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Scener is a Chrome extension on MAC and PC that allows you to turn your computer into a virtual movie theater. You install the extension and it syncs the viewing with your computer and allows you to chat with others while watching your favorite films.
Scener and Comic-Con@Home are joining together to bring you watch parties over SDCC week. You will need to have subscription services to view certain movies via Netflix, Disney +, or Amazon Prime. For the anime showings, you will need Funimation Premium. The schedule is listed below. Visit the site to RSVP. Will you be attending? Let us know in the comments!
*Please note the times below are in CDT
Thursday, July 23
Films Part 1
6:00pm In Beaver Valley (1950)
Requires Disney+ subscription
Get a glimpse of “nature’s own engineer” hard at work! A young male beaver must defend his new family against hungry predators, mischievous river otters, and the ever-impending threat of winter! This program is shown as originally created, and may contain outdated cultural depictions.
6:45pm Doomed: The Untold Story of roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
How many movies did Roger Corman make that never got released? One. This documentary tells the history of The Fantastic Four (1994), a feature that was never meant for an audience to see.
8:30pm Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
The 10th Anniversary. Morgan Spurlock’s documentary that follows five fans as they attend the nerdvana of San Diego Comic-Con 2010.
10:15pm Clue
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
From the year 1985, one of the greatest whodunnit films in cinema history, in celebration of its 35th anniversary we bring you: Clue!
Friday, July 24
Films Part 1
0:00am Knives Out
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
When renowned crime novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) is found dead at his estate just after his 85th birthday, the inquisitive and debonair Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is mysteriously enlisted to investigate. From Harlan’s dysfunctional family to his devoted staff, Blanc sifts through a web of red herrings and self-serving lies to uncover the truth behind Harlan’s untimely death.
6:30pm The Angry Red Planet
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
The 60th anniversary. An expedition makes the journey to Mars and finds terrifying flora and fauna. Can they survive this “angry red planet”?
8:00pm Battle Beyond the Stars
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
The 40th anniversary. A young farm boy must defend his peaceful planet from a brutal tyrant’s armada and he will need all the help he can find.
9:50pm George Lucas in Love
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
A short film spoof based on the idea of the Academy Award winner “Shakespeare in Love”; George Lucas in Love takes the fictional life of film student George Lucas, and shows what he used as inspiration to write his most famous work!
10:10pm Star Wars – Episode IV – A New Hope
Requires Disney+ subscription
In 1976, George Lucas brought Star Wars to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. In 1977, Star Wars became a phenomenon. Let’s celebrate together with the classic tale!
Friday Films Part 2
8:00pm Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Requires Netflix subscription
In 1938, after his father Professor Henry Jones, Sr. goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. finds himself up against Adolf Hitler’s Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.
10:30pm Red Tails
Requires Disney+ subscription
Italy, 1944: As the war takes its toll on Allied forces in Europe, a squadron of black pilots known as the Tuskegee Airmen are finally given the chance to prove themselves in the sky – even as they battle discrimination on the ground. It’s a tribute to the unsung heroes who rose above extraordinary challenges and ultimately soared into history.
Saturday, July 25
Films Part 1
0:20am Troops
Available on YouTube
In the year 1997, in the early days of the Internet, before anyone had an inkling of what was in store with the future of Star Wars, Kevin Rubio crafted this version of the events happening offscreen on Tatooine during the main story. Find out what was happening with the Empires Finest as Luke was thrust upon his Heroes Journey.
0:45am Space Balls
Requires Netflix subscription
Not the first to parody Star Wars, Space Balls stands out among the crowd. Creator Mel Brooks brings his signature style to a classic story of a princess, hero, tyrants, and intergalactic mayhem!
12:00pm The Black Hole
Requires Disney+ subscription
Man has reached the most mysterious and awesome corner of the universe…a point where the here and now become forever. There is an inexorable force in the cosmos, a place where time and space converge. A place beyond man’s vision…but not beyond his reach.
2:00pm Day of the Triffids
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
An aggressive mobile plant species is threatening wipe out humanity. Can the human race survive the Triffids?
