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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
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
Mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the late 1950s to mid 1960s. News coverage of the two groups fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth, and they became widely perceived as violent, unruly trouble-makers.
The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots or winklepickers. The style was influenced by Marlon Brando in the 1953 film The Wild One.[1] The common rocker hairstyle was a quiff or pompadour, while their music genre of choice was 1950s to early 60s rock and roll and R&B, played by artists including Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Bo Diddley, as well as British rock and roll musicians such as Billy Fury and Johnny Kidd.
The mod subculture was centred on fashion and music, and many mods wore parkas and rode scooters. Mods wore suits and other clean-cut outfits, and listened to music genres such as modern jazz, soul, Motown, ska and British rhythm and blues-rooted bands like the Who and the Small Faces, and later the Yardbirds and the Jam. The Who wrote a portrait of the cultures with their 1973 album and movie score Quadrophenia.[2]
BBC News stories from May 1964 stated that mods and rockers were jailed after riots in seaside resort towns in Southern England, such as Margate in Kent, Brighton in Sussex, and Clacton in Essex.[3][4]
Conflicts took place at Clacton and Hastings during the Easter weekend of 1964.[5] A second round took place on the south coast of England over the Whitsun weekend (18 and 19 May 1964), especially at Brighton, where fights occurred over two days and moved along the coast to Hastings and back; hence the "Second Battle of Hastings" tag. A small number of rockers were isolated on Brighton beach where they – despite being protected by police – were overwhelmed and assaulted by mods. Eventually calm was restored and a judge levied heavy fines, describing those arrested as "sawdust Caesars".[6]
Newspapers described the mod and rocker clashes as being of "disastrous proportions", and labelled mods and rockers as "vermin" and "louts".[7] Newspaper editorials fanned the flames of hysteria, such as a Birmingham Post editorial in May 1964, which warned that mods and rockers were "internal enemies" in the UK who would "bring about disintegration of a nation's character". The magazine Police Review argued that the mods and rockers' purported lack of respect for law and order could cause violence to "surge and flame like a forest fire".[7]
As a result of this news coverage, two British members of parliament travelled to the seaside areas to survey the damage, and M.P. Harold Gurden called for a resolution for intensified measures to control hooliganism. One of the prosecutors in the trial of some of the Clacton brawlers argued that mods and rockers were youths with no serious views, who lacked respect for law and order.[citation needed]
There were occasional incidents thereafter. In 1980, during the mod revival, the punk rock band the Exploited recorded the song "Fuck the Mods" on their E.P. Army Life, whose back cover stated "To all the Edinburgh punks and skins – keep on mod-bashing!!" The band performed in Finsbury Park, London in 1981 on the same night that the Jam were playing nearby, and there was fighting after the gigs between the mods who had watched the Jam and the rockers who had watched the Exploited.[8]
The sociologist Stanley Cohen was led by his retrospective study of the mods and rockers conflict to develop the term "moral panic". In his 1972 study Folk Devils and Moral Panics,[7] he examined news coverage of the mod and rocker riots in the 1960s.[9] He conceded that mods and rockers had some fights in the mid-1960s, but argues that they were no different from the evening brawls that occurred between youths throughout the 1950s and early 1960s at seaside resorts and after football games. He argued that the U.K. press turned the mod subculture into a symbol of delinquent and deviant status.[10]
Cohen argued that as hysteria about knife-wielding mods increased, the image of a fur-collared anorak and scooter would "stimulate hostile and punitive reactions".[11] He said the news media used possibly faked interviews with supposed rockers such as "Mick the Wild One".[12] The press also tried to exploit accidents that were unrelated to mod–rocker violence, such as an accidental drowning of a youth, which resulted in the headline "Mod Dead in Sea".[13]
Eventually, when the press ran out of real fights to report, they would publish deceptive headlines, such as using a subheading "Violence", even when the article reported that there was no violence at all.[10] Newspaper writers also began to associate mods and rockers with various social issues, such as teen pregnancy, contraceptives, amphetamines and violence.[7]
In the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night, Ringo Starr was asked by a reporter, "Are you a mod or a rocker?" Starr answered, "Uh, no, I'm a mocker."[14] Paul McCartney originally gave this response in an April 1964 interview.[15]
The 1979 film Quadrophenia starring Phil Daniels as Jimmy, Leslie Ash as Steph and Sting the lead singer of the English band the Police as Ace Face, is set against the background of the 1964 Brighton clash with the incident featuring prominently.
