Over the years, for both Linda and Michael, a major focus of our human rights work in Europe has been on Roma rights and fighting discrimination against Roma. Michael in particular is often asked about drawing connections between the struggle for Roma rights and his experiences with the African American Civil Rights movement.
On February 21, 2018, we started our Salon year off with a Salon featuring Michael and the young Spanish Romani activist, Vicente Rodriguez Fernandez. Vicente is a close friend of ours, and, more importantly, a committed, energetic, creative, and innovative organizer for Romani rights and human rights, who is as passionate about truly grassroots work as we are, and whose out-of-the-box ideas challenge the direction of existing human rights work in Europe. He is the founder of RomaPop, an organization devoted to challenging racist images of Roma in pop culture and was named by Forbes as one of the 2016 "30 under 30" in the policy field. He is currently Co-director of the Legacies of Empires program for the University of Washington. Of course, most of you already know Michael, who has had a lifelong career in human rights, as part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which played a central role in the African American Civil Rights movement, and later as Director for European Programs of the American Friends Service Committee.
In their conversation, Vicente and Michael began by recounting their personal and family histories, illustrating some of the commonalities between the challenges faced by Roma and African American communities, and discussed what drew each of them to connect with the history of the other's community. Moving into the current day, their presentations emphasized the need to question stereotypes and stock narratives about marginalized communities, and, in our European context, about Roma in particular. The presentation sparked intense conversation that continued in deep discussions long after the formal program ended.
The first segment (approx. 25 mins) of this week's episode of Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal's weekly webcast Left of Black features Michael and his daughter Aishah Shahidah Simmons discussing their work to end violence against women around the world. They also discuss the role that Michael played in Aishah's coming out process, and the importance of parental support at such a pivotal moment.
The second part of the episode features an interview with Prof. Meta DuEwa Jones discussing the legacy of jazz poetry.
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If you've come to our blog by following a link from Left of Black, welcome! We encourage you to browse the blog to learn more about the events and activities of Ráday Salon and its founders, Michael Simmons and Linda Carranza.
Here's a couple photos from an event at Wooden Shoe Books in Philly, where Michael joined James Tracy, Andrea Walls, Dan Berger and Suzy Subways on a panel discussion on Social Movements, Past and Present.
The discussion was informal and loosely structured, and generated a good conversation on effective organizing that is sensitive to community needs.
From July 9 to 11, 2011, Michael and Linda were in Little Rock, Arkansas to attend a symposium focusing on the civil rights activism of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Arkansas. The symposium was the official launching event for a new book on SNCC activism in Arkansas, Arsnick: The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Arkansas. The book includes a chapter authored by Michael about his experiences in Arkansas, which is where he began his work with SNCC.
Michael addresses the symposium on SNCC in Arkansas
The C-SPAN network filmed most of the symposium, so to see Michael's speech, see the video of the second panel discussion. (The link to the video should take you directly to Michael's segment. If you are viewing the full video of the panel, Michael's segment begins at about 2:35 minutes into the recording, and lasts about 12 minutes.)
In additon to the symposium, we attended a wonderful public commemoration event of the first Freedom Riders bus to arrive in Little Rock, Arkansas, 50 years earlier, to the day, on July 10, 1961. There is excellent coverage of both the symposium and the anniversary events on a website dedicated to the events at http://www.lrfreedomriders.org/.
To commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, the "Documentaries and Discussion" series at the Greene Street Friends Meeting in Philadelphia invited Michael to host a screening and discussion of an episode of Eyes on the Prize. This documentary, the seminal account of the civil rights movement filled with contemporary archival footage and in-depth interviews with numerous activists and participants in the movement, has been a Ráday Salon staple since our inaugural event -- see our Eyes on the Prize category for all our previous posts on the documentary, which include links to more information about the series.
Much of the discussion following the film focused on the work that still needs to be done to fight discrimination in the United States, and on the challenge of continuing to motivate young people to social and political activism today. For an excellent overview of the event, see the article published by local writer and photographer Jenny Swigoda, Eyes still on the prize in Germantown, on Newsworks.org, a new source of Philadelphia area news produced by the public broadcaster WHYY.
Michael Simmons delivering a speech at a rally of the Citizens Against the Far Right Movement in Hungary, protesting against planned neo-nazi demonstrations on August 15, 2009. Credit for the beautiful photo goes to our good friend JD.
Today, September 4, 2009, marks a 40 year anniversary in a life devoted to fighting for human rights. On September 4, 1969, Michael Simmons began a 30-month prison sentence for his conscientious objection to the Vietnam War. As a Black American, Michael faced a longer prison sentence than white conscientious objectors, because not only did he express a personal opposition to the war in Vietnam, he also fought hard against the oppression of Black Americans in the United States, and actively organized African American opposition against the war.
On this important anniversary, I invite Ráday Salon friends and fans to join me in commemorating Michael's commitment and courage
This week is Pride week in Budapest. The festival hosts film screenings and discussions during the week and will culminate in a march this Saturday. For more information on events, check out the Budapest Pride 2009 website. (Link goes to English version, but a Hungarian version is also available - just look for the Hungarian flag.)
Although the Budapest Pride march was once a fun-filled event, in the last two years it has become the focus of violent extremists, and will be carried on this year (as last year) under heavy police protection. To learn more about the history of the Pride march, and to see videos of attacks on last year's pride march, click the "continue reading" link below.
This year, a number of neo-Nazi organizations had planned a demonstration in Budapest
for August 15, to mark the death of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess. In
response, a large coalition of groups planned a "Day of Peaceful
Protest against the Far Right". With a week to go, the Budapest police officially banned the neo-Nazi demonstrations, but the Peaceful Protest
events still went on.
The Peaceful Protest events were organized by a group called the "Civelek a Szélsőjobb Ellen" Mozgalom (or the Citizens Against the Far Right Movement). The movement is an umbrella group of over 50 civil society organization including anti-Fascists,
Jewish organizations, Roma organizations, gay rights groups, green
organizations and humanists. The day included music, information tents, and short speeches -- including the one above by Michael.
You can read more (in Hungarian and English) about the day's events on the website linked above or here in PDF (English text near the end). Also, our friend JD, as usual, is on the case: You can find audio (Hungarian) and photos of more of the day's speeches on his blog at http://lmv.hu/redjade.
UPDATE - 3 Sept 09:
After we updated the video above to our blog, Michael's daughter Aishah posted it on her own facebook page. Later, Aishah wrote to Michael to share a comment she had received on the video from a friend on facebook:
Very cool to make the connections between history & contemporary
issues, but odd to speak out against Neo-Nazis in Eastern Europe
without once mentioning Jews or antisemitism ("Roma, lesbian, gay man,
African Muslim..." "racism, sexism, xenophobia Romaphobia"), especially
since the far right he speaks against continue to include Jews as
targets alongside the ethnic, racial and religious groups listed.
Aishah's friend was not the first to raise this point. Michael sent the following response to Aishah, who posted it it for her friend.
(Aishah), she is absolutely right. Most of the speech was done while I
was speaking and I only had a couple of notes. In fact, I significantly
changed my speech right before I spoke because I did not want to just
repeat what others had been saying. However, as soon as I left the
stage I realized my error--and it was an error.
This is not an
excuse but I may have been the only speaker, out of at least 10, who
did not mention antisemitism but also the only speaker who mentioned Muslims, LGBT, and Black and Asian folks. This does not excuse my
personal omission but please assure your friend that antisemitism was
well addressed at the rally.
-- Dad
For those who may be interested, here is some further reading on the attempted neo-Nazi demonstrations:
