The Thaumaturgy Department

In ““Now That He Is Safely Dead”: The Construction of the Myth of Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)” Professor Massimo Rubboli provocatively examines the hagiography that began in the immediate aftermath of Dr. King’s assassination:

The widespread celebrations on the 40th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 2008, provide a timely opportunity for reflections on the process through which King has been constructed as a mythical figure in the US, while having been purged of his most radical features at the same time. The process used in fact is not new. With the ultimate undercurrent to blunt the sharpest points of a protest movement, a common pattern has been established: first, eliminating its leader; then, turning him into a martyr; and, finally, transforming him into a myth. This article surveys representations of Martin Luther King, Jr., over the last 40 years and argues that the same pattern was followed in his canonization, closely tied to retrospective reflections on the civil rights movement itself. The exact circumstances of his death – like those of the killing of John F. Kennedy and of his brother Robert F. (killed two months after King, on June 5, 1968) – are still controversial (the official account of the assassination has been challenged, among others, by Pepper 2008). What is certain is that right after April 4, 1968, when King was assassinated on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, a process of canonization started to transform him into the martyr-symbol of the war against racism and racial discrimination, constructing a mythical figure, purged of the features more in conflict with the image of the incorruptible American hero.

Follow link for more from Americana Vol V, No 1, Spring 2009.

Assessing the harsh realities of Civil War medicine, judged by one practitioner as “the medical Middle Ages.” On the other hand, the cataclysmic conflict promoted singular innovations, discoveries, and advances. Something choreographer and dance innovator Liz Lerman is exploring in a new piece, called HEALING WARS.

theres-a:

‎”I think we learn more from those times in our history where we stumbled as a democracy than we learn from the glorious chapters.”

(via rmgilby)

Truly a giant gone:

Roy S. Bryce-Laporte, Who Led Black Studies at Yale, Dies at 78 

By DOUGLAS MARTIN

New York Times August 8, 2012 

Roy S. Bryce-Laporte, a sociologist who led one of the nation’s first African-American studies departments, at Yale University, and did research that advanced understanding of blacks who came to the United States voluntarily rather than as slaves, died on July 31 in Sykesville, Md. He was 78.

With a very first draft of Kwame Kwei-Armah’s world premiere play Beneatha’s Place just landing in our inboxes, this news resonated powerfully; the path forged by Bryce-Laporte echoes loudly in the life and work of titular Beneatha (yes, the character originally brought to life in Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun) and many elements of this new work. So, with us all, stay tuned.

With the debut of CENTERSTAGE’s My America project drawing ever-nearer, featuring 50 very short plays by 50 playwrights, we’re starting to gather some context and perspective. These many pieces examine, in a wondrous variety of ways, the questions “What is my America” or “Where is my America?”; here is another inquiry into the question that continues to stymie and stimulate—just what is “America?”

For [Time’s] annual Making of America Issue, Jon Meacham takes a look at the life and times of this enduring yet embattled idea.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2117662_2117682_2117680,00.html #ixzz1z1r56ddB

Massive and extensively cross-linked online encyclopedia of all things MLK, civil rights, and historical.

The Freedmen and Southern Society Project was established in 1976 to capture the essence of that revolution by depicting the drama of emancipation in the words of the participants: liberated slaves and defeated slaveholders, soldiers and civilians, common folk and the elite, Northerners and Southerners.