The 2010 remake of the 1948 film Brighton Rock is set in the era of mods and rockers, with Bank Holiday tribal clashes on Brighton promenades and beaches.
6. The rockers emulated Marlon Brando's motorcycle gang leader character in "The Wild One" film (a) wore leather clothes; (b) rode motorcycles; and (c) often engaged in brawls with the modsBook preview. Archived 22 April 2016 at the Wayback Machine
An exhibition called Talking Bout My Generation is being hosted in the building where the offenders were sentenced.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Mods and rockers were two conflicting British youth subcultures of the late 1950s to mid 1960s. News coverage of the two groups fighting in 1964 sparked a moral panic about British youth, and they became widely perceived as violent, unruly trouble-makers. The rocker subculture was centred on motorcycling. Rockers generally wore protective clothing such as black leather jackets and motorcycle boots or winklepickers. The style was influenced by Marlon Brando in the 1953 film The Wild One. The common rocker hairstyle was a quiff or pompadour, while their music genre of choice was 1950s to early 60s rock and roll and R&B, played by artists including Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Bo Diddley, as well as British rock and roll musicians such as Billy Fury and Johnny Kidd. The mod subculture was centred on fashion and music, and many mods wore parkas and rode scooters. Mods wore suits and other clean-cut outfits, and listened to music genres such as modern jazz, soul, Motown, ska and British rhythm and blues-rooted bands like the Who and the Small Faces, and later the Yardbirds and the Jam. The Who wrote a portrait of the cultures with their 1973 album and movie score Quadrophenia.
Winklepickers or winkle pickers are a style of shoe or boot worn from the 1950s onward, especially popular with British rock and roll fans such as Teddy Boys. The feature that gives both the boot and shoe their name is the very sharp and long pointed toe, reminiscent of medieval poulaines and approximately the same as the long pointed toes on some women's high-fashion shoes and boots in the 2000s. They are still popular in the goth, raggare and rockabilly subcultures.
Keith William Robert Fletcher (born 20 May 1944) is an English former first-class cricketer who played for Essex and England. He later became England's team manager. His nickname was "The Gnome of Essex", so christened by his Essex teammate, Ray East, because Fletcher's winklepickers had begun to curl up at the toes due to wear. Cricket writer Colin Bateman noted that "Fletcher was a tough cookie, a shrewd man who could bluff opponents like the most disarming of poker players. He evoked loyalty in his teammates and admiration from his opponents, even when they were beaten by the sucker punch". Bateman added "the sacking of Fletcher as England captain remains one of English cricket's shabbiest sagas". Fletcher played 59 Test matches and 24 One Day Internationals. His Test tally of 3,272 runs came at an average of 39.90.
Pointed or pointy shoe or shoes may refer to: Beaked shoe, a winter boot with upturned toe for attaching skis Beatle boots, a variant of Chelsea boots worn in Britain and elsewhere from the 1950s to present Calcei repandi, pointed shoes fashionable in ancient Etruscan culture; see Daily life of the Etruscans § Shoes Ciocie, worn by Italian peasants since the medieval period Climbing shoes, which now typically include a reinforced extension for better toeholds Jutti with a nokh, or pointy tip Opanci, worn by Balkan peasants since antiquity Mexican pointy boots, worn in Mexico and the southern United States since the 21st century Pigache, worn in 11th–13th century Europe Poulaines, worn in 14th and 15th century Europe Winklepickers, worn in Britain and elsewhere from the 1960s to present
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.
MORE →Joe Louis.
