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Eluard Luchell McDaniels, Spanish Civil. War Volunteer, Batea, Spain, May 1938. Image Courtesy of the Tamiment Library, New York University

African American Anti-Fascists in the Spanish Civil War

By Editors' Choice

Anti-fascist volunteer Canute Frankson explained his motivation in a letter home in 1937: “We will build us a new society—a society of peace and plenty. There will be no color line, no jim crow trains, no lynching. That is why, my dear, I’m here in Spain.” By Peter Carroll, BlackPast.org — Approximately 90 African Americans fought in Spain during the civil war that engulfed that nation between 1936 and 1939.…

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A sculpture by artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, part of the Nkyinkyim Installation, of enslaved people in chains is shown after entering The National Memorial for Peace and Justice on April 20, 2018, in Montgomery, Al.

“Freedom” and “Liberty” Were Only for Whites in Settler Colonialism

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By Mark Karlin, Truthout — By detailing the growth of the slave trade in the 17th century, Gerald Horne reveals how white supremacy, capitalism and the original sin of slavery in the Western Hemisphere became intertwined. Current politics are so chaotic, staggering and fast-paced that we rarely hear of how we arrived at this moment of the resurgence of white supremacy in historical context. However, Professor Gerald Horne, author of The…

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Diane Nash, right, represented the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at the White House in 1963.

The Selfless Servant Leadership of the African-American Women of the Civil-Rights Movement

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These women didn’t stand on ceremony; they accepted the risks of activism and fought for worlds where others might have freedoms that they themselves would never enjoy. By Janet Dewart Bell — During the civil-rights movement, African Americans led the fight to free this country from the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow. Though they all too often were—and remain—invisible to the public, African-American women played significant roles at all…

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Paying homage to Fidel Castro at Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana in 2016

In Cuba’s Change of Leadership, More Black Officials in Power

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By Frances Robles and Azam Ahmeda — As the departing Cuban president, Raúl Castro, tells it, even too many of the radio and television newscasters in Cuba are white. It “was not easy” getting the few black broadcasters now on the air hired, Mr. Castro said in his retirement speech Thursday, a remarkable admission considering the state controls all the stations. So it was all the more extraordinary to see…

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Kimberlé Crenshaw, American civil rights activist.

Is it time for black women in America to take up arms?

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An interview with scholar-activist Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term ‘insersectionality,’ on gender, race and armed militancy. By Nimmi Gowrinathan — For most American audiences, the female fighter exists in a land far, far away. To consider female militancy in this country, in our movements, requires a reckoning: the need to see police brutality against black women as state violence, checkpoints in school cafeterias as militarization, and the death rates…

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A sign outside Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, during an April 5, 2018 demonstration staged by activist group 'Raging Grannies'

White Supremacy Is the Achilles’ Heel of American Democracy

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Even in a high-tech era, fears about minority political agency are the most reliable way to destabilize the U.S. political system. By Vann R. Newkirk — There are a million and one threads to the chaos currently unspooling about the Trump administration and the 2016 election. One might be forgiven for giving up on trying to navigate the intricacies of congressional Russia inquiries, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ever-widening probe, news…

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Black Lives Matter protesters march through the streets in response to the police shooting of Stephon Clark in Sacramento, California on March 28, 2018

From Stephon Clark to Voter Suppression, the Attack on Black America Intensifies

By Editors' Choice

By Nicholas Powers — It’s hard to watch. Guns aimed at the dark. Loud yells. Loud salvo. Night drizzle in the tactical lights. Cops mistook his cell phone for a gun. I know already, he’s dead. I finished watching the video of Stephon Clark’s murder. Days later, White House Press Secretary, Sarah Sanders labeled it a “local matter.” President Trump has stripped Obama’s mild federal oversight of police and left…

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