
Sundiata Cha-Jua, The News Gazette — In recent years, the U.S. government has demonstrated a commitment to passing largely meaningless symbolic legislation designed to sanitize the country’s history of racial…
Sundiata Cha-Jua, The News Gazette — In recent years, the U.S. government has demonstrated a commitment to passing largely meaningless symbolic legislation designed to sanitize the country’s history of racial…
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig — The only way to end slavery is to stop being a slave. Hundreds of men and women in prisons in some 17 states are refusing to carry out prison labor, conducting hunger strikes or boycotting for-profit commissaries in an effort to abolish the last redoubt of legalized slavery in America. The strikers are demanding to be paid the minimum wage, the right to vote, decent…
Exclusive: As the world ignores the ignominious 500th anniversary of the buying and selling of slaves between Africa and the Americas, historians uncover its first horrific voyages By David Keys, The…
By Chris Steele, Truthout — “What is euphemistically referred to as ‘modernity’ is marked with the indelible stain of what might be termed the Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Slavery,…
Recalling a time when the empowerment of the most oppressed in our society paved the way for other social struggles also gives weight to today’s slogan that all lives will…
This episode delves into the extraordinary life of reparations advocate Callie House. Despite her status as a former slave, a woman, and a widower with five children, Callie House defied…
To expand their wealth, the Portuguese set up the slave trade, in which Africa was the centre. Filmmakers: Daniel Cattier, Juan Gelas and Fanny Glissant — At the end of…
A drawing of one of the burials discovered at the site of the James Reese Career and Technical Center in Sugar Land, Tex. An African-American burial ground recently unearthed in…
The civil rights activist, historian, and author discusses her new book “History Teaches Us to Resist: How Progressive Movements Have Succeeded in Challenging Times.” Civil rights activist, historian, and…
By Stephen Kantrowitz, Boston Review — White supremacy is a language of unease. It does not describe racial domination so much as worry about it. White supremacy connotes many grim and terrifying things, including inequality, exclusion, injustice, and state and vigilante violence. Like whiteness itself, white supremacy arose from the world of Atlantic slavery but survived its demise. Yet while the structures are old, the term “white supremacy” is not.…
The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment marked a turning point in U.S. history. Yet 150 years later, its promises remain unfulfilled. By Robert Greene, Dissent — The ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment on July 9, 1868 was a turning point in United States history. Arriving at the height of Reconstruction, the amendment marked the first time the U.S. Constitution explicitly addressed the question of who qualified as an American citizen.…
Centuries before two Black men were arrested at a Philadelphia Starbucks, capitalists met at coffee shops to profit from the transatlantic slave trade. By Tasha Williams, Yes Magazine — An 18th-century ad tells us that a dozen or so men, women, and children of African heritage were scheduled for buyer’s inspection one Saturday, just outside the entrance of the London Coffee House in Philadelphia. The Stamp Act protests and other famous anti-British…