By Dr. Maulana Karenga — Part 1. This offering is in rightful homage and deep appreciation, not only for Nana Ida B. Wells-Barnett, but also for the awesome and audacious…
By Derek H. Alderman, Joshua F.J. Inwood— How can maps fight racism and inequality? The work of the Black Panther Party, a 1960s- and 1970s-era Black political group featured in a new…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — The recent passing of Rev. Joseph Lowery (October 6, 1921 – March 27, 2020), Rev. Cordy Tindell (C.T.) Vivian (July 30, 1924 – July 17,…
Dr. Julianne Malveaux — Exactly one hundred and thirty-six years to the day after Ida B. Wells was thrown off a Chesapeake and Ohio railroad train, she was awarded a…
By Equal Justice Initiative — The Pulitzer Prizes announced on Monday, May 4, 2020 that a special citation has been awarded to anti-lynching crusader and pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells “[f]or…
Black women like Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, Ella Baker and Mary Church Terrell played a major role in the women’s suffrage movement. By Nsenga K. Burton — August 18, 2020 marks…
By Julianne Malveaux — Mary Turner was lynched on May 19. 1918 because she dared raise her voice. Her husband, Hayes Turner, was among 13 people lynched in two weeks in and around Valdosta, Georgia. The lynchings took place because one brutal white man, who was known to abuse workers so severely that he was only able to attract workers by getting them through the convict labor system, beat the…
By Whitney Stewart, Black Perspectives — How do you make a family tree when you may not know your family history? Beyond the very real physical and emotional toll on…
Audio by WNYC Studios — Journalist and activist Ida B. Wells is in some ways a forgotten figure, overlooked even in black civil rights history. But her reporting on lynchings across the South was unwavering in its mission: calling America out on racial injustice. And, why black women are no longer willing to play the role of “Magical Negro” in U.S. politics. The United States of Anxiety recently recorded a live…
These women didn’t stand on ceremony; they accepted the risks of activism and fought for worlds where others might have freedoms that they themselves would never enjoy. By Janet Dewart Bell — During the civil-rights movement, African Americans led the fight to free this country from the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow. Though they all too often were—and remain—invisible to the public, African-American women played significant roles at all…
The recent Power Rising Summit in Atlanta brought together nearly a thousand Black women from across the country to strategize on how to build political power and harness the momentum behind the surge of Black women running for office. By Rebekah Barber, Facing South — From the onset of the women’s suffrage movement, Black women were among the strongest advocates for universal suffrage. Years before Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw coined…