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American History

artin Luther King Jr. stayed in the back bedroom of this house

N.J. historic preservation officials insult the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

By Commentaries/Opinions

N.J.’s refusal to list the Camden home where MLK plotted his first protest on the state’s Register of Historic Places insults the civil rights leader’s legacy. By Linn Washington Jr., — A significant “first” usually merits the designation of historic. For example, the first formal protest against racial discrimination by civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in June 1950 — an action that produced King’s first lawsuit…

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For decades, structures such as Rosenwald schools were deemed insignificant.

The Fight to Preserve African-American History

By Editors' Choice

Activists and preservationists are changing the kinds of places that are protected—and what it means to preserve them. By Casey Cep, The New Yorker — No one knows what happened to Gabriel’s body. Born into slavery the year his country declared its freedom, he trained as a plantation blacksmith and was hired out to foundries in Richmond, Virginia, where he befriended other enslaved people. Together, they absorbed, from the revolutionary…

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Actor Aishe Keita plays the protagonist, Rory, in “Reparations.”

Play ‘Reparations’ explores what makes us whole

By Reparations

By Rick Hellman, The University of Kansas — Playwright Darren Canady shocks audiences by opening his new two-act drama, “Reparations,” with a scene of a lynching. But he leavens that tragedy with later scenes of the love and dedication that sustained African Americans through centuries of trial, even offering an Afro-Futuristic vision of hope. Seattle’s Sound Theatre Company opened “Reparations” Jan. 8 at the city’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. It…

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Legacy Pavilion

Alabama lynching memorial expands to cover the stories of 2,000 more people

By News & Current Affairs

Source CNN — The first monument in the United States honoring the victims of lynching has become a must-see civil rights attraction in Montgomery, Alabama, and now it’s been expanded. The Equal Justice Initiative opened its new Legacy Pavilion on Saturday — just in time to welcome visitors to the Alabama state capitol for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend. The Legacy Pavilion features a new memorial recognizing more than…

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Protesters in Baltimore in the aftermath of Freddie Gray's death in 2015.

The Injustice of This Moment Is Not an ‘Aberration’

By Commentaries/Opinions

From mass incarceration to mass deportation, our nation remains in deep denial. By Michelle Alexander, NYT — Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. It has been an astonishing decade. Everything and nothing has…

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Antonia Eliason

Democrat candidate in Mississippi calls for reparations

By Reparations

Antonia Eliason continues to make waves in her bid for the First Congressional District seat in Mississippi. By Frank Corder — The self-described Democratic Socialist candidate has already voiced support for Medicaid expansion, the Green New Deal, marijuana legalization, and the “Squad.” Now Eliason is pushing for reparations. In a tweet on Tuesday, Eliason wrote, “Reparations for slavery are long overdue. One of the gravest betrayals in American history is the unfulfilled…

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Doris Miller was awarded for his heroism during the Pearl Harbor attack.

Doris Miller to become first black sailor to have a Navy aircraft carrier named in his honor

By News & Current Affairs

A black mess attendant was a Pearl Harbor hero. Now an aircraft carrier will have his name. By Kim Bellware, The Washington Post — It was just before 8 a.m. aboard the USS West Virginia, anchored in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, when the first torpedo hit. Mess Attendant 2nd Class Doris Miller was deep into the day’s laundry when the blast sent one of his lieutenants racing to…

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‘Unfortunately for us, there is no William Monroe Trotter in 2020. Nor is there a Boston Guardian demanding that the black press “hold a mirror up to nature”.’

The radical black newspaper that declared ‘none are free unless all are free’

By Editors' Choice

In 1901, William Trotter founded an other Guardian – the Boston Guardian – to ‘hold a mirror up to nature’. We could use something similar today, writes Kerri Greenidge. By Kerri Greenidge — In 1901, William Monroe Trotter founded the Guardian newspaper in Boston. At that time, the more famous Guardian – the one you’re now reading – was published in Manchester, and Trotter had never traveled further than Chillicothe, Ohio.…

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