
By Donald Yacovone — There it sat on a library cart with fifty other elementary, grammar, and high school history textbooks, its bright red spine reaching out through time and…
By Donald Yacovone — There it sat on a library cart with fifty other elementary, grammar, and high school history textbooks, its bright red spine reaching out through time and…
By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad — As Women’s History Month comes to an end, we at the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative think it is important to reflect upon how racial economic inequality…
The movement looks to rebuild the cross-racial civil rights alliance that disintegrated during a half-century of counter-revolution. Their radical vision is more necessary than ever. By Lewis M. Steel — The critical question long-time veterans of the civil rights movement and new activists alike ask is this: Are the times ripe for a newly energized movement to break the stagnation which has shut down most racial progress for the last…
By Barbara Ransby and Aislinn Pulley — April 4 marked the historic 50th anniversary since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. At this time, it is vital to highlight the fact that King understood the depth of state violence, noting the violent effects of government policy in many spheres. As King said a year before his death, “I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the…
In the age of Trump, believers of the once-popular tenets of scientific racism are feeling emboldened. By Edward Burmila — Judging by the headlines, pseudo-scientific racism is making a comeback. Nineties-relic Charles Murray (The Bell Curve) is popping up on campuses and in conservative media outlets, much to the delight of those who think his graphs confer legitimacy to their prejudices. Atheist philosopher and podcaster Sam Harris is extolling Murray’s…
The Enduring Impact of President Johnson’s Crime Commission Elizabeth Hinton, Boston Review — In his televised speech following five days of civil unrest in Detroit during the summer of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson announced the creation of the Kerner Commission to evaluate the uprisings there and in other cities, and to prescribe policies to suppress future disorder. The American public also demanded insight into why cities burned and what drove…
By Lucy Odigie-Turley — How much do I know about Wakanda? Not a lot, but I’ll bet they have really good sex. When I decided to write about my reaction to Marvel’s Black Panther and the nation of Wakanda from my perspective as a first-generation Nigerian immigrant, sex wasn’t the first thing to come to mind. But the more I saw of this hidden nation — free of the historical scars of colonialism…
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson — There is a huge literary growth industry in counter-factual history. Or, to put it more simply, “what if” history. Now the what if question fifty…
In early 1968, the activist planned a massive protest in the nation’s capital. In the early months of 1968, King toured the South and beyond to drum up interest in,…
After the abolition of slavery, Britain paid millions in compensation – but every penny of it went to slave owners, and nothing to those they enslaved. We must stop overlooking…
I’m running for Congress in Indiana, and I’ve been warned to stay away from “radical” issues. This shouldn’t be one. By Dan Canon — Editor’s note: Dan Canon is a…
By Sonali Kolhatkar — Any discussions of gun violence and the regulations needed to curb it are incomplete unless they include an analysis of how racism plays a role. Government data show that “black Americans are, on average, eight times more likely to be killed by firearms than those who are white.” Gun violence by police against ordinary Americans also disproportionately affects people of color—a fact that the Black Lives Matter movement has…