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Editors’ Choice

The Second Sight of W.E.B. Du Bois

By Editors' Choice

By Chris Hedges, Truthdig.com — Chris Hedges gave this talk Friday at the Left Forum in New York City. W.E.B. Du Bois, more than any intellectual this nation produced in the first half of the 20th century, explained America to itself. He did this not only through what he called the “color line” but by exposing the intertwining of empire, capitalism and white supremacy. He deftly fused academic disciplines. He possessed unwavering…

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Patrick Semansky / AP / Katie Martin / The Atlantic

DeRay McKesson Talks About the Hardest Job He’s Ever Had

By Editors' Choice

How the activist made a career of social justice. By Lolade Fadulu, The Atlantic — In 2015, DeRay McKesson quit his $110,000-a-year job as a human-resources official at Minneapolis Public Schools and moved to St. Louis, Missouri, to join the second year of protests in Ferguson over the fatal shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer. Soon afterward, McKesson, along with other activists, launched Campaign Zero, a ten-point plan…

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racial segregation

The resegregation of America

By Editors' Choice

By Ryan Cooper, The Week — If you want to get a good measure of the intense racial segregation of Washington, D.C., just head southeast on the Green Line subway around 5 p.m. Once that train leaves the L’Enfant Plaza station, it will reflect the demographic fact that east of the Anacostia River, the city is overwhelmingly black. This sort of thing is not at all uncommon. Indeed, a recent study…

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Digital Revolution Holds Bright Promises for Africa

By Editors' Choice

By Eleni Mourdoukoutas — UNITED NATIONS, May 25 2018 (IPS) – Internet penetration is creeping up in Africa, bringing the prospect of digital dividends to a continent long marked by digital divides. “Africa has reached a penetration which has broken the barrier of 15 %, and that’s important,” says Nii Quaynor, a scientist who has played a key role in the introduction and development of the internet throughout Africa. He…

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Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams’ Georgia Primary Victory Is the Latest Win for Black Political Organizing

By Editors' Choice

A large network of political groups and outreach initiatives, many of them helmed by black women, backed Abrams in Georgia’s May 22 democratic primary. By P.R. Lockhart, VOX — On Tuesday night, Georgians voting in the state Democratic primary overwhelmingly backed Stacey Abrams, bringing the 44-year-old former Georgia House minority leader one step closer to becoming the first woman governor of Georgia and the first black woman governor in the US.…

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Painter John Gast, “American Progress,” 1872

The Globalization of American Racial Exclusion

By Editors' Choice

By Westenley Alcenat, AAIHS — In hindsight, historians of American immigration will be pressed to name the first two decades of the twenty-first century as one dominated by the systematic “racial exclusionism” of non-Europeans. It was in the United States that the modernization of racial difference perfected the models for global settler colonialism. America’s career and success in expropriating Native American land was globalized for latecomers like Germany in the scramble for…

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Donald Glover, AKA Childish Gambino, attending the world premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story

The rise of Donald Glover: how he captured America

By Editors' Choice

The award-winning writer, actor, singer and rapper has dominated the internet with his provocative, politically charged hit This is America, the latest step in an illustrious, unconventional career By Katie Bain, The Guardian — Try, if you can, to watch This Is America, the new music video from Childish Gambino, while keeping your eyes off the man in the camera’s gaze. It’s not easy. You may have to watch it twice,…

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Donald Trump advertised his ambitions to dismantle Barack Obama’s achievements throughout the election campaign. Photograph: Pool New/Reuters

The anti-Obama: Trump’s drive to destroy his predecessor’s legacy

By Editors' Choice

From the Iran deal to TPP to climate change, ‘the whole thing that animates and unites his policy views is antipathy towards Obama’ By David Smith, The Guardian — When Donald Trump pulled out of the deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions, hardline conservatives celebrated, European leaders winced and Barack Obama made a rare, lengthy public statement. Trump’s decision was “misguided” and “a serious mistake”, Obama said, as his signature foreign policy achievement…

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The literature on the African slave trade, Hurston wrote, had endless “words from the seller, but not one word from the sold.

Zora Neale Hurston’s Story of a Former Slave Finally Comes to Print

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

Hurston spent years turning an account of the transatlantic slave trade into a book. Then the manuscript languished for nearly nine decades. By Casey N. Cep — Captain William Foster left Mobile in secret and returned the same way. On July 8, 1860, he dropped anchor in the waters off the coast of Mississippi, hid his cargo below deck, slipped ashore, and travelled overland to fetch a tugboat from Alabama.…

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Martin Luther King - By Mr. Fish

The Danger of Leadership Cults

By Editors' Choice

By Chris Hedges — No leader, no matter how talented and visionary, effectively defies power without a disciplined organizational foundation. The civil rights movement was no more embodied in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. than the socialist movement was embodied in Eugene V. Debs. As the civil rights leader Ella Baker understood, the civil rights movement made King; King did not make the civil rights movement. We must focus on building new,…

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