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IBW21

IBW21 (The Institute of the Black World 21st Century) is committed to enhancing the capacity of Black communities in the U.S. and globally to achieve cultural, social, economic and political equality and an enhanced quality of life for all marginalized people.

Amandla Baraka: We Keep Us Safe, June 2020

‘We Must Act Out Our Freedom’

By Editors' Choice

By Darryl Pinckney, NYREV — I will look for you in the stories of new kings. Juneteenth isn’t mentioned in the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois or Carter Woodson, the founder of The Journal of Negro History. I haven’t yet come across a description of the first Juneteenth celebrations equivalent to Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s report of the ceremonies for the Emancipation Proclamation as it was read aloud on Port Royal…

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The Georgian mansion and adjacent slave quarters were once part of a 500-acre farm just north of Boston.

Royall House and Slave Quarters

By Reparations

Preserving black history as “an act of liberation” By Nell Porter Brown, Harvard Magazine — Isaac Royall Sr. built a fortune on his Antigua sugar plantation and returned to Boston in 1737 to settle into an opulent Georgian mansion in what’s now Medford, Massachusetts. To operate the surrounding 500-acre farm, enormous by colonial-era standards, he also shipped north across the ocean “a parcel of negroes.” Those 27 enslaved people were plucked…

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Danny Glover

Why We Can’t Wait: Danny Glover’s Statement in Support of HR-40

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By Danny Glover United Nations Ambassador for the International Decade for People of African Descent, Board Member Institute for Policy Studies — The public lynching of George Floyd pierced deep into the “souls of Black folks” compelling a thorough-going examination of the flawed foundation, values, systems and symbols of white supremacy and structural/institutional racism in these United States. A massive Black Lives Matter-led, multiracial, cross-generational movement has erupted in cities large…

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Rapper YG, center in white, at a June 7 protest over the death of George Floyd.

Hip-hop is the soundtrack to Black Lives Matter protests

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Tyina Steptoe — The sound of Public Enemy’s 1989 song “Fight the Power” blared as face-masked protesters in Washington, D.C. broke into a spontaneous rendition of the electric slide dance near the White House. It was the morning of June 14, and an Instagram user captured the moment, commenting: “If Trump is in the White House this morning he’s being woken up by … a Public Enemy dance party.” View…

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Left to right: New York congressional candidiate Mondaire Jones, Louisiana Senate candidate Adrian Perkins, and New York congressional candidate Ritchie Torres.

Black millennial men aim to bring new guard to Congress

By News & Current Affairs

These young politicians are following in the footsteps of a shortlist of Black Americans elected to the United States Capitol. By Kelsey Minor, The Grio — You may not know the name Hiram Revels but 150 years ago he became the first Black member of the United States Congress. A Black Republican from Mississippi, Revels was sworn into office although there were heavy objections from the southern White men who…

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A protester carrying a U.S. flag leads a chant during a Black Lives Matter march in Valley Stream, New York, July 13, 2020

As BLM Goes Global, It’s Building on Centuries of Black Internationalist Struggle

By Editors' Choice

By Brandon R. Byrd, World Politics Review — At approximately 8:19 p.m. on the evening of May 25, Derek Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, brought his weight down upon George Floyd’s neck. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, arrested for the alleged crime of using a counterfeit $20 bill, struggled for breath—for life—for more than five minutes. Lying prostrate on the hot concrete, his arms handcuffed behind…

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