Comparing the 1968 civil rights protests to the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020

In the debut episode of POLITICO’s new video series The Backstory, deputy magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph dives into the similarities and differences between this year and 1968. She emails us: Pundits have been trumpeting the comparison between 2020 and 1968 as anti-racist protests sweep American cities, clashes with police make the nightly news and the president revives Richard Nixon’s “law and order” rhetoric. Elizabeth interviews two historians to find out whether history is repeating itself. Clayborne Carson, director of Stanford’s Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute, remembers being in Los Angeles after King was shot and says he can see the resemblance. Michael Fortner, a political science professor at the CUNY Graduate Center, says he doesn’t think the two years are similar at all ----------------------------------------- Subscribe to our channel! Check out our video catalo