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A woman protests at a town-hall meeting being held by Thomas Homan, acting director of enforcement for ICE, in Sacramento, California, March 28, 2017.

Against Civility

By Commentaries/Opinions

You can’t fight injustice with decorum. By Sarah Leonard, The Nation — Michelle Obama’s 2016 declaration that “when they go low, we go high” quickly became the unofficial motto of the anti-Trump resistance. But instead of being used against Trump himself, this attitude is now being wielded against protesters confronting his administration’s obscene immigration-detention policies. Even in the face of family separations, a racist travel ban, and overt, violent white…

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Electoral Justice Project

The Movement for Black Lives Steps into the Electoral Arena

By News & Current Affairs

Experienced electoral organizer Jessica Byrd from the M4BL Electoral Justice Table talks with Organizing Upgrade editor Rishi Awatramani about the EJP strategy for electoral engagement… Rishi Awatramani interview with Jessica Byrd, Portside — In 2017, the Movement for Black Lives launched its Electoral Justice Project (EJP). The EJP is building a strategic political home with organizers from more than 50 Black Organizations around the country that are winning Black civic…

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Jasmine Ball, 33, lost her twin daughters who were born prematurely. Photograph: Talia Herman for the Guardian

Why are so many of San Francisco’s black mothers and babies dying?

By News & Current Affairs

In one of the wealthiest US cities, the racial disparity in birth outcomes is stark: ‘Why isn’t this sounding a bigger alarm?’ By Leslie Casimir, The Guardian — Jasmine Ball was barely five months pregnant with twins when the labor pains jolted through her lower body. Rushed to the hospital, the doctors told her that her cervix had dilated completely. There was nothing they could do to stop the babies…

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Young woman at a student protest in London against fees and cuts in 2010

The Black Studies Movement in Britain

By News & Current Affairs

By Kehinde Andrews, Black Perspectives — In 1967, the Afro-Caribbean Self-Help Organisation (ACSHO), based in Birmingham, started one of the first Black supplementary schools in the UK, sparking off a movement that transformed how mainstream schools treated their Black children. Supplementary schools refer to voluntary education programs run by concerned parents, teachers, and community members because of the racism faced in the school system.

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Ben Jealous

Is Ben Jealous What Progressives Want?

By Commentaries/Opinions

The former NAACP chief wants to turn Maryland into a progressive beacon, fusing Bernie-style economic policy with racial justice. But first he has to win his gubernatorial primary. By Adam Serwer, The Atlantic — Ben jealous, a tall, gregarious man wearing a suit, stepped to the center of the room at Morgan State University. The comedian Dave Chappelle, wearing stylishly torn clothes and clutching a cup of coffee, took a seat…

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Louise Brown, 83, at the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Washington, D.C., on June 23. The movement aims to link a broad array of issues: systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation and the war economy.

The Poor People’s Campaign Is Using Civil Disobedience to Win Back America

By News & Current Affairs

The 50-year-old anti-poverty movement has seen a revival in the era of Trump. By Teke Wiggin, HuffPost — When lifelong civil rights activist Louise Brown took the mic at a Washington, D.C., rally on Saturday, she had a stark message for the thousands of people assembled before her to protest poverty. “I’m 83 years old, and only the strong survive,” she shouted. In a call to arms, she recounted how…

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Jamaican immigrants aboard the "Empire Windrush" in 1948.

The Caribbean Immigrants Who Transformed Britain

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Kaila Philo, The New Republic — Seventy years ago today—June 22, 1948—a passenger ship carrying 492 Jamaican immigrants arrived in Essex, London. The Empire Windrush was the first of many ships to come, as the British government recruited migrants from the Caribbean Commonwealth to help rebuild the economy after World War II. These arrivals came to be known as the Windrush generation. “It is unclear how many people belong to the Windrush generation,…

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