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Police Brutality

Lucy McBath speaking to a group of supporters in Atlanta early this month.

‘Democrat. Fighter. Mother.’ Lucy McBath Is Redefining Social Justice in Politics.

By News & Current Affairs

By Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times — An air of solemnity hangs over Lucy McBath’s bid for Congress. It is present in her campaign stump speech, when she recounts the 2012 murder of her son, Jordan Davis, a black teenager who was shot and