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Commentaries/Opinions

Donald Yacovone

How Textbooks Taught White Supremacy

By Commentaries/Opinions

A historian steps back to the 1700s and shares what’s changed and what needs to change. By Liz Mineo, The Harvard Gazaette — Historian Donald Yacovone, an associate at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and a 2013 winner of the W.E.B. Du Bois medal, was researching a book on the legacy of the antislavery movement when he came across some old history school textbooks that stopped him cold —…

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Images broadcast during the Black National Convention held last Friday, organized by the Movement for Black Lives.

Groups Fighting for Black Lives Highlight Juvenile Justice, Child Welfare Systems

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By Michael Fitzgerald, Imprint — Dozens of Black-led advocacy groups nationwide are calling for an end to the criminalization of youth younger than age 23, and a disruption of systems that wrench newborn infants from their mothers’ arms shortly after they’ve given birth. In the live-streamed Black National Convention on Friday, activists highlighted a far-reaching grassroots policy agenda that included reparations, basic income, trans rights, environmental justice and an overhaul…

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Former vice president Joe Biden speaking with supporters at a community event in Iowa, 2019.

Joe Biden’s Campaign Is Making It Very Clear: They Will Push Austerity in the White House

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By David Sirota, Jacobin — Almost no one noticed it, but earlier this month, a top Joe Biden advisor indicated that the entire agenda Biden is campaigning on won’t be pursued once he’s in the White House. Instead, Biden’s inner circle appears wedded to the ideology of austerity. he Democratic convention has sucked up all the political oxygen in America — so much so, that most people missed Team Biden…

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Jarena Lee, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman were pioneering Black women leaders who championed equality in the church, politics, civic rights, and other areas of public life.

Black women are founders of American democracy. How will we live up to their ideals?

By Commentaries/Opinions

While too many Black were disenfranchised even after the 19th Amendment’s ratification a century ago, they never waited for permission before promoting their vision of fundamental rights. By Martha Jones, The Inquirer — When it comes to 21st-century politics, Black women are our founders. The double scourge of racism and sexism no longer defines American politics. The nomination of Sen. Kamala Harris to the Democrat’s VP slot, the more than…

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