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Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal Granted a Reargue Appeal

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Herb Boyd — “First you say you do/ Then you don’t. Then you say you will/Then you won’t/ You’re undecided now/ So what are you gonna do.” This indecision may work well in a popular song of yore, but it does little to end the 35 years former Black Panther and radio commentator Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent behind bars. On Thursday a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge ruled that Abu-Jamal who…

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The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, on Oct. 5, 2015.

Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship seminary details its racist, slave-owning past in stark report

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Marisa Iati, The Washington Post — More than two decades after the Southern Baptist Convention — the country’s second-largest faith group — apologized to African Americans for its active defense of slavery in the 1800s, its flagship seminary on Wednesday released a stark report further delineating its ties to institutionalized racism. The year-long study by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary found that all four founding faculty members owned slaves…

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Empire Windrush migrants arrive at Tilbury in 1948.

‘There were Africans in Britain before the English came here’

By Commentaries/Opinions, Reparations

How Staying Power shook British history. When it was published in 1984 Staying Power vividly captured the struggle for black British identity. Nearly 35 years on it still has lessons to teach. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — “The very serious function of racism is distraction,” Toni Morrison argued in a lecture in Portland, Oregon, in 1975: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and…

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Report by Transparency International sees South Africa top the list of countries where citizens believe the problem has got worse in the last year.

Securing Ramaphosa’s Presidency – At What Cost?

By Commentaries/Opinions

People cherished many expectations for Cyril Ramaphosa’s presidency. Many of these were not necessarily realistic and may have derived from a sense of relief in the departure of Jacob Zuma, rather than what may have been possible for Ramaphosa to do. By Raymond Suttner, Polity — In the early months Ramaphosa engendered considerable confidence as a result of his apparently methodical, systematic and measured way of handling his office. This…

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Barack Obama at a campaign rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with governor-elect Tony Evers, Mandela Barnes and Sarah Godlewski on 26 October.

The new wave of Democrats owes a huge debt to people power.

By Commentaries/Opinions

The party was the natural political conduit for the protest movement. It must not betray that trust. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — With just a few thousand votes between the two candidates for governor, election night during the US midterms in Wisconsin could not have been more tense. The slender lead kept flipping between Republican and Democrat as various precincts reported their results. Then shortly before midnight a local news presenter suggested,…

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