Reckon Radio

In the final episode, Woke Vote founder and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute President, DeJuana Thompson, and Tennessee State Rep Justin J. Pearson sit down with hosts Eunice Elliott and Roy S. Johnson. The four discuss the status of the movement for Black Power today—what's changed, what hasn’t and how the strategies of the Lowndes County Freedom Organization (LFCO) hold up today. To Pearson and Thompson, the past isn’t the past. It’s our toolkit for tomorrow. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Election Day for the Lowndes County Freedom Organization’s candidates didn’t go the way they wanted. But their party’s work - and its mascot the Black Panther - has rippled down through the years and across the country. To show what the Lowndes County Freedom Organization means today, journalists Eunice Elliott and Roy S. Johnson go back to the very origins of the Voting Rights Act, and the ways its opponents have tried to tear it down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How will the first election with an all-Black party end? It’s Election Day, 1966, and the Voting Rights Act is being put to the test. The Lowndes County Freedom Organization’s candidates have canvassed, campaigned and called on Black voters to show up to the polls for the Black Panther - at no small danger to themselves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What did the Lowndes County movement look like? Everything Black folks did was an act of rebellion—it wasn’t just door knocking and registering to vote. Plus the story of how the Black Panther symbol was born. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did a county known as “Bloody Lowndes” become the birthplace of the Black Panther? Because the people of Lowndes met vicious, racist violence with a powerful response. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices