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Editors’ Choice

‘The neo-Nazi terror group National Action has called for a ‘white jihad’.’ A National Action march in Darlington, County Durham.

White supremacy feeds on mainstream encouragement. That has to stop

By Editors' Choice

Rather than making concessions to bigots, politicians must confront them. It’s the only way to end the violence. By Gary Younge, The Guardian — On 19 April 1995, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring another 684, in the deadliest act of domestic US terrorism to date. A white supremacist, among other things, he was radicalised by what he…

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Hans Sloane collected this specimen of cacao in Jamaica in the 1680s. Sloane often collected on or near slave plantations, taking advantage of slavery’s infrastructure to advance his science.

Historians Expose Early Scientists’ Debt to the Slave Trade

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By examining scientific papers, correspondence between naturalists, and the records of slaving companies, historians are now seeing new connections between science and slavery and piecing together just how deeply intertwined they were. By Sam Kean, Science Magazine — At the dawn of the 1700s, European science seemed poised to conquer all of nature. Isaac Newton had recently published his monumental theory of gravity. Telescopes were opening up the heavens to…

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The Second Pan-African Congress, Palais Mondial, Brussels, September 1921.

Is a United States of Africa Possible?

By Editors' Choice

Is a united Africa, freed from the legacy of colonialism, possible? The Pan-African movement has been advocated by many different voices, underpinned by a belief in the common destiny of the peoples of Africa. By Hakim Adi, History Today — It is more than 60 years since the All-African Peoples Conference convened in Accra, Ghana in 1958. It was a notable event in the history of Pan-Africanism. Organised by two…

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"The Iron Man" sculpture of a hockey player next to the Prudential Center in Newark, where the New Jersey Devils hockey team plays. In the background, signs can be seen for Dinosaur Bar-B-Cue BBQ and Rock Plaza Lofts luxury apartments.

Where Gentrification Is an Emergency, and Where It’s Not

By Editors' Choice, Gentrification

Gentrification is geographically limited in cities, but a new study shows where it has become a crisis, particularly for low-income black households. By Brentin Mock, CityLab — Ron Daniels, president of the Baltimore-based civil-rights network Institute of the Black World 21st Century, assembled a group of some of the foremost African-American social-justice advocates, thinkers, and influencers to Newark this weekend for an emergency summit on gentrification. The emergency is that too many…

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Buildings at Princeton University’s Princeton Theological Seminary are pictured in Princeton, N.J. Last year, the university released a report on the school’s role in American bondage. Although the seminary did not own slaves and slave labor was not used on constructing the school, slave owners were major donors and responsible for as much as 40 percent of the seminary’s revenue.

‘We are therefore demanding …’ : Reparations in the Christian church

By Editors' Choice, News & Current Affairs

By Wyatt Massey, Frederick News Post — The Rev. Dr. Ernest Campbell said no, James Forman could not speak at his church service the next day. Campbell was the senior pastor at Riverside Church, a predominantly white church on the west side of Manhattan. Forman, a black civil rights leader, wanted to read something to the congregation at the next day’s service on May 4, 1969, according to a history…

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‘If your anti-racism work prioritizes the ‘growth’ and ‘enlightenment’ of white America over the dignity and humanity of people of color – it’s not anti-racism work. It’s white supremacy.’

Confronting racism is not about the needs and feelings of white people

By Editors' Choice

Too often whites at discussions on race decide for themselves what will be discussed, what they will hear, what they will learn. And it is their space. All spaces are. By Ijeoma Oluo, The Guardian — I was leaving a corporate office building after a full day of leading workshops on how to talk about race thoughtfully and deliberately. The audience for each session had been similar to the dozens…

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A study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that coastal cities had the largest number of neighborhoods that were gentrified from 2000 to 2013.

D.C. has the highest ‘intensity’ of gentrification of any U.S. city, study says

By Editors' Choice, Gentrification

More than 20,000 African American residents were displaced from low-income neighborhoods from 2000 to 2013, researchers say. By Katherine Shaver, Washington Post — About 40 percent of the District’s lower-income neighborhoods experienced gentrification between 2000 and 2013, giving the city the greatest “intensity of gentrification” of any in the country, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The District also saw the most African American…

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Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in bomb and gun attacks in 2011. gestures as he enters a courtroom in Skien, Norway, on March 15, 2016.

White Supremacy Is Bigger Than 8Chan

By Editors' Choice

Blaming the Internet alone for racist mass shootings is a naive delusion. By Brendan O’Connor, The Nation — At the juncture of blood-strewn history and a crisis-ridden future, 49 Muslims in New Zealand lie dead, executed at prayer by a white supremacist. A man has been charged with murder while others are being questioned over their involvement and the names of the victims have not yet been made public. The…

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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates Is an Optimist Now A conversation about race and 2020

By Editors' Choice

By Eric Levitz, New York Magazine — In recent days, as Democrats debated the definition of “reparations,”Joe Biden rationalized his opposition to integration, and socialist congresswomen started demanding the rebirth of a nation, inquiring minds wanted to know: What would Ta-Nehisi say? Throughout the Obama years, Ta-Nehisi Coates provided politics-watchers with a regular source of historically grounded, bracingly well-written punditry and reporting. But since 2016, the writer’s ambitions have led him off of…

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