Sankofa Impact – Autherine Lucy
In 1956, Autherine Lucy, a Black student was expelled from University of Alabama within the first three days of starting a master’s program in Education. Lucy had enrolled at the school just after the Supreme Court case, Brown vs Board of Education deemed segregation of public schools illegal. It wasn’t until 1988 that Lucy’s expulsion was annulled and she re-enrolled in the same program. She graduated in 1992.
KBCS’s Ruthie Bly brings you this story about Autherine Lucy’s commitment to pursue her master’s degree. This story is produced in partnership with Sankofa Impact. Sankofa Impact is a non-profit organization which hosts events and trips to engage community in informative and transformational discussion around the Black freedom struggle.
Sankofa Impact – Jimmie Lee Jackson and the Fight for the Right to Vote
(This story originally aired in February of 2020.)
During the 1960’s, Jimmie Lee Jackson tried registering to vote multiple times without success in Marion Alabama. These experiences activated him to take up the cause for the right to vote. His efforts, and finally his murder, led to a march which resulted in Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama during 1965.
Sankofa Impact: Montgomery Bus Boycott
the Montgomery Bus Boycott was led by Black women of Montgomery after the court trial of four Montgomery women forced, on separate occasions, to give up their bus seat to a white passenger. This movement ended segregation on buses. (more…)
Sankofa Impact: Confederate Symbols
KBCS went to New Orleans with Project Pilgrimage participants in 2018 and learned about the movement to dismantle confederate monuments throughout the country. 91 3’s Ruthie Bly dives into the history of confederate symbols and what to do with a confederate legacy that just won’t concede defeat. (more…)
Sankofa Impact – Michael Quess? Moore: Confederate Symbols in the US South and in Washington State
Educator, Poet and Spokesperson for Take Em Down NOLA, Michael Quess? Moore spoke in Seattle in August of 2020 about Confederate Symbols, and why he advocates to take them down.
Also, in this segment, Eleanor Chang-Stucki, Sankofa Impact Project Pilgrimage intern and student speaks to three confederate symbols in Washington State.
Producer: Ruthie Bly
Sankofa Impact – Civil Rights Foot Soldier, Silas McGhee
Silas McGhee was from a family of civil rights activists in Greenwood, Mississippi. In 1964, he worked to desegregate a movie theater. He was targeted for this work, and shot in the face by someone whom many believe was a local klansman. You can listen to the story of what happened to Silas the night he was shot, with this first-person account by Bob Zellner. Zellner is a civil rights foot soldier who regularly speaks to participants of Sankofa Impact. Sankofa Impact is a Seattle-based organization that confronts our shared history of racism and resistance with place based learning opportunities.
Producer: Ruth Bly
Photo: About Greenwood Mississippi
Sankofa Impact – Medgar Evers
The NAACP’s first Mississippi field secretary, Medgar Evers was a civil rights leader who organized voter-registration efforts, economic boycotts, and investigated crimes perpetrated against blacks in the south. (more…)
Sankofa Impact: The Last Slave Ship to the United States
In May, the wreckage of the last slave ship to the United States was confirmed found off the shores of Mobile Alabama. Attorney, Justice, and Historian, Karlos Finley, explains the significance of the slaveship, Clotilda, for the descendants of those enslaved people transported here inside it in 1860. Finley also describes the remarkable community that many of the people who came on that ship created in Africa Town, Alabama. (more…)
Sankofa Impact: 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing
On September 15th, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed by the Ku Klux Klan, killing four young girls. This bombing marked a turning point in the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, and contributed to support for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dr. Carolyn McKinstry was 15 years old at the time, and was in the building when the bomb exploded. Dr. McKinstry addressed participants of Project Pilgrimage, an immersive civil rights journey about that day in 2018.
Sankofa Impact: Dr LaFayette- Equal Justice
90 years ago Tuesday January 15th 1929 Martin Luther King Jr. was born. At the age of 26 he became a key leader in the modern American Civil Rights Movement. He is well known for promoting non-violence. A way of life that Dr. Bernard LaFayette Jr., who worked with Dr. King, promotes to this day.
While in the Seattle area last year with Project Pilgrimage, Dr. LaFayette sat down with 91 3’s Ruthie Bly in a restaurant and shared the difference between non-violence and equal justice.
Dr. Bernard LaFayette worked closely with Dr. King and carries on his legacy today with Kingian Nonviolence training. He also chairs the board of another Dr. King legacy: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Special thanks to Project Pilgrimage for arranging the interview.
