My mom, a self-described 60s radical feminist (who later joined the Seventh-Day Adventist church, hmmm)... used to use the phrase "...come the Revolution..." as an allusion to a time when things make sense and life is fair... When I got old enough to notice, I asked her what it meant.
She explained that in the 60s and 70s, it was something a lot of people were saying. She was a student at the University of California in the late 60s, when Ronald Reagan became the first Governator and was busily destroying social services, turning mental patients onto the streets, and locking students into heavy debt burdens for the privilege of going to college (previous to Reagan, the UC system charged state residents NOTHING for tuition -- as I see it this was his quite effective way of ensuring that then-active students couldn't get too revolutionary, as their now-incurrred debts necessitated well-paying post-grad employment in The Establishment).
At that time, many people across America, from leftist activists to paranoid FBI agents, literally believed that a Revolution was imminent. It took years of CointelPro assasinations and myriad right-wing repressions to quell that "danger", but by the 80s, that hope had shriveled into the realm of fantasy.
Since then, I've been fascinated by this concept that was so rampant, and now seems so distant. Well now there's a film investigating exactly that. I'll see you there!
What: Revolution '67
When: Thursday April 16, 6pm
Where: Herndon Plaza-Atlanta Life Building, 100 Auburn Avenue, 30303
How much: FREE!
Civic Frame and P.O.V. host a free screening of the film Revolution '67 exploring the conditions that ignited the black urban rebellions of the 1960s and the lingering impact of those conditions today.
Panelists will include the filmmakers, Lisa Borders (President, Atlanta City Council), Kwanza Hall (Atlanta City Council), Doug Shipman from the Center for Human and Civil Rights, and Rev. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock of Ebenezer Baptist Church.
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