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Editors’ Choice

free men, women, and children in Richmond, Va., 1865

Calling on white Americans: Reparations for slavery are due

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

The legacy of slavery is far from resolved. It persists every day and everywhere. By David Gardinier and Karen Hilfman, The Boston Globe — Since the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer, and the resounding anti-racist uprisings around the world, the concept of reparations has picked up momentum in national conversations and has sparked new public curiosity and interest. Among Black people and their ancestors,…

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Robert Vane

Racism scarred Jim Crow-era Black Americans. Here’s why they deserve reparations

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

African Americans born during the 20th-century Jim Crow era were promised all the freedoms and rights of the white Americans, but instead languished in the torture chamber of racism and state-sponsored bigotry. By Robert Vane — One of the most meaningful and impactful initiatives in our country is the Honor Flight program. It flies veterans to Washington, D.C., to visit the memorials and brings tears to all who witness it.

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Glover, right, and author Ta-Nehisi Coates

History of affirmative action policies show how white people have benefitted

By Editors' Choice

By Christiana Best-Giacomini, Hartford Courant — When most Americans hear “affirmative action,” they often think the phrase is referring to a policy that protects African Americans. What many Americans don’t know is that affirmative actions are policies that were made by white people, to benefit white people, exclusively. Moreover, due to the insidious nature of how these policies and practices are integrated into American institutions and culture, white people continue…

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Amandla Baraka: We Keep Us Safe, June 2020

‘We Must Act Out Our Freedom’

By Editors' Choice

By Darryl Pinckney, NYREV — I will look for you in the stories of new kings. Juneteenth isn’t mentioned in the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois or Carter Woodson, the founder of The Journal of Negro History. I haven’t yet come across a description of the first Juneteenth celebrations equivalent to Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s report of the ceremonies for the Emancipation Proclamation as it was read aloud on Port Royal…

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A protester carrying a U.S. flag leads a chant during a Black Lives Matter march in Valley Stream, New York, July 13, 2020

As BLM Goes Global, It’s Building on Centuries of Black Internationalist Struggle

By Editors' Choice

By Brandon R. Byrd, World Politics Review — At approximately 8:19 p.m. on the evening of May 25, Derek Chauvin, a 19-year veteran of the Minneapolis Police Department, brought his weight down upon George Floyd’s neck. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, arrested for the alleged crime of using a counterfeit $20 bill, struggled for breath—for life—for more than five minutes. Lying prostrate on the hot concrete, his arms handcuffed behind…

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A demonstrator next to a fence bearing names of black people killed by police, Washington DC, June 2020.

America’s ‘Untouchables’: the Silent Power of the Caste System

By Editors' Choice

More than a century and a half before the American Revolution, a human hierarchy had evolved on the soil of the future United States. To comprehend the current upheavals one must understand the human pyramid encrypted into us all: the caste system. By Isabel Wilkerson, The Guardian — In the winter of 1959, after leading the Montgomery bus boycott that arose from the arrest of Rosa Parks and before the trials and…

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Rev. C.T. Vivian

The Rev. C.T. Vivian: At Age 95, Gone Too Soon

By Editors' Choice

Cordy Tindale “C. T.” Vivian July 30, 1934 – July 17, 2020. By The SDPC — The Rev. C.T. Vivian, who made history the day he was brutally confronted by Sheriff Jim Clark in 1965 in Selma after 1400 black voters were prohibited from registering to vote, has made his transition and sits with the ancestors. Rev. Vivian, who was a 2016 recipient of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc. (SDPC)…

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