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Stewart's Canal in Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument

Harriet Tubman and a National Legacy of Midnight Skies and Silent Stars

By Commentaries/Opinions, News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By Todd Lookingbill, HNN — Cynthia Erivo, who is nominated for best actress in a leading role in this weekend’s Oscars, stars in the gripping biopic “Harriet.” The movie, which tells the story of abolitionist Harriet Tubman, captures the miraculous physical, emotional, and spiritual journey of Harriet Tubman as she escapes from slavery to become an American icon. Of course, the horrors of slavery and the courage of the enslaved heroes that…

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Reggae brothers … from left: Ky-Mani, Damian and Julian Marley perform at Marley 75 in Kingston, Jamaica.

Bob Marley at 75: how a ghetto reggae star rebranded Jamaica

By Editors' Choice

Seeing fans and family gather in Kingston to celebrate the late musician’s 75th birthday, music writer Vivien Goldman reflects on his indelible legacy. By Vivien Goldman, The Guardian — At 7am on 6 February, on what would have been Bob Marley’s 75th birthday, the abeng conch shell blows at his old home at uptown Kingston’s 56 Hope Road – now the Bob Marley museum – as it did in the days…

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Black Couple / Black Love

Black Love: A Complementary and Species-Compelling Need

By Dr. Maulana Karenga

By Dr. Maulana Karenga — This is a reminder and reinforcement for Black Lover’s Day this month and each day all year round. It is not an exaggeration to state that there is no issue of greater importance, urgency or enduring impact in terms of the foundation, functioning and future of us as a community and a people than the quality of male/female relationships. Indeed, this speaks not only to…

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USS Constitution. Cannons below decks.

Tale revealed of 8-year-old Black veteran of USS Constitution

By Reparations

By Brian MacQuarrie, The Boston Globe — David Debias passed explosives to the thundering guns of the USS Constitution on the night of Feb. 20, 1815. He heard US Marines shooting from the masts, watched razor-sharp splinters gash his comrades, and basked in the Constitution’s resounding victory over two British warships in its final battle, 180 miles southwest of Gibraltar. Debias was from Beacon Hill. He was 8 years old….

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Assembly line workers put final touches on 2018 Ford Expedition SUV at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky

African-Americans and the driving forces in the American auto industry

By Editors' Choice

By Herb Boyd — When Africans were forcibly brought to America, they worked at the points of production. And whether as a multitude of enslaved workers on small farms, large plantations, in mines or elsewhere, black laborers were vital cogs in creating wealth for their owners. On a national scale, enslaved black laborers provided a workforce vital for the development of the American republic by bringing wage-free economic success and…

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Richard Hatcher

How Socialists Can Govern

By Commentaries/Opinions

Many on the U.S. left fear governing power, in part because it has been so difficult to achieve. More recent optimism among socialists is a welcome development—but we need a middle ground between being cynical and naive. By Bill Fletcher Jr., Dissent — Bernie Sanders’s presidential primary run in 2016 saw 13 million people vote for a democratic socialist. Two years later, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s underdog, grassroots-driven victory against one of…

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African-American students from Saint Augustine College study while participating in a sit-in at a lunch counter reserved for white customers in Raleigh, N.C.

What People Still Get Wrong About Segregation

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Andrew Joseph Pegoda — During Black History Month and beyond, Americans are generally taught to believe that contact between white and black Americans was gradually prohibited after Reconstruction through a combination of social and legal traditions. Under the regime of Jim Crow segregation, two supposedly “separate but equal” societies gradually emerged — one for white people, another for black people — and lasted until the ’50s and ’60s. The two societies in that infamous phrase were never equal…

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