4:00pm Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Requires Netflix subscription
A Historic Re-enactment done by the British Comedy Troupe, Monty Python, of the forming of the Knights of Camelot, and their quest for the Holy Grail! A tale that has withstood the test of time, still commonly referenced in pop culture some 45 years after it was released!
6:00pm Dragonslayer
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
An wizard’s apprentice must carryout his deceased master’s final wishes and slay a dragon. No pressure.
8:00pm The Gamers: Dorkness Rising
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
A game master must try to keep his group of players focused on his storyline instead of just killing and pillaging across the imaginary landscape.
10:00pm Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Requires Netflix subscription
The 10th anniversary. Scott has a new girlfriend, but to win her heart he must first defeat her seven evil exe’s.
Saturday Films Part 2
0:45am The Rocketeer
Requires Disney+ subscription
Straight from the pages of a pulp comic from a past era, the Rocketeer recreates 1930’s Hollywood, complete with gangsters, Nazi spies, and the growth of the Age of Aviation. Young pilot Cliff Secord stumbles on a top-secret rocket-pack and with the help of his mechanic/mentor, Peevy, he attempts to save his girl and stop the Nazis as The Rocketeer.
12:00pm The Avengers
Requires Disney+ subscription
And lo! The heroes come together: the first gathering of Marvels Mightiest Heroes – The Avengers! The film that arguably cemented the Marvel Brand for more than a decade now as the biggest cinematic draw world wide!
2:30pm Avengers: Age of Ultron
Requires Disney+ subscription
When Tony Stark and Bruce Banner try to jump-start a dormant peacekeeping program called Ultron, things go horribly wrong and it’s up to Earth’s mightiest heroes to stop the villainous Ultron from enacting his terrible plan.
5:00pm Captain America: Civil War
Requires Disney+ subscription
With the massive damage caused by Super Human actions, the United Nations presses forward with The Sokovia Accords, named after the small country decimated by Ultron. Unwilling to join the movement, and wanting to save his lost friend Bucky, Captain America must battle friends to do what he feels is right.
7:40pm Thor: Ragnarok
Requires Disney+ subscription
Thor finds himself imprisoned on the other side of the universe in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarök, the destruction of his home world and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of his ruthless sister: Hela.
10:00pm Avengers: Infinity War
Requires Disney+ subscription
The Avengers and their allies must be willing to sacrifice all in an attempt to defeat the powerful Thanos before his blitz of devastation and ruin puts an end to the universe.
Sunday, July 26
Films Part 1
12:00pm Fantasia
Requires Disney+ subscription
Even with the demise of Music Television, putting images to music is still relevant today through YouTube and more. In 1940 Walt Disney presented a unique experience, putting animation concepts with classical symphonic beauty to create his Fantasia. This film has lived for 80 years, and has inspired multiple generations with its timeless imagery.
2:30pm Max Fleischer’s: The Complete Animated Superman
Requires Amazon Prime subscription
From 1941 to 1943 Max and Dave Fleischer released a serial of short animated adventures of the Man of Steel: Superman. Collected here they are in order and complete!
5:30pm Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Requires Netflix subscription
The theatrical film from Batman the Animated Series, starring Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. Batman must find the identity of the mysterious Phantasm that hunts Gotham’s most notorious gangsters!
7:00pm The Black Cauldron
Requires Disney+ subscription
Legend has it, in the mystic land of Prydain, there was once a king so cruel and so evil, that even the Gods feared him. Since no prison could hold him, he was thrown alive into a crucible of molten iron. There his demonic spirit was captured in the form of a great, Black Cauldron. For uncounted centuries, the Black Cauldron lay hidden, waiting, while evil men searched for it, knowing whoever possessed it would have the power to resurrect an army of deathless warriors… and with them, rule the world…
Sunday Film Part 2
0:40am Avengers: End Game
Requires Disney+ subscription
It’s a “Time Heist” as the remaining heroes of the galaxy band together to try and fix the actions of the Mad Titan Thanos! Will this gathering of champions have what it takes to save those lost in the infamous Snap? Or will they create a multiverse of madness?!
