Just a note to publicise an atheist group

[intaglio]

Black Skeptics Los Angeles

[Iggo]

1. BSLA.

Nice.

[trotsky]

2. It's a pity we aren't told more about the role of non-believers in black history.

From the abolitionist movement to the civil rights struggle, non-believers were right there.

They just didn't feel the need to wear their non-belief on their sleeves.

I'll never forget the former DUer who felt that the Civil Rights movement was solely the product of liberal Christians.

[theHandpuppet]

3. Probably that same person...

...would have had a heart attack at the mere mention of Bayard Rustin.

[onager]

4. How could we forget?

His echo chamber is still around to remind us of everything liberal Xianity has done for us.

It really is an amazing history. I may be forgetting a few items, but so far I've learned that liberal Xianity not only produced the Civil Rights movement, it discovered fire, created literacy, forged the first iron tools and invented the potato chip.

More seriously, I agree about the role of non-believers in the Civil Rights movement. Some of that history is being explored and preserved on various Black Atheist sites now, which is great. I've sure learned a lot I didn't know.

One site says all the original founders of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) were agnostics or atheists. They didn't wear their non-belief openly for several good reasons. For one, as civil rights leaders they were already on J. Edgar Hoover's hit-list and didn't need to give that old bastard any more ammunition. For another, they were recruiting from a community that tends to be overwhelmingly religious and conservative.

I know I've recommended this documentary before, but for new members - a great way to see the milieu of the early Civil Rights movement is the movie about Bayard Rustin, "Brother Outsider."

Rustin was the main organizer of the 1963 March On Washington, but he had to stay in the background. He may or may not have been an atheist, but he was a very out gay man in the 1940s-50s. He had also been arrested several times for his activism - including organizing one of the first sit-ins at a lunch counter, in the 1940s IIRC. An amazing person and it's a shame he isn't more famous today.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Rustin has been referred to be some sources as a Quaker

But I wonder just how much he was involved with the Quakers or if he had to remain closeted? Does anyone have more insight on this?

[onager]

6. He mentions his Quaker grandmother in the documentary.

But as I remember, he never says he's a Quaker himself. Just that his grandmother was a Quaker and a pacifist, and she had a very big influence on him.

And especially for the 1940s/50s, Rustin wasn't exactly "closeted." He was once arrested after being caught in flagrante with a white guy, in a car in the middle of Pasadena, CA. LITERALLY in the middle of Pasadena - he got arrested on Green St., which today is the site of the Pasadena Convention Center.

I'm surprised he survived that arrest. Pasadena was (and is) a pretty staid and conservative community. In the early 20th century, Pasadena was where the 1% of Los Angeles settled. It was up in the hills, isolated from the hoi polloi in downtown L.A. who actually did work and grubby stuff like that. It's still famous for its gorgeous vintage mansions and gardens. Old-line Pasadenans wouldn't be caught dead living in Beverly Hills or Bel Air - places only fit for nouveau-riche social climbers, Eurotrash and worst of all, "movie people."

Pasadena also has some kind of big parade every year. Around January, I think. Something to do with flowers. I always ignore it.

[defacto7]

7. as an aside

there are Quaker (Friends) churches that welcome atheists as members. I'm not sure how far back that goes though.

[AtheistCrusader]

8. Mostly because 'ooga booga socialism'. I'm sure some moral brigade somewhere

flips their shit whenever including him in school history books comes up.

I bet they have a list.



I don't think we can clearly claim Rustin as an atheist. He never explicitly stated so, and I am not aware of anything he said that would make it an inescapable conclusion about him. Good guy. Kind of person I would like to have met.

[Lordquinton]

9. That is the real kicker

So many non-believers in history that didn't absolutely identify as atheist, therefore they obviously had a deep, personal spiritual belief, like that thread about Carl. He didn't self identify as an atheist, therefore he obviously believed in something!