the public schools in Boston, changed the make-up of her classroom based in Chinatown. Yee describes how the Boston Busing Crisis brought together children from many races: “It was a challenging year because we had to make it all meld. Everybody was new to the situation.” She recalls how some African-American children from Roxbury had never known Chinese people before and how some white families decided to put their children in private schools.

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Teacher on Impact of Boston Busing Crisis in Chinatown appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-cc_Du2vj8

Former mayor of Boston, Kevin White, talks about almost losing in the 1967 general election to Louise Day Hicks, a Boston School Committee member who was anti-desegregation and “anti-black.” The 1965 Racial Imbalance Act, which desegregated the public schools in Boston via court-ordered busing of children into different neighborhood schools, had made race a key issue during the election. It led to the Boston busing crisis involving widespread and violent public protests throughout the city. White won by 12,000 votes and served as mayor of Boston from 1968 to 1984.

The post Boston Busing Crisis
Kevin White on Almost Losing to Anti-Busing Candidate appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_rDAJdZrnA

Four people tell of their experiences on the day of the 8888 Uprising, the pro-democracy demonstrations across Rangoon and Burma that were crushed by the Burmese Junta. Although thousands of university students, monks, housewives and children were killed by the military during the uprising, government records account for only 350 of them. Ultimately, the suppression by the military junta on August 8, 1988 prevented the protests from succeeding.

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8888 Uprising Stories of Four Survivors appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZESCoBk9OBs

CNBC reports live on July 3, 2013, the tumultuous night that Islamist Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi was ousted and placed under house arrest. The end of the Muslim Brotherhood’s short-lived regime prompted thousands of citizens to celebrate in Cairo. The “political reset,” caused an upheaval that was reminiscent to that of the Arab Spring when Hosni Mubarak was unseated in Egypt.

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Egypt Celebrates New Future After Government Coup appeared first on Witnify.

“I don’t know very English, but I know as much as write to you…”

Read an amazing letter from a 12-Year-Old Fidel Castro to just recently re-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Castro writes “My very good friend Roosevelt: I don’t know very English, but I know as much to write you.” The future leader of the Cuban Revolution, goes on to casually request a ten spot from the U.S. President:
“If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green american (sic), in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars green american and I would like to have one them…”
The young Castro goes on to give the President his address and highlight that he may not know English that well, but the President probably doesn’t speak Spanish all that great either. Unclear if Roosevelt ever responded, but have to give the young Cuban some credit. No harm in asking.

Castro developed a famously fraught relationship with the United States during his 52-year period in political office between 1959 and 2011–the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Castro’s nationalization of United States owned businesses were among the catalysts for the long term antagonism between the two nations. However, the letter to Roosevelt in 1940 reveals that Castro once idolized a leader of the country he grew to detest. In broken english, he even writes that he is “very happy” that Roosevelt “will be President”:

“Santiago de Cuba.
Nov 6 1940.
Mr. Franklin Roosvelt,
President of the United States. 

My good Roosvelt
I don’t know very English, but I know as much as write to you.
I like to hear the radio, and I am very happy, because I heard in it, that you will be President a new (periodo)
I am twelve years old.
I am a boy but I think very much, but I do not think that I am writting to the President of the United States.

If you like, give me a ten dollars bill green american, in the letter, because never, I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them.
My address is:
Sr. Fidel Castro
Colegio de Dolores
Santiago de Cuba
Oriente.  Cuba.
I don’t know very English but I know very much Spanish and I suppose you don’t know very Spanish but you know very English because you are American but I am not American.

(Thank you very much)
Good by.  Your friend,
Fidel Castro

If you want iron to make your sheaps ships I will show to you the bigest (minar) of iron of the land.  They are in Mayarí.  Oriente Cuba.”

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Young Fidel Castro Wrote Fan Mail to FDR appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOGJJ7UKFM

In the wake of the Watergate scandal, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the presidency on August 9, 1974, in a televised speech to the nation. Following accusations of crimes committed by his administration including bugging the offices of political opponents–Nixon’s impeachment was inevitable. However, his resignation speech, broadcast from the Oval Office, was surprisingly well-received considering the embarrassing circumstances surrounding it. Nixon used the address as an opportunity both to offer his support for his successor, Gerald Ford, and to defend his own presidential career. While he briefly acknowledges his failures in office, Nixon devotes most of the speech to enumerating his successes.

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Nixon Announces Resignation In Speech to America appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyFq9yco_Kc

U.S. Senator Wayne Morse of Oregon explains why history will be on his in his firm stance against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Morse and Senator E. Gruening of Alaska were the only two senators to vote against this authorization and the ensuing U.S. military forces in Southeast Asia: “Being in the minority never proves that you’re wrong.” The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was passed on August 7, 1964, which gave then U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson broader war powers to use military forces in response to North Vietnamese attacks without a declaration of war from Congress.

