Why the Virus Is a Civil Rights Issue: ‘The Pain Will Not Be Shared Equally’

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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April 22, 2020

By Audra D.S. Burch, New York Times

First came early data showing that the coronavirus affected African-Americans disproportionately. Then came the fight for a fair response and recovery.

Rose Sanders urged Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama to expand Medicaid at the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Speakers pointed to the racial disparity in Covid-19 deaths. Credit…Kim Chandler/Associated Press

Rallies and marches and other traditional forms of protest are out, given the social distancing restrictions now in place from coast to coast, but activists are organizing campaigns nonetheless aimed at what is emerging as the latest front in the country’s civil rights struggle: the disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on communities of color.

The Covid-19 racial disparity in infections and deaths is viewed as the latest chapter of historical injustices, generational poverty and a flawed health care system. The epidemic has hit African-Americans and Hispanics especially hard, including in New York, where the virus is twice as deadly for those populations.

So in the midst of a national quarantine, civil rights activists are organizing broad, loosely stitched campaigns at home from their laptops and cellphones, creating online platforms and starting petitions to help shape relief and recovery plans. Though digital tools are part of most initiatives, the pandemic is prompting a new kind of creativity to rally support without the power and visceral energy of crowds.

Collectively, the goal is targeted legislation, financial investments and government and corporate accountability. The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., the longtime civil rights leader, is calling for the creation of a new Kerner Commission to document the “racism and discrimination built into public policies” that make the pandemic measurably worse for some African-Americans.

“It’s really hard to overstate the critical moment we are in as a people, given how this virus has ripped through our community,” said Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, the nation’s largest online racial justice organization with 1.7 million members. “We know the pain will not be shared equally…”

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