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Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo and China’s President Xi Jinping at the 2018 summit in Beijing.

Ties between African countries and China are complex. Understanding this matters

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Yu-Shan Wu, Chris Alden and Cobus van Staden, The Conversation — The complex relationship between Africa and China has become even more complicated this year. Initially, 2018 was set to reaffirm the bond through the latest Forum on China-Africa Cooperation summit held in Beijing in September. The summit delivered its usual pageant of African leaders, side deals, and the announcement of a USD$60 billion financing package. The year also saw the recurrence of misgivings about…

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ida-b-wells

Ida B. Wells And The Women Pushing Back Today

By Commentaries/Opinions, Video/Audio

Audio by WNYC Studios — Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission: calling America out on racial injustice. And, why black women are no longer willing to play the role of “Magical Negro” in U.S. politics. The United States of Anxiety recently recorded a live…

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reacts to a passerby in New York City on June 27, 2018.

A Blue Wave Next Month Could Be the Start of a Progressive Sea Change

By News & Current Affairs

By Katrina Vanden Heuvel — If Democrats flip the House, the Congressional Progressive Caucus will have the leaders, agenda, and institutional muscle to drive the debate. “Only in the darkness can you see the stars,” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us. Now, even in the bleak night of Brett M. Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, there are stars that offer hope. If Democrats take back the House…

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James Forten

This Black Activist Was One of the Richest Men in Early America

By Editors' Choice

A Black sailmaker was helping to lead the anti-slavery movement long before it was popular in America. By Sean Braswell, OZY — In the spring of 1842, several thousand Philadelphians poured into the streets for one of the largest funerals in the city’s history. It was a remarkable sight: An interracial procession that included everyone from poor Black laborers to wealthy White merchants to sea captains and shippers. On that…

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