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Fast food workers and union members carry signs as they stage a protest outside of a McDonald's restaurant in Oakland, Calif., on Feb. 12, 2018, the 50th anniversary of the historic Memphis Sanitation Strike that was led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

What Happened to Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream of Economic Justice?

By Commentaries/Opinions

Economic justice was always central to Martin Luther King Jr.’s agenda. But society has moved backward on that issue since his death. By Michael K. Honey, Time — When Memphis sanitation workers went on strike in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. knew they had a lesson to teach America. “You are reminding the nation,” he told attendees at a March 1968 rally there, “that it is a crime for people to live…

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Africa

Why Africa’s Industrialization Won’t Look Like China’s

By Editors' Choice

It won’t be able to rely on low-wage manufacturing. By Ndubuisi Ekekwe, Harvard Business Review — China designed and executed a policy that shrank the industrialization process in a mere 25 years — something that many economies took at least a century to do. That redesign has brought immense dislocation in global commerce and industry, enabling China to become one of the world’s leading economies. China’s success has led many African capitals to pursue…

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Assembly line workers put final touches on 2018 Ford Expedition SUV at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Ky

African-Americans and the driving forces in the American auto industry

By Editors' Choice

By Herb Boyd — When Africans were forcibly brought to America, they worked at the points of production. And whether as a multitude of enslaved workers on small farms, large plantations, in mines or elsewhere, black laborers were vital cogs in creating wealth for their owners. On a national scale, enslaved black laborers provided a workforce vital for the development of the American republic by bringing wage-free economic success and…

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Deval Patrick

Deval Patrick to unveil reparations as part of black economic agenda

By News & Current Affairs, Reparations

Reparations are popular with black Americans but opposed by most whites and divide Democrats. By Alexi McCammond, Axios — Deval Patrick supports developing a plan for the federal government to provide reparations to living descendants of slaves, a position he’ll make clear as part of an economic platform for black Americans he’s unveiling today, an aide tells Axios. Driving the news: The former Massachusetts governor, one of only two non-white candidates…

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Michael Bloomberg speaks at the Vernon Chapel American Methodist Episcopal Church in Tulsa, Okla.

Michael Bloomberg proposes multi-billion-dollar initiative to provide economic justice for black Americans

By News & Current Affairs

By Shant Shahrigian — Mike Bloomberg took to the site of historic race riots in Tulsa, Okla., on Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend to propose sweeping plans to redress the economic legacy of generations of discrimination against African Americans. In an initiative similar to calls for reparations for slavery, the Democratic presidential candidate proposed $70 billion in investment in the country’s “100 most…

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President Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which granted reparations to Japanese Americans

Another way to look at reparations

By Reparations

By Edna Whittier, The Roanoke Times — In 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act to compensate Japanese Americans who were in internment camps during World War II. Offering a formal apology it paid $20,000 to each surviving victim and their heirs. In 2004, the State of Virginia established the Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship fund setting aside $1 million (with another $1 million contributed by philanthropist John…

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A job fair in Washington DC in August. In April 2019, when the overall unemployment rate was 3.6%, the white unemployment rate was 3.1% while the black unemployment rate was 6.7%.

Hollow boom: why black Americans feel left out of US’s robust economy

By Commentaries/Opinions

Unemployment rate tells a different story about the economy when race is considered, even when job numbers are strong. By Lauren Aratani, The Guardian — What I’ve done for African Americans in two and a half years, no president has been able to do anything like it,” Donald Trump boasted in August, the latest in a series of statements in which he has claimed to be the best president for…

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Trump’s Trade War and the Emerging Corporatist-Fascist State

Trump’s Trade War and the Emerging Corporatist-Fascist State

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Anthony DiMaggio, Counter Punch — President Donald Trump’s fit over China speaks to the rise of neofascism in American politics, at a time when neither Congress nor the courts are showing any interest in rolling back presidential power. Trump’s unique brand of neofascism first emerged in the form of his attempt to crack down on journalistic critics for “treason,” and via the onset of his white ethno-nationalist, which he declared via…

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