By Rick Hellman, The University of Kansas — Playwright Darren Canady shocks audiences by opening his new two-act drama, “Reparations,” with a scene of a lynching. But he leavens that tragedy with later scenes of the love and dedication that sustained African Americans through centuries of trial, even offering an Afro-Futuristic vision of hope. Seattle’s Sound Theatre Company opened “Reparations” Jan. 8 at the city’s Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. It…
Source CNN — The first monument in the United States honoring the victims of lynching has become a must-see civil rights attraction in Montgomery, Alabama, and now it’s been expanded. The Equal Justice Initiative opened its new Legacy Pavilion on Saturday — just in time to welcome visitors to the Alabama state capitol for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday weekend. The Legacy Pavilion features a new memorial recognizing more than…
By Dr. E. Faye Williams, Esq. — Whenever Black people bring up the subject of white Americans acting to cure years of discriminatory acts against Black people when our ancestors were forced to work without compensation, they usually pivot to the term “reverse discrimination” or they question whether reparations would be constitutional. My good friend, Gloria Dulan Wilson, responded to the constitutional argument by saying, “It was once constitutional to beat,…
By Dr. Maulana Karenga — Pushing back the thick fog and fumes of the putrid propaganda of White supremacist triumphalism, what can we really see and sing by the dawn’s…
WILMINGTON – On Friday, it was reported that the historical marker recognizing the lynching of George White, unveiled just over a month ago, was stolen from Greenbank Park on Kirkwood Highway….
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 Michael Gerson, The Washington Post — The national debate on race — which the president has made more angry and urgent with his racial demagoguery — is hindered by imprecise language. Most whites do not feel personally guilty for the United States’ long history of imposed white supremacy. A white man who has lost his job at the coal mine, or the daughter of a recent Ukrainian immigrant, probably…
By Kelebogile Zvobgo — Between 1850 and 1950, thousands of African American men, women and children were victims of lynchings: public torture and killings carried out by white mobs. Lynchings were…
Frazier B. Baker was the first black postmaster in Lake City, South Carolina. By Associated Press — LAKE CITY, S.C. — A South Carolina town’s post office will be named…
The nooses and signs were found one day before the U.S. Senate runoff. State Capitol police took the nooses and signs down and are investigating. By Morgan Howard, WLBT Jackson, MS — Seven nooses and several signs were found at the Mississippi State Capitol Monday, prompting more nationwide attention and outrage ahead of Tuesday’s election. Early Monday morning, two nooses were found at the Capitol. According to the Associated Press, five more…
By Ja’han Jones, Huff Post — In 1955, after the nation’s most infamous lynching ― of her son, Emmett ― Mamie Till-Mobley sent a telegram to President Dwight Eisenhower. In…
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…