Hari Jones discusses some of the most interesting facets of the Underground Railroad prior to and during the Civil War, including the role of African Americans in the war itself….
In their choice of a police chief and through other local initiatives, mayors can make major strides in improving the way their constituents interact with police and the criminal justice system. By Collier Meyerson — “It angers me how we keep going down the same path expecting a different result. We believe over-incarceration and over-policing leads to less crime, yet we have more crime,” Chokwe Lumumba, the mayor of Jackson,…
Slavery did not die because it was unproductive or unprofitable, as some earlier historians have argued. Slavery was not some feudal remnant on the way to extinction. By Sven Beckert — By 1830, one million Americans, most of them enslaved, grew cotton. Raw cotton was the most important export of the United States, at the center of America’s financial flows and emerging modern business practices, and at the core of…
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.
March 12th Women’s History Month Edition Topics A New Book — “There Are No Dead Here: A Story of Murder and Denial in Colombia” Amazing Black Women Guests Maria McFarland…
“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!
By Della Hasselle — Alexander P. Tureaud Jr. couldn’t sleep, so he sat on a bench on the LSU campus in Baton Rouge, where he had become the first black undergraduate student…
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.
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.
Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters said during an event in Selma, Alabama on Saturday that she would “be happy” to secure financial reparations for black Americans. Waters said as long as…
March 16-17, 2018 Tulane University, New Orleans is hosting a conference titled “A Conference of Global Perspectives: Regimes of Redress and Reparations, Transitional Justice and the Rule of Law”. Co-sponsored by the Gordon Gamm Faculty Scholar Fund and the Carol Lavin Bernick Faculty Scholarship Fund. More info here…
Harriet’s Great Escape: Through rain, sleet, and snow, they continue to walk, with a massive storm brewing on the east coast. The women of GirlTrek are traversing 100 miles of…














