Civil Rights
Movements, leaders, victories and the continuing fight for equality.
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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Burmese names (Burmese: မြန်မာ အမည်) lack the serial structure of most Western names. Like other Mainland Southeast Asian people (except Vietnamese), the people of Myanmar have no customary matronymic or patronymic naming system and no tradition of surnames. Although other Mainland Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Malaysia introduced the use of surnames or patronyms in the early 20th century, Myanmar never introduced the use of surnames and lacks surnames in the modern day. Instead, Burmese names use an honorific prefix to reflect the person's stage in life and position in society.
Mya is a primarily feminine given name of uncertain origins. One source considers it to be a 20th-century phonetic spelling of the name Maya or Mia, names that have multiple, different meanings and origins in different languages. The American poet and civil rights activist Maya Angelou, born Marguerite, is said to have acquired her nickname as a child when her brother referred to her as "mya sister". Mya is also a Burmese name of a different origin, said by one source to mean emerald, in use for both sexes.
Myanmar Tamils or Burmese Tamils are people of ethnic Tamil ancestry who reside in Myanmar. Tamils form the majority of Indians in Myanmar (Burma). Tamils had the earliest contact with Myanmar during the first or second century CE. The Tamil Chola empire had trade relationships with various Burmese kingdoms. The massive Tamil migration to Myanmar began during the British colonial era. Historically, Burmese Tamils made their livelihoods as merchants, traders, and shopkeepers as well as manual laborers such as indentured servants (pejoratively called "coolies"); dockers, municipal workers, rickshaw drivers, and pony cart drivers. They were also heavily represented in certain professions such as civil servants, university lecturers, pharmacists, opticians, lawyers, engineers, and doctors. According to a report from 1966, there were 200,000 Tamils in Myanmar. Since the Second World War, the number of Tamils has declined dramatically and many fled back to India and other countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. The Burma Bazaar in Tamil Nadu was set up in 1969 by Myanmar Tamil refugees. Between 1940 and 1942, many Malaysian and Myanmar Tamils were forced by Japanese occupiers to labour on a 415 kilometres (258 mi) railway track between Thailand and Burma. Over 150,000 Tamils died during the project due to venomous animals, illnesses, exhaustion and Japanese torture. The majority of Tamils in Myanmar were Hindu before converting into Buddhism and Christianity, however, even today a significant population still follows it and there are many Tamil Hindu temples in and around Yangon (Rangoon) as well as in Lower Burma. Many Myanmar Tamils have a Burmese name and some don't speak much Tamil, but they work to preserve their Tamil identity. The Tamil community sometimes faces discrimination in Myanmar but much less so than the Rohingya people and Muslims. After he seized power through a military coup in 1962, General Ne Win ordered a large-scale expulsion of Tamils. Although many Tamils had been living in Burma for generations and had integrated into Burmese society, they became a target for discrimination and oppression by the junta. This, along with a wholesale nationalisation of private ventures in 1964, led to the emigration of over 300,000 ethnic Tamils from Burma. Many Tamils returned and were given 175 kyat for their trip to India. This caused a significant deterioration in Indian-Burmese relations and the Indian government arranged ferries and aircraft to fly ethnic Tamils (and other ethnic Indians) out of Burma.
The Myanmar Directorate of Defence Industries (Burmese: ကာကွယ်ရေး ပစ္စည်းစက်ရုံများ ညွှန်ကြားရေးမှူးရုံး; BGN/PCGN: Kagwèye Passizetyônmya Hnywan-Gyayehmuyôn; abbreviated DI), also known as Directorate of Defence Industries, Defence Product Industry and Defence Product Industries or by its Burmese name, Karkweye Pyitsee Setyoun, (Ka Pa Sa) is a state-owned enterprise that is officially part of the Tatmadaw. DI is responsible for producing military equipment throughout the country for the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. It is the only company that has monopolized firearms production.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
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