Anime
Thursday, July 23
12:00pm APPARE-RANMAN (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
The socially awkward yet genius engineer, Appare Sorano, and the wise but cowardly samurai, Kosame Isshiki, find themselves aimlessly drifting in the sea between Japan and America. In order to earn enough money to get back home, the duo enters a trans-American race in their own steam-powered car. Rivals, bandits, and other trials await them on this race from Los Angeles to New York.
2:00pm Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA/UK/IE
Bloodthirsty demons lurk in the woods, and nobody dares to venture out at night, save for the demon slayer of legend. Surviving in this harsh world, young Tanjirou takes it upon himself to protect his family–until the day that everything is taken from him in a vicious slaughter. Now, all he has left is his sister, and she’s not even human anymore.
4:00pm BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt, So I’ll Max Out My Defense. (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
She may be new to gaming, but Maple has found the secret to invincibility! Just put all your skill points into defense until you can’t even move. That works, right? She doesn’t want to experience any pain in the VRMMO game she started playing, and somehow it works better than anyone expected. Now she’s got followers??
6:00pm DECA-DENCE (eps 1-2)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
After nearly being driven to extinction by life forms known as Gadoll, humanity dwells in a mobile fortress named Deca-Dence. Built to protect humans from the Gadoll threat, it’s occupied by Gears, warriors who fight daily, and Tankers, those without the same skills. Natsume, who dreams of fighting, meets Kaburagi, an armor repairman. Their chance meeting will shake the future of this world.
7:00pm Kaguya-sama: Love is War (S1 eps 1-2)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
US/CA/UK/IE
Known for being both brilliant and powerful, Miyuki Shirogane and Kaguya Shinomiya lead the illustrious Shuchiin Academy as near equals. And everyone thinks they’d make a great couple. Pride and arrogance are in ample supply, so the only logical move is to trick the other into instigating a date! Who will come out on top in this psychological war where the first move is the only one that matters?
Friday, July 24
12:00pm Sorcerous Stabber Orphen (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
From Studio DEEN (Fate/stay night) comes a remake celebrating the 25th anniversary of the series! Orphen is a powerful sorcerer who is notoriously lazy. Everything changes when he finds a way to save his sis, who was turned into a dragon during their days at magic academy. Betrayed by friends who refused to help, Orphen will stop at nothing to track her down, even if he has to go it alone.
2:00pm To Be Announced
4:00pm Fruits Basket (S1 eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
Tohru Honda thought her life was headed for misfortune when a family tragedy left her living in a tent. When her small home is discovered by the mysterious Soma clan, she suddenly finds herself living with Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure Soma. But she quickly learns their family has a bizarre secret of their own: when hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Zodiac!
6:00pm Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans (S1 eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
When Mikazuki Augus, a young member of a private security company known as the CGS, accepts a mission to protect a young woman seeking to liberate the Martian city of Chryse from Earth’s rule, he sets off a chain of events that threatens to send the galaxy back to war.
Saturday, July 25
12:00pm Cowboy Bebop (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
The Bebop crew is just trying to make a buck, and they’re the most entertaining gang of bounty hunters in the year 2071.
2:00pm Toilet-bound Hanako-kun (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
Kamome Academy is rumored to have many mysteries, the strangest of which involves the mischievous ghost of Hanako-kun. When occult-loving high schooler Nene Yashiro accidentally becomes bonded to him, she uncovers a hidden world of supernatural beings. Now the two of them are conspiring to keep the peace between student and supernatural—that is, if they can only stay out of trouble themselves.
4:00pm Trigun (eps 1-4)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
Vash the Stampede is a wanted gunslinger with a habit of turning entire towns into rubble. His path of destruction reaches across the wastelands of a desert planet. Oddly enough, for such an infamous outlaw, there’s no proof he’s ever taken a life. In fact, he’s a pacifist who’s more doofus than desperado. There’s definitely a whole lot more to Vash than his reputation lets on.
6:00pm Trigun: Badlands Rumble
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
Infamous outlaw Gasback and his crew are coming to Macca City to cause big trouble for the mayor—Gasback’s traitorous ex-right-hand man. Then there’s Amelia—a tough desert rose with a painful past who wants to punish Gasback for the damage he’s done. Everyone involved is about to learn a hard truth about consequences, and Vash the Stampede might end up paying with his life.
