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Chi Oriji leads a group in dance during the Juneteenth MusicFest and Parade, recognizing the end of slavery in America in Philadelphia on June 23, 2018.

Activists Are Pushing to Make Juneteenth a National Holiday

By News & Current Affairs

Here’s the History Behind Their Fight. By Olivia B. Waxman, Times — When President Donald Trump announced last week that he would hold a campaign rally in Tulsa on June 19, the backlash was swift. The speech was to take place near the site of a 1921 race massacre, and June 19 is celebrated each year as Juneteenth, in honor of the day in 1865 when enslaved men and women in…

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Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, wears a face mask as she calls on lawmakers to create a task force to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans, during the Assembly session in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, June 11, 2020. The Assembly approved the bill that now goes to the Senate.

African American reparation bill passes California Assembly

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

By Cuneyt Dil, Associated Press — A proposal to establish a task force to study and prepare recommendations for how to give reparations to African Americans passed the California Assembly on Thursday. The bill advanced with a 56-5 vote as protests nationwide over police brutality re-energized the movement for racial justice and activists pressed for sweeping reforms. It is a top priority for California’s Legislative Black Caucus. If the bill…

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A statue of former British prime minister Winston Churchill in London.

U.S. protests push Europe to face its own histories of injustice

By News & Current Affairs

By Ishan Tharoor with Ruby Mellen, Washington Post — Edward Colston was a 17th-century English merchant who rose to the position of deputy governor of the Royal African Co. His family became fabulously wealthy as a result, profiting from the company’s role in the British trade of African slaves to the New World. Under Colston’s watch, about 84,000 Africans were shipped to lives of bondage and misery. An estimated 19,000 of them perished during the…

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Protests in Spain

Racism, Xenophobia and Police Brutality on the Rise in Spain

By News & Current Affairs

By Youssef Ouled, Rights International Spain — Rights International Spain and the Implementation Team of the International Decade for People of African Descent in Spain have published a report on racism and xenophobia during the COVID-19 state of alarm in Spain. The report examines manifestations of racism and xenophobia between March 15 and May 2 during the COVID-19 state of alarm in Spain. The investigation includes more than 70 racist…

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Dozens of people participate in a protest against Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, Sao Paulo, Brazil, June 7, 2020.

Brazil Bans Release of COVID-19 Death and Infection Toll

By COVID-19 (Coronavirus), News & Current Affairs

By teleSUR — Brazil’s government stopped publishing the total accumulated COVID-19 deaths and infections, in an attempt to hide the real extent of the disease in Latin America’s largest country. After months of criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro’s handling of the pandemic, the government decided to withdraw a Ministry of Health website, which provided daily figures on deaths and infections. The site was launched a while later, but totals of…

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