Programs

JIM CROW IN THE POST-CIVIL RIGHTS ERA: THE LEGACY OF DR. KING'S INDEPENDENCE

A "Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: Remembrance and Reconciliation" Presentation Just months before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated he had been considering running for U.S. President as an independent, neither as a Democrat or Republican. Dr. King was joined by tens of thousands of ordinary Americans to build a people's movement that was independent of the two major parties. The modern civil rights movement against Jim Crow--the legal disfranchisement and segregation of African Americans--successfully pressed the federal government to pass legislation overturning the North American version of South African Apartheid. Today, with 43% of Americans self-identifying as independent, a new system of Jim Crow is in place that excludes political independents from the electoral process. Dr. King's vision of an inclusive and democratic America has yet to be realized. What are Americans doing today to help advance democracy in the United States and what have they done historically?

Omar H. Ali is an assistant professor of history at Towson University. He is the author of In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third Party Movements in the United States. An honors graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, he is a Fulbright Scholar and the recipient of research grants from Harvard University and the University of Michigan. Dr. Ali received his Ph.D. from Columbia University.