Author name: Mary Curtis

Past is present as North Carolina honors 1963 march and battles voting laws

Featured at The Washington Post /

CHARLOTTE — In North Carolina, commemorations of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s dream credited past struggles while a current battle over voting laws took center stage. In an uptown Charlotte park Wednesday, the crowd used the examples of civil rights pioneers in a continuation of the Moral Monday […]

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North Carolina activists draw inspiration from 1963 March on Washington

Featured at theGrio.com /

CHARLOTTE – A Moral Monday gathering in Charlotte this week channeled sights and sounds of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom 50 years ago. As the sun broke through the clouds in the late afternoon, more than 2,000 stood and sat, sang and waved signs, listened to speakers, and wondered if some gains

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‘You knew things would be different’: How the March changed one family

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My sister remembers the day – and one particular moment. To get to the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 1963, Joan Curtis did not have far to travel. But as part of the contingent from the Civic Interest Group (CIG), a Baltimore-based civil rights group affiliated with the Student

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From rodeo clowns to voting rights, understanding race and history

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Have the folks who jeered the President Obama stand-in at that Missouri rodeo ever heard of Bill Pickett? Pickett was an African American cowboy, inventor of the gutsy bulldogging technique, grabbing cattle by the horns and wrestling them to the ground. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Pickett starred in rodeos and movies,

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‘In the presence of justice’: remembering Julius Chambers

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CHARLOTTE — Though his name may not be as well-known as other civil-rights champions, the soft-spoken Julius Chambers fought passionately and tirelessly and got results. At his funeral service in Charlotte on Thursday, mourners remembered him, what his legacy meant, and how they could best carry on his work. As speakers, friends and those he

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Family of Henrietta Lacks gains some control over her cells and – perhaps – peace

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It’s not about money. Though many have made a lot off the cells of Henrietta Lacks, her surviving family members won’t see any of it. But her descendants will finally gain some control over how pieces of the poor black woman who died in Baltimore in 1951 are used in medical research. When scientists and

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