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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.

The Kerner Commission was formed amid riots in Detroit in 1967

Half-century of US civil rights gains have stalled or reversed, report finds

By News & Current Affairs

Assessment 50 years after Kerner Commission points to child poverty and school segregation, along with emboldened white supremacists. By David Smith — Civil rights gains of the past half-century have stalled or in some areas gone into reverse, according to a report marking the 50th anniversary of the landmark Kerner Commission. Child poverty has increased, schools have become resegregated and white supremacists are becoming emboldened and more violent, the study says.…

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Do guns preserve freedom?

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

By Ryan Cooper — Many conservatives believe they do. In one representative example, National Review’s David French argued that we need a heavily armed citizenry in case the government turns tyrannical and America’s private gun owners need to wield the threat of gunning down police and soldiers to preserve their liberty. For the Second Amendment to remain a meaningful check on state power, citizens must be able to possess the kinds and categories…

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Slave sale, Charleston, South Carolina.

When Emancipation Finally Came, Slave Markets Took on a Redemptive Purpose

By Reparations

During the Civil War, the jails that held the enslaved imprisoned Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community By Jonathan W. White, Smithsonian — For decades before the Civil War, slave markets, pens and jails served as holding cells for enslaved African-Americans who were awaiting sale. These were sites of brutal treatment and unbearable sorrow, as callous and avaricious slave traders tore apart families, separating…

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Participants in Soul Fire Farm's Black Latinx Farmers Immersion program prepare a bed for planting.

A Digital Map Leads to Reparations for Black and Indigenous Farmers

By Reparations

By Jean Willoughby — Last month, Dallas Robinson received an email from someone she didn’t know, asking if she would be open to receiving a large sum of money — with no strings attached. For once, it wasn’t spam. She hit reply. Robinson is a beginning farmer with experience in organic agriculture, and has had plans to establish the Harriet Tubman Freedom Farm on 10 acres of family land near her home in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Located in an area where the poverty rate hovers at nearly 20 percent, according to census data, and where both food insecurity and obesity rates are even higher, the farm will focus on serving the needs of the surrounding community by producing vegetables, herbs, and mushrooms.

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After the Sale: Slaves Going South from Richmond by Eyre Crowe, 1853 (Now hanging in the Chicago History Museum)

The Second Amendment was ratified to preserve slavery

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

By Thom Hartmann, AlterNet — The real reason the Second Amendment was ratified, and why it says “State” instead of “Country” (the Framers knew the difference – see the 10th Amendment), was to preserve the slave patrol militias in the southern states, which was necessary to get Virginia’s vote. Founders Patrick Henry, George Mason, and James Madison were totally clear on that . . . and we all should be too.

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