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Voting Against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution appeared first on Witnify.

Author: Okavango Delta

“Everyone’s face was streaked from crying, creased with giant smiles…We left as current and former South Africans, equal in the eyes of the law and humanity.”

I say “My Nelson Mandela” because we all have an intellectual, emotional, political relationship with Nelson Mandela and all that he stood for: as a man, as a leader, as an icon.

Mandela. 1918-2013.

Former South Africans have a complicated relationship with their homeland and heroes, especially if they left  for political reasons during what can now be called apartheid’s middle years. At the bottom of that relationship is raw emotion and it never goes away.

My parents had been active in the anti-apartheid community from at least the early 1950s: refusing to testify on “the pencil test” and related inanities after enaction of the anti-miscegenation laws; doing free medical rounds in the locations when Whites were banned from entering; standing with the Black Sash; signing the Freedom Charter; voting for Helen Suzman and the Progressive Party; arousing suspicion because of research on early humans; continuing to teach coloured university students at University of Cape Town after the government banned them from being educated with Whites. They finally left after being threatened with house arrest.

I had two personal encounters with Mandela, one symbolic, one experiential. In 1994, the first free election in South Africa took place. All ex-patriots were allowed a one-time, once in a lifetime opportunity to vote, regardless of where they now lived or what country’s citizenship they now held. I discussed this with my parents who now lived in Chicago, where there was to be a polling station. My father had always said that he would never return to South Africa until Nelson Mandela was President. I could not believe or understand my father’s response to this opportunity: He felt he could not legally vote in this remarkable election because he was now an American citizen! My entreaties to him to do this because it was a healing event, a closure to the pain of having to leave the physical country he had loved, a closure to the pain of being deprived of the life he would like to have lived there, were for naught. Clearly, being able to vote for his hero could not erase all that emotional turmoil.

The King County Courthouse in Seattle, Washington was the designated location of the polling station in our region of the country for this remarkable event. We, current and ex-South Africans, Whites, Blacks, Coloured, were to bring our birth certificates and our passports.

It was a rainy, cold day that April. As I approached the Courthouse, I just could not enter as I was so overcome with emotion. After walking around the building several times in tears, shaking with excitement and trepidation (of what, I could not say), I walked in. What an amazing sight! There were ANC poll watchers. There were hundreds of South Africans. Everyone’s face was streaked from crying, creased with giant smiles. It was such a cathartic experience.

We all left that building, no longer unequals because of an artificial racial designation determined by a minority of small-minded individuals who created a monstrous machine to control the lives of millions. We left as current and former South Africans, equal in the eyes of the law and humanity.

In 1999, Seattle University hosted a breakfast for Nelson Mandela. A Boeing colleague of my husband was also a Regent at that university and provided us with tickets to attend. I can only say that watching Nelson Mandela walk into that room was goose-bumps inducing. There was silence before a roar of applause. To be seated, not only in the same room, but within 50 feet of this man who embodied the ideals of my parents, a man of such principle and conviction and understanding of what doing the right thing meant, was truly awe inspiring and overwhelming.

Many people died and suffered on South Africa’s long road to freedom. People trying to live their lives with dignity. People wanting what we so often take for granted: freedom of self-determination, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom of opinion and thought, freedom to choose where to live, freedom to be a decent human being.

Nelson Mandela is dead. Long live Nelson Mandela.

Source: Blackpast.org

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Recalling Nelson Mandela appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WEuJ6DTs_4

Listen to actress Emily Blunt read Emmeline Pankhurst’s famous “Kill Me Or Give Me My Freedom” speech at the People Event in London in September of 2012. Pankhurst, the leader of the women’s suffrage movement in Britain, originally delivered the speech in 1913 in an attempt to mobilize women in the fight for political recognition and rights. Although her tactics have been criticized for their militancy, Pankhurst is remembered as a critical actor in redefining the political and social role of British women.

The post Emmeline Pankhurst
Emily Blunt Reads Emmeline Pankhurst’s Famous Speech From 1913 appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej745jBr2fs

Martin Duberman, author of “Stonewall,” remembers the event that catalyzed the modern gay rights movement. The Stonewall Riots on June 28, 1969 were a response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn, the hub of New York City’s gay night scene. According to Duberman, “for some mysterious reason,” the riots became not only a symbol of resistance, but also a launching pad for a new era of gay rights activism.

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Author Recalls the Event That Changed LGBT History appeared first on Witnify.