
Bill Russell leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of winning championships and civil rights activism during a time of racial segregation. By Aram Goudsouzian, The Conversation — On May 1, 1968,…
Bill Russell leaves behind an extraordinary legacy of winning championships and civil rights activism during a time of racial segregation. By Aram Goudsouzian, The Conversation — On May 1, 1968,…
By GBH News — Plans for reparations are starting to emerge across the country after various measures have been under consideration for more than 150 years. However, what will these…
Asian American Michelle Wu is Boston’s first elected mayor who isn’t a white man. While many celebrate the milestone, others lament that all the Black candidates failed. By Tovia Smith,…
By Chelsey Cox, USA Today — As polls closed late Tuesday, states throughout the country saw a range of candidates of color racking up election wins in historic results. The…
By The Associated Press — Boston officials are weighing creating a commission to account for the city’s role in Black slavery and potentially provide reparations to Black residents. The City…
By Bob Dumas, Boston 25 News — The tragic death of George Floyd ignited calls for racial justice last year just as the pandemic revealed harsh disparities in health care…
By Carey Baraka, Quartz Africa — In April 1721, a smallpox outbreak swept through Boston. This was the latest in a string of six epidemics that had, since, 1630, laid waste to the city. Cotton Mather, a local slave owner and preacher, claimed to be in possession of a way of preventing contraction of the disease. Mather, who had first come to public prominence as one of the thinkers behind…
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.…
By James Pasley, Business Insider — In 2016, former first lady Michelle Obama declared as a sign of how far the nation has come: “I wake up every morning in…
By David J. Harris, Houston Institute Executive Director — Several weeks ago the Boston Globe published an opinion piece by editorial and staff writer David Scharfenberg in which he called for an “honest” commitment to racial integration. He dismissed the “gauzy 1963 version” of integration, insisted that “harping too much” on its virtues “can feel paternalistic,” and lamented the “disastrous busing experiment of the 1970s” which proved that “forced integration…simply doesn’t work.” Even so,…
Ayanna Pressley says the Democratic Party needs new blood. She’ll have to take down a popular incumbent to make her case. By Joanna Weiss, Politico Magazine — A few weeks before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won her New York congressional primary, Boston City Councilor Ayanna Pressley spoke to a roomful of young Democrats at the Bell-in-Hand, a Boston tavern that dates back to 1795. She was explaining why she should unseat a…