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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.

Patrisse Cullors and Tarana Burke - How #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo Went From Hashtags to Movements

Patrisse Cullors and Tarana Burke: Anger, Activism, and Action

By Editors' Choice, Video/Audio

By ELLE — The Founders of Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo Movement on Making Change. Patrisse Cullors and Tarana Burke are recognizable, but their work is perhaps even more so. #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo became the shorthand for the agitation and labor these activists lent to their causes, and the hashtags spread the word about police violence against black people and sexual harassment, respectively.

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Hugo Chavez

A Barbadian and Caribbean Tribute to Hugo Chavez

By Commentaries/Opinions

“The evidence is clear for all to see that Hugo Chavez was one of the greatest and most genuine friends that our Caribbean region has ever had!” By David Comissiong — When, on the 5th of March 2013, the great and heroic Commander Hugo Chavez passed off this mortal coil, the people of Venezuela lost a “father” of their nation; the people of Latin America lost an “architect” of their Civilization; the people of the Caribbean lost one of their most sincere friends and benefactors; the people of the so-called Third World lost their preeminent freedom-fighter; and the people of the world lost a legendary humanist, a veritable lover of humankind!

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Slave on slave ships

What the Koch Brothers Want Students to Learn About Slavery

By Reparations

The history-teaching wing of the Koch brothers empire is seeking to promote an alternate narrative to slavery. By Adam Sanchez, Zinn Education Project — Given that the billionaire Charles Koch has poured millions of dollars into eliminating the minimum wage and paid sick leave for workers, and that in 2015 he had the gall to compare his ultra-conservative mission to the anti-slavery movement, he’s probably the last person you’d want educating young people about slavery.

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Woman stands in the doorway of then new Historic Colored Entrance at the Lyric Theatre, in Birmingham, Ala

Why Jews should support reparations for slavery

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

By Rabbi Sharon Brous — There is 2,000-year-old rabbinic dispute over what ought to be done if a palace is built on the foundation of a stolen beam. One rabbi, Shammai, argues that the whole structure must be torn down, the beam retrieved and returned to its rightful owner. No home can flourish on a foundation built illegally and immorally. Another rabbi, Hillel, offers a different take: What sense does it make to demolish it? Let the thief pay for the beam, considering its full value as the foundation of what is now a beautiful home. Neither argues that you can pretend, year after year, generation after generation, that the beam wasn’t stolen.

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Stone Mountain

Is Stone Mountain Memorial a Gigantic Tribute to White Supremacy?

By Commentaries/Opinions

Some see the monument as “the largest shrine to white supremacy in the history of the world.” By Debra McKinney, Southern Poverty Law Center — From its north side, Stone Mountain is a formidable sight. Staggeringly steep, nearly five times as high as Niagara Falls, it rises from Georgia’s wooded landscape like a rogue wave. This anomalous, igneous dome east of Atlanta is the centerpiece of a state park that draws 4 million visitors a year. Forty stories above ground, front and center on the gunmetal-gray face of the stone, is the largest bas-relief carving on the planet, a Civil War memorial to Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. These leaders of the Southern rebellion against the United States sit astride their steeds, hats over their hearts, on a three-acre backdrop etched into the mountainside.

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