7:30pm Steins;Gate: The Movie – Load Region of Deja Vu
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
A year has passed since Okabe reached the Steins Gate world-line when Kurisu visits her friends at the Future Gadget Lab. But something’s not quite right—strong emotions blur the world-lines and trigger déjà vu. Before she knows it, Okabe disappears. Hoping to save the mad scientist who tried countless times to save her, Kurisu must make a decision—risk everything, or live in a world without Okabe.
Sunday, July 26
12:00pm Black Clover (eps 125-128)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch: US/CA/UK/IE
Asta and Yuno are two orphans who want the same thing: to become the Wizard King. Locked in a friendly rivalry, they work hard towards their goal. While Yuno excels at magic, Asta has a problem uncommon in this world: he has no powers! But, on the day they receive their grimoires, they surprise everyone. To reach their goal, they’ll each find their own path to greatness—with or without magic.
2:00pm One Piece (eps 579-582)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
Monkey D. Luffy refuses to let anyone or anything stand in the way of his quest to become king of all pirates. With a course charted for the treacherous waters of the Grand Line, this is one captain who’ll never drop anchor until he’s claimed the greatest treasure on Earth—the Legendary One Piece!
4:00pm Dragon Ball Super (eps 128-131)
Requires Funimation Premium+ Subscription
Available to watch:US/CA
With Majin Buu defeated, Goku has taken a completely new role as a…radish farmer?! With Earth at peace, our heroes have settled into normal lives. But they can’t get too comfortable. Far away, a powerful God awakens to a prophecy revealing his demise at the hands of a formidable being. When his search for the Saiyan God brings him to Earth, can Goku and his friends take on their strongest foe yet?
Visit Scener to download and RSVP
The post Join Scener Comic-Con@Home Watch Parties appeared first on The Nerd Element.
This article was originally published in Origins: Historical Events in Perspective, and has been reprinted with permission.
As national governments and the global scientific community struggle to contain the spread of the coronavirus, they have also spent the last few months confronting a different type of outbreak.
Misinformation about the current public health crisis—which has either denied the existence of the virus entirely or framed it as an intentional product—has proliferated at an alarming rate. It has also enjoyed the most mainstream attention of any conspiracy theory since the 9/11 truther movement.
U.S. government officials—including President Donald Trump—for weeks pushed the unsubstantiated claim that the virus originated in a Chinese laboratory. A trend called #FilmYourHospital encouraged people to spread pictures of hospital waiting rooms (deliberately emptied as a safety measure) to bolster their belief that the virus is a hoax.
Others watched and shared the “Plandemic” video, which garnered close to 10 million views before social media platforms removed it for violating misinformation policies. According to the film, a cadre of political and scientific elites and institutional bodies—among them Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, CDC director Robert Redfield, the FDA, and the WHO—created the virus in coordination with a Wuhan laboratory, hoping to infect the world and reap enormous profits from a mandatory vaccine.
While such stories are representative of our particular cultural and political moment, they also continue a longer pattern of misinformation. In particular, American society witnessed an incredible outpouring of unfounded rumors around the influenza pandemic at the tail end of the First World War—a little-known history that can shed light on some of the causes and consequences of today’s coronavirus conspiracy theories.
In late 1918, as four years of global conflict were finally coming to a close, the world found itself at war once again. This time, the enemy was far deadlier, moving invisibly through society. The pandemic attacked the young and old, the healthy and the sick, with equal zeal and eventually claimed an estimated 50-100 million lives worldwide.
In October 1918 alone, Americans witnessed nearly 200,000 of their countrymen succumb to the so-called Spanish flu, a toll which roughly quadrupled the nation’s combat deaths during the war.
That same month, tales of the virus’s allegedly malicious origins flooded the nation, almost all of them pointing the finger at Germany. Letters poured into government investigators, speculating that everything from cigarettes, food, Baer aspirin tablets, and strangers with hypodermic needles might be spreading the disease for the enemy. One of the most frequent accusations was that it originated with spies recently brought ashore by German submarines. “It spread from the Atlantic to the Pacific in six weeks,” one man insisted. “Could it do so unless it was assisted by German agents?”
