A civil rights icon’s advice for combatting Trump, ICE, and fascism today

While each period is historically unique, veterans and scholars of the civil rights movement say there are some important similarities between the era of Jim Crow and racial segregation and our current moment. One similarity, as author and professor Joshua Clark Davis notes, is the role that local law enforcement plays in enforcing regimes of racial oppression and attacking the movements opposed to them. But, as civil rights Icon Judy Richardson argues, there are also critical similarities when it comes to organizing and executing successful resistance efforts then and now. In this extended episode of The Marc Steiner Show, Marc speaks with Richardson and Davis about the hardwon lessons from the civil rights movement that must be applied to the growing anti-authoritarianism movement today. 

Guests:

• Judy Richardson is an American documentary filmmaker and civil rights activist. She was an early participant in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966 and was mentored by Ella Baker. Richardson was the educational director for the PBS docuseries Eyes on the Prize, widely recognized as the most important documentary ever produced on the Civil Rights movement, and she co-edited the book Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts By Women in SNCC. She was a distinguished visiting lecturer of Africana Studies at Brown University.
• Joshua Clark Davis is associate professor of US history at the University of Baltimore. He’s the author of multiple books, including Police Against The Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back, a retelling of the civil rights movement through its overlooked work against police violence—and the police who attacked the movement with surveillance, undercover agents, and retaliatory prosecutions.

Additional resources:

• Joshua Clark Davis, Princeton University Press, Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back
• Judy Richardson, “SNCC changed me forever”

Credits:

• Producer: Rosette Sewali
• Studio Production: Cameron Granadino
• Audio Post-Production: Stephen Frank

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