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Lynette Monroe is a graduate student at Howard University. Her research area is public policy as it relates to education and conflict. You can follow her on Twitter @_monroedoctrine.

Three Misconceptions About the Black Vote

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Lynette Monroe, NNPA — Black people do vote. Let’s stop perpetuating the myth that Black people don’t vote. Besides, emphasizing negative behavior will not yield positive results. Positive language reinforces positive behavior. While statistics related to health and wealth routinely place Blacks as dead last, when it comes to voting, this is not the case. Black voter turnout is higher than any other minority group, but Black people still…

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Civil rights organizations have sued Georgia’s Republican secretary of state for failing to register 53,000 new voters, most of them black. Reuters/Christopher Aluka Berry

Georgia election fight shows that black voter suppression, a southern tradition, still flourishes

By Editors' Choice

Georgia’s refusal to process 53,000 voter registrations, mostly filed by African-Americans, is the latest in a long history of black voter suppression in the South, from poll taxes to literacy tests. By Frederick Knight, The Conversation — Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp has been sued for suppressing minority votes after an Associated Press investigation revealed a month before November’s midterm election that his office has not approved 53,000 voter registrations – most…

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James Forten

This Black Activist Was One of the Richest Men in Early America

By Editors' Choice

A Black sailmaker was helping to lead the anti-slavery movement long before it was popular in America. By Sean Braswell, OZY — In the spring of 1842, several thousand Philadelphians poured into the streets for one of the largest funerals in the city’s history. It was a remarkable sight: An interracial procession that included everyone from poor Black laborers to wealthy White merchants to sea captains and shippers. On that…

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Denmark Vesey House at 56 Bull Street in Charleston, South Carolina.

Slavery and Memory in Charleston, South Carolina

By Reparations

By Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, AAIHS — The familiar refrain after the Emmanuel AME massacre on June 17, 2015, was that Dylann Roof, the murderer, was not from “here.” But as Ethan Kytle and Blain Roberts’ Denmark Vesey’s Garden: Slavery and Memory in the Cradle of the Confederacy aptly demonstrates, Roof’s understanding of history and memory in Charleston led him to that church; and his understanding was not alien to the sometimes violently, oft-contested memory of slavery in the…

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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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Louise Brown, 83, at the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Washington, D.C., on June 23. The movement aims to link a broad array of issues: systemic racism, poverty and inequality, ecological devastation and the war economy.

The Poor People’s Campaign Is Using Civil Disobedience to Win Back America

By News & Current Affairs

The 50-year-old anti-poverty movement has seen a revival in the era of Trump. By Teke Wiggin, HuffPost — When lifelong civil rights activist Louise Brown took the mic at a Washington, D.C., rally on Saturday, she had a stark message for the thousands of people assembled before her to protest poverty. “I’m 83 years old, and only the strong survive,” she shouted. In a call to arms, she recounted how…

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