The American Civil War was over. Enslaved people were now free people. Though the chains of physical bondage were gone, new ways were found to restore the pre-war social order to keep black people down and subjugate them. Racist Jim Crow bylaws for example were enacted in the South long before South Africa institutionalised them as Apartheid … Not all men were created equal; in Black America the struggle continued. 400 Years of Taking the Knee II
William E B Du Bois 1903: condemned Washington’s programme of industrial education, conciliation of the South, and submission and silence at their political rights. ibid.
Marcus Harvey was described by du Bois as, ‘The most dangerous enemy of the Negro in America and in the world.’ ibid.
100 days after Emmett Till was lynched, in December 1955 Rosa Parks was to initiate the year-long Montgomery bus boycott. ibid.
‘We can’t solve this problem through retaliatory violence. We must meet violence with non-violence.’ ibid. King
Rosa Parks’ bus boycott eight years earlier had it parallel in Bristol in the west of England: Paul Stephenson, the city’s first youth black officer … The Bristol Bus Boycott was organised: it took just 60 days to succeed. ibid.
Muhammad Ali’s boxing career took a turn towards social activism in 1966 when he refused to be drafted into the military, publicly declaring his opposition to the Vietnam war. ibid. King
Music has often been at the leading edge of this revolt against the mainstream. Richard Clay, Utopia: In Search of the Dream III: A Good Place Within, BBC 2017
The Peasants’ Revolt – the greatest uprising in the history of medieval England. Robert Bartlett, The Plantagenets III, BBC 2014
I think when there’s hopelessness people revolt. Tupac Shakur, The Killuminati Theory
The Great Mutiny had begun. At first it was confined to one area in the north. Empires: Queen Victoria’s Empire II: Passage to India, PBS 2001
The beleaguered British garrisons held out week after week under constant bombardment. ibid.
The Indian Mutiny – but to the Indians it was the first war of independence. Dan Snow, The Birth of Empire: The East India Company II, BBC 2014
Indian troops rose up and killed their own officers. Jeremy Paxman, Empire I BBC 2012
Mau Mau – their goal was freedom from British rule. Jeremy Paxman, Empire V: Doing Good
The authorities rounded up Mau Mau suspects thousands at a time herding them into vast internment camps. ibid.
Dean Reed lives in East Berlin because he likes it better over there. An entertainer who has become the Soviet version of a superstar: he sings, he acts, and he speaks with what seems to be genuine conviction the Soviet line. Red Elvis: The Cold War Cowboy ***** Sky Documentaries 2022, 60 Minutes
Six weeks after the 60 Minutes interview is broadcast he disappears. ibid. historian
From that point on there is no way back; he is an enemy of the government of the United States. ibid.
By the late 1960s Dean Read is a fully fledged political radical. ibid.
He is rebelling against the government [East German] he previously cooperated with. ibid.
The golden boy who single-handedly ended the Peasants’ Revolt. But Richard II became the most vicious Plantagenet of all. And his reign of terror brought the whole Plantagenet dynasty crashing down. Dan Jones, Britain’s Bloodiest Dynasty s1e4: Richard II: Tyranny, BBC 2014
1377: England had suffered a decade of turmoil under the ailing King Edward III. His grandson, Richard II, succeeds him at the age of 10. He is hailed as the country’s saviour. But just 4 years later thousands of impoverished peasants storm London. ibid.
King Richard II had ridden out to meet rebel leader Wat Tyler. Richard’s men have just murdered Tyler. ibid.
Fear and paranoia stalk the land. ibid.
Henry takes him to London and bangs him up in the Tower. ibid.
Abandoned by the gods and failed by their leaders the Mayan people revolted. Man on Earth with Tony Robinson III: Killer Climate, Discovery 2009
Protests spawned riots: riots turn into a national uprising. Attacking the prayer book, rebels did not mince their words. Lisa Hilton, Charles I: Downfall of a King II: A Nation Divided, BBC 2019
Fuelled by ale, the London apprentices are on the rampage … ‘No Bishops! No Popish Lords!’ ibid.
But the English counties weren’t the only place where it was said something had to be done to avert bloodshed. In Suriname, Guyana and in Jamaica a push to the edge by hope and desperation there had been slave rebellions put down with a ferocity which made Peterloo look like a picnic. Simon Schama, A History of Britain s3e1: Forces of Nature, BBC 2002
In the 1370s with a series of national poll taxes which hit everyone ... The Peasants’ Revolt was an English phenomenon ... 63 women rebels were indicted in Sussex alone ... Once the rebels had dispersed, the government reneged on the deal. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 4/8: The Great Rising, BBC 2012
A Lollard revolt against King Henry V was crushed in 1414. But at the grass roots their ideas survived. Michael Wood, The Great British Story: A People’s History 5/8: Lost Worlds and New Worlds
The freedom fighters soon paid for the revolt with their lives. Bettany Hughes, Seven Ages of Britain: The Sixth Age: 1350 A.D. – 1530 A.D. Channel 4 2003
Also ruled through violence and oppression. Rome’s rise to greatness was inevitable. Bettany Hughes, The Eight Days that Made Rome e2: The Spartacus Revolt, Channel 5 2017
This is the day in the summer of 73 B.C. when a band of slaves took on the might of Rome. They were led by one of the most legendary names in history, Spartacus. ibid.
They knew that slaves were potential insurgents, and one day in 73 B.C. their worst fears were realised. ibid.
A group of highly trained specialist slaves …. a full-blown slave revolt. ibid.
The protest and the idea of freedom is contagious. ibid.
Two thirds of the slave army was slaughtered. ibid.
Here in Britain around 60 A.D. It was the day Roman forces flogged and dishonoured the Queen of a proud native tribe, and it triggered an uprising the likes of which Rome had never seen. Bettany Hughes, Eight Days that Made Rome e5: Boudica’s Revenge
The leader of the revolt was Boudica: still a British icon today. ibid.
Boudica’s defeat of the 9th legion would have shocked the Romans. ibid.
In 1791 the French Revolution inspired slaves in the French West Indian colony of Haiti to rebel against their masters. Gary Beadle, The First Black Britons, BBC 2007
At the centre of the Republic a deadly revolt is brewing: the bloody death of a gladiator slave is the ultimate spectator sport; by the first century B.C. it’s no longer a game and the slaves explode in rebellion against their masters. Rome: Rise and Fall of an Empire II: Spartacus, History 2008
He persuaded about 70 of the enslaved men to risk a break for freedom. ibid.
Wymondham: 460-odd years ago a little local trouble here sparked a huge rebellion that resulted in the death of thousands. It’s called Kett’s Rebellion, and it’s one of the most fascinating and violent struggles for justice this country has ever seen. Rob Bell, Britain’s Lost Battlefields s1e6: Class War in Tudor England
What started out as a minor disagreement about sheep between a farmer and the local townsfolk developed into an extraordinary uprising against the establishment. A class war in which hundreds lost their lives for what they believed was a just cause.
The movement attracted 16,000 supporters from all over Norfolk … But when the marched on Norwich they were branded as traitors and fired on by the city’s guns. ibid.
It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. Oscar Wilde
Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt. Juvenal