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Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of 2nd-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery.

‘This Is Historic’: Why the Van Dyke Guilty Verdict Is a Victory For the Movement For Black Lives

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times — “We are far from done. This is the beginning and we should use this momentum to keep going forward.” Chicago has long been a city on the brink. Decades of racial stratification, disinvestment, segregation and endemic poverty have left large swaths of the population struggling to survive, while new development has disproportionately favored wealthier residents. The communities left behind by this process are…

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Russia Is Exploiting American White Supremacy Over and Over Again

By Editors' Choice

Russia’s troll army was not interested in stirring up generic ‘chaos’ in America. The Kremlin is strategically tapping into the inexhaustible fuel source of white grievance. By Spencer Ackerman, Daily Beast — Not many Russians are likely to understand a shotgun formation or the strategy behind not punting on fourth down. But between September and December 2017, social-media accounts now associated with the Kremlin-backed troll farm known as the Internet…

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From Black Women’s Blueprint on Twitter.

Hundreds Gather for the March for Black Women in D.C.

By News & Current Affairs

“We Are Marching To Say That Black Women’s Lives Matter…” By Taryn Finley, Huff Post — Black activist groups marched on the National Mall and Justice Department in Washington, D.C. on Saturday to raise awareness about the injustices black women face. Black Women’s Blueprint, BYP100 and Trans Sistas of Color Project and other groups have united for the March for Black Women. The event’s co-chairs are activists Farah Tanis, Bré…

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Co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Patrisse Cullors

Black Lives Matter at Five: Activists Take Stock

By News & Current Affairs

By Steve Dubb, Nonprofit Quarterly — The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin took place on July 13, 2013. Reaction to the acquittal led to the birth of what is now known as the Black Lives Matter movement. Chauncey Alcorn, writing in Mic, recalls the movement’s origins: Criminal justice reform advocate Patrisse Cullors sat at the edge of her bed in a Susanville, California, motel room,…

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Demonstrators prepare to march to protest the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, July 17, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California.

We Founded Black Lives Matter 5 Years Ago Today. We’re Still Going.

By Editors' Choice

By Patrisse Cullors, HuffPost — Right after the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer in July 2013, Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and I were devastated. We’d been following the proceedings closely. We’d watched the media criminalize 17-year-old Trayvon and humiliate his family to justify his cold-blooded murder presumably because his assailant was white-presenting. Still, we were sucker-punched by the acquittal. We stood perplexed; hadn’t we elected our first black president? Yet it was clear;…

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Trayvon Martin supporters rally in Times Square while blocking traffic after marching from a rally for Martin in Union Square in New York, on July 14, 2013. George Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges in the shooting death of Martin on July 13, 2013. Many protesters challenged the verdict.

Black Lives Matter: 5 Years on, What Has the Movement Achieved and Where Will It Go From Here?

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Chantal Da Silva, Jessica Durham and Alexis Wierenga, Newsweek — Black Lives Matter. It has been five years since Patrisse Khan-Cullors, now 34, first shared those three words on Facebook, reminding Americans that black lives do matter at a time when it felt like they did not. News that George Zimmerman, 34, had been acquitted of all charges in the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin sent shock waves across the U.S. on…

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Russian Trolls Were Obsessed With Black Lives Matter

Russian Trolls Were Obsessed With Black Lives Matter

By News & Current Affairs

By April Glaser, Slate — On Thursday, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released a trove of about 3,500 Facebook and Instagram ads purchased by Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election and exploit and attempt to worsen America’s polarized political climate in the months that followed. The ads reveal a sophisticated campaign clearly aimed at supporting Donald Trump’s presidential bid and inflaming Americans on some of the most divisive social and…

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Rakem Balogun on being secretly watched by the FBI: ‘It’s tyranny at its finest.’

Black activist jailed for his Facebook posts speaks out about secret FBI surveillance

By News & Current Affairs

Exclusive: Rakem Balogun spoke out against police brutality. Now he is believed to be the first prosecuted under a secretive US effort to track so-called ‘black identity extremists’ By Sam Levin, The Guardian — Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his…

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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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Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement

Why feminism and racism have a lot to do with the gun debate

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Emma Lacey-Bordeaux — (CNN) — Students around the country are again taking to the streets. It’s the latest mass action since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that claimed seventeen lives and galvanized young people to act in the long-stalled debate over guns. Some activists are heartened by the attention being paid to the issue but they raise questions about how these students get viewed versus the treatment of…

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Maurice Mitchell, left, the new national director of the Working Families Party, with his predecessor, Dan Cantor, at the Working Families Party office in Brooklyn, New York. Rafael Shimunov / Working Families Party

Economic vs. Racial Justice Is a ‘False Choice,’ Says the New Working Families Party Director

By Commentaries/Opinions

Maurice Mitchell wants the WFP to be a political home for working-class people of every race. By Collier Meyerson — The Working Families Party, a progressive political political party that is active in 19 states, just announced that its longtime national director, Dan Cantor, has been succeeded in the role by Maurice Mitchell. The first black person to hold the post, Mitchell has two decades of experience in political and…

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