By Herb Boyd — An ensemble of luminaries, mainly writers and musicians, shared their memories and reflections of the esteemed author Toni Morrison on Thursday at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine. The church was packed to the rafters for the tribute to Morrison who made her transition on August 5. She was 88. This collection of voices and impressions in their separate ways provided a loving profile…
By Shore News Network — “New Jersey Reparations Task Force.” The task force would conduct research and develop proposals and recommendations to address the generational harms caused by the state’s role in the institution of slavery and its legacy of systemic racial discrimination. “The existence and history of slavery in the United States is the greatest evil our country ever committed. The continuation of systemic and institutional racism spanning from…
This essay is an adaptation of the fourth annual Philip Roth Lecture, delivered at the Newark Public Library on November 4, 2019. The lecture began with an appreciation of Roth’s merging of fiction and history. An admirer of great historical writing, Roth understood that, to be truly great, it had to grapple with what he called, in The Plot Against America, “the relentless unfolding of the unforeseen.” Flipped on its…
By Terri L. Crawford, JD, The Omaha Star — “Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you …” — Exodus 4:16 As the voice of the people, the Nebraska Democratic Party Black Caucus’ mission is to promote the involvement of Blacks in the political process and the activities of the party at the local, state, and national level. The Caucus…
More than two centuries after it was designed to empower southern white voters, the system continues to do just that. By Wilfred Codrington III, The Atlantic — s a color-blind political system possible under our Constitution? If it is, the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 did little to help matters. While black people in America today are not experiencing 1950s levels of voter suppression, efforts…
Consider the physical, financial, mental, even spiritual deaths inflicted on black Americans. By Ben Crump, The Guardian — In the weeks since the release of my book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, the question I’ve been asked most often is whether my use of the word genocide in the title was meant to be intentionally provocative, rather than reflective of reality. Surely, genocide is too strong a word…
By Clyde W. Ford, The Los Angeles Times — In one of his first presidential speeches, Donald Trump said to a mostly white crowd in Hershey, Pa., “They didn’t come out to vote for Hillary. They didn’t come out. And that was big — so thank you to the African American community.” Had blacks voted in the numbers they did in 2012, Trump would probably not be president. So, his newly announced…
By Allison Miller — History, as a discipline, has a race problem. White people dominate the study of history, as students and as those who earn PhDs. According to federal government statistics, in the school year 2016–17 (the most recent for which we had data at press time) white students received 74 percent of all history bachelor’s degrees, but only 56 percent of all US resident students enrolled in four-year colleges and universities were…
To truly understand the debt this country owes to Black people is to be liberated from the bondage of miseducation that we’ve remained shackled to in the so-called land of the free. By Zenobia Jeffries Warfield, Yes Magazine — On a spring day, I stood at the corner of Madison and Pennsylvania avenues in the nation’s capital, transfixed on the building in front of me. Passersby zigzagged around me. In…
By Meagan Flynn, The Washington Post — In an urgently worded letter recently sent to Harvard, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne demanded that the university pay his country reparations “for the gains Harvard enjoyed at the expense” of Antiguan slaves. Browne’s Oct. 30 letter to Harvard University President Lawrence Bacow — reported Tuesday night by the Miami Herald and Harvard Crimson — draws a direct line from Harvard Law School’s success today…
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