An article in The New York Times on the role of German U-Boats in spreading influenza.
With the benefit of hindsight, this widespread belief that Germany was somehow directing, or at least facilitating, the unprecedented outbreak seems a paranoid—and decidedly unscientific—explanation, but it conforms to what we know of rumors’ social and psychological function.
Decades of research by social psychologists has shown that false information often arises as a type of “improvised news” to explain worrisome and confusing events.
Indeed, during World War I, federal investigators tracking down influenza rumors often found that stories accumulated additional details with each retelling, slowly reducing an unknown threat to something familiar. If the health crisis was just another form of attack by the enemy, then it was something that Americans could see, surveil, and eventually defeat.
Historical analyses of rumor have contributed a crucial insight to this understanding of fake news. Rumors during a time of crisis almost always reflect and reinforce cultural fears already in existence.
At the time of the Spanish flu, people across the nation were suspicious of vaccines and they repeated the assertion that doctors and nurses in training camps were intentionally inoculating the recruits with the disease.
“They arrested one of the head nurses here to-day, she is a German spy,” wrote a woman to her sister. “She is cause of more than half of the influenza in the camp…There was bound to be something wrong when the boys begun to die by the hundreds.” Governmental vaccination requirements—which included smallpox and typhoid, though not influenza, for which there was not yet a vaccine—became an easy target of the collective paranoia.
The current coronavirus conspiracies have resuscitated a range of older concerns—including suspicion about the federal government and political authority, scientific expertise and technologies, mandatory vaccination, and eroding individual liberties—and effectively remobilized them against current and future public health measures.
“Plandemic” and other conspiratorial sources, for example, have already anticipated an eventual vaccine as a governmental tool for infecting people with the coronavirus. Recently, another story has insisted that Bill Gates will use a mass vaccination program to implant microchips in billions around the world, allowing him to track their movements.
Recognizing the historical basis of the anxieties that fuel fake news also helps to reveal how our pandemic fears can revive and perpetuate hatred against groups already branded as dangerous in the popular imagination.
Rumors around the Spanish flu, for example, only added to the German spy scares and invasion panics that had gripped the country over the preceding years. Conspiracy theories’ insistence on the virus as a foreign attack echoed ideas of Germans as treacherous and further established them as outsiders.
They had either literally introduced the virus to American shores (as stipulated by the submarine stories) or else harbored so little loyalty to the U.S. that they had actively spread it within America’s borders. It was not uncommon at the time to hear descriptions of Germans as a “cancer”—a disease in themselves.
The parallels with our current moment are unmistakable. President Trump’s terminology of the “Chinese virus” and “Kung flu”—part of a broader denunciation of the disease as “foreign” by Americans across the country—has revived racist stereotypes about disease in order to marginalize certain groups.
The decision to assign viral outbreaks a racial or ethnic identity has long served as a tactic of white supremacy, and we again see its dangerous social consequences in the despicable acts of discrimination and violence committed against Asian Americans and people of Asian descent.
Finally, the conspiracies of the World-War-I era and today have both expressed a deep anxiety in the face of globalization. Americans fear that global connections have rendered them increasingly vulnerable to seeming intrusions by the outside world—whether that has meant German spies, immigrants, or a global pandemic.
A cartoon from Korean-Swedish artist, Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom depicting the racist remarks Asians have been subjected to during the COVID-19 pandemic (left). An anti-xenophobia poster displayed in the New York City subway amid intense racist attacks on the Asian-American communities, 2020 (right).
We have found ourselves with a powerful, and even frightening, reminder that events around the world can never be fully disconnected from those in Anytown, USA, and conspiracy theories have appeared once again to express anxiety and anger over our inherent interconnectedness.
Functionally speaking, today’s conspiracy theories differ little from a century ago. As we confront an unfamiliar and deeply frightening new reality, in which stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures have shattered the routines of everyday life, the imposition of explanations and stories, however improbable, offers a measure of comfort. Some have directed the blame abroad, many others inwards at our own government. Either way, naming an enemy has provided a target for collective fear and fury.
Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective is an online magazine dedicated to providing historical insight on current events that matter to the United States and to the world. Each month, Origins invites historians and other academic experts to analyze contemporary pressing issues—whether political, cultural, or social—in a broader, deeper context. Origins is a joint production of The Ohio State University and Miami University Departments of History, with the generous support of the Stanton Foundation. Visit their ongoing Pandemics: Past, Present, and Future for collected essays, podcasts, and videos that place coronavirus in historical perspective.
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Representative John Lewis, longtime congressman and Civil Rights Movement luminary, died Friday following a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.
“It is with inconsolable grief and enduring sadness that we announce the passing of U.S. Rep. John Lewis,” his family said in a statement. “He was honored and respected as the conscience of the U.S. Congress and an icon of American history, but we knew him as a loving father and brother. He was a stalwart champion in the ongoing struggle to demand respect for the dignity and worth of every human being. He dedicated his entire life to nonviolent activism and was an outspoken advocate in the struggle for equal justice in America. He will be deeply missed.”
Lewis, who protested alongside Martin Luther King and braved state violence on “Bloody Sunday,” the 1965 voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, was an activist who helped galvanize some of the most important movements for racial equality. He was the last surviving speaker of the 1963 March on Washington, which he helped organize, and where King delivered his historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center), is escorted into a mass meeting at Fisk University in Nashville. His colleagues are (from left) John Lewis, national chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and Lester McKinnie, one of the leaders in the racial demonstrations in Nashville recently. King gave the main address to a packed crowd. (Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)In December, Lewis announced that he was battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“I have been in some kind of fight—for freedom, equality, basic human rights—for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” Lewis said in a statement at the time. “While I am clear-eyed about the prognosis, doctors have told me that recent medical advances have made this type of cancer treatable in many cases, that treatment options are no longer as debilitating as they once were, and that I have a fighting chance.”
The announcement of Lewis’s death followed earlier news Friday of the passing of another civil rights leader, Rev. C.T. Vivian.
Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, to Eddie and Willie Mae Carter, sharecroppers who owned their own farm in rural Alabama. One of ten children, he was known among those who loved him as “Preacher,” after he famously baptized and ministered to the farm’s chickens. The story is immortalized in a children’s book, Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis, by Jabari Asim.
“I could imagine that they were my congregation,” he wrote in his 1998 memoir, Walking With the Wind. “And me, I was a preacher.”
As a theological student in Nashville, he met one of his mentors, Rev. James Lawson, Jr., who taught him the meaning of civil disobedience. Soon, Lewis was among early students to protest the city’s segregated lunch counters. Later, he would help found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
He became one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, a multiracial coalition of activists who challenged segregation across southern state lines. Lewis braved multiple brutal physical attacks against his body in his long protesting career. According to The New York Times, he was arrested 40 times over the period of 1960 to 1966, and spent 31 days in Mississippi’s infamous Parchman Penitentiary.
Two blood-splattered Freedom Riders, John Lewis (left) and James Zwerg (right), stand together after being attacked and beaten by pro-segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama.His friendship with Dr. King shaped his ideologies and he often described the late leader as one of his greatest sources of inspiration. At the age of 23, he helped King organize the March on Washington, where Lewis also delivered his own speech.
“By the forces of our demands, our determination and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in an image of God and democracy,” he boldly declared in 1963.
SELMA, AL – FEBRUARY 14: Congressman John Lewis on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on February 14, 2015. Lewis was beaten on the bridge on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965. While still recovering from injuries, Lewis walked 54 miles during the Selma to Montgomery March that followed two weeks later. (Photo: Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images)Two years later, he was by King’s side as they and hundreds more marched across the now famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. Images of Lewis, in his tan trench coat, with his skull fractured by police, were emblazoned in history.
Decades on, the fight continues and Lewis had remained vocal throughout. Just weeks ago, in response to the nationwide protests against the police killing of George Floyd, he appeared on CBS News.
“You cannot stop the call of history,” Lewis said. “You may use troopers. You may use fire hoses and water, but it cannot be stopped. There cannot be any turning back. We have come too far and made too much progress to stop now and go back.”
In 1986, he became only the second Black man to represent the state of Georgia in Congress since Reconstruction, the Times reported. He served 17 terms and was often referred to as Washington’s moral compass.
On Friday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi confirmed the news of his passing with the release of a statement.
“In the Congress, John Lewis was revered and beloved on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the Capitol,” she said. “All of us were humbled to call Congressman Lewis a colleague, and are heartbroken by his passing. May his memory be an inspiration that moves us all to, in the face of injustice, make ‘good trouble, necessary trouble.’ ”
President Barack Obama, who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, penned a lengthy tribute to his longtime friend following his death Friday.
“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise,” Obama wrote. “In so many ways, John’s life was exceptional. But he never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country might do. He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, a longing to do what’s right, a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect.”
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 15:U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) is presented with the 2010 Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama during an East Room event at the White House on February 15, 2011, in Washington, D.C. Obama presented the medal, the highest honor awarded to civilians, to 12 pioneers in sports, labor, politics and arts. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)Earlier this year, Lewis had endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign for the presidency.
A longtime critic of Trump, in one of his final high-profile speeches, Lewis decried the President during the impeachment hearings last fall.
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something,” he said. “Our children and their children will ask us ‘What did you do? What did you say?’ ” While the vote would be hard for some, he said, “We have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”
Lewis’s wife, Lillian Miles, died in 2012. He is survived by their son, John Miles Lewis.
The post John Lewis, Congressman And Civil Rights Icon, Dead At 80 appeared first on Essence.
Paul Dini and Bruce Timm’s Batman: The Animated Series has inspired several fantastic artists over the years. All of whom evoked the comic book noir of the series. However, we think this latest series from artist Raid71 and the folks at Bottleneck Gallery captures the Art Deco look and feel of the seminal cartoon series more than almost any other illustrations we’ve seen.
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Bottlneck’s online gallery showcases not only the Dark Knight and his city, but also several of his most infamous rogues. Raid71’s Batman: The Animated Series show became available in its entirety for viewing and purchase on Friday, July 17, at 9:00am PT through Bottleneckgallery.com. Here’s what the artist had to say about his latest collection:
While researching Batman: The Animated Series I stumbled across this brief for the background artists.
“Night in Gotham City. Only the faintest of rays of moonlight break through the steamy darkness. Shadows are black, twisted, and frightening. The thick night air carries many sounds: breaking glass, sputtering neon, harsh, bitter voices, and police sirens. Always police sirens. Most of Gotham’s daytime inhabitants have long since fled to the suburbs or into security-gated apartments. This is not a safe place after dark.”
Add in some 1930’s Art Deco architecture and I had all the information I needed to create the posters and naturally I re-watched every episode!
You can check out his Batman: The Animated Series inspired series, along with each piece’s individual specs, below:
Batman vs. Catwoman by Raid71 – Screen print
36 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 325 / $50
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Catwoman – Foil Variant by Raid71 / Screen print on foil paper
36 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 175
$60
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Harley Quinn by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 125
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Joker by Raid71 / Screen print
36 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 250
$50
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Joker – Foil Variant by Raid71 / Screen print on foil paper
36 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 150
$60
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Man-Bat by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 75
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Mr. Freeze by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 150
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Phantasm by Raid71 / Screen print
24 x 36 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 250
$50
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Phantasm – Foil Variant by Raid71 / Screen print on foil paper
24 x 36 inches /Hand-numbered edition of 150
$60
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Poison Ivy by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 100
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Riddler by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 100
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman vs. Two Face by Raid71 / Giclee
18 x 24 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 100
$45
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman: The Animated Series by Raid71 / Screen print
24 x 36 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 325
$50
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Batman: The Animated Series – Foil Variant by Raid71 / Screen print on foil paper
24 x 36 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 175
$60
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Gotham by Raid71 / Screen print
36 x 18 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 325
$50
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
Gotham – Foil Variant by Raid71 /Screen print on foil paper
36 x 18 inches / Hand-numbered edition of 175
$60
Raid71 / Bottleneck Gallery
For more information, be sure to head on over to Bottleneck Gallery’s official site.
Featured Image: Raid71/Bottleneck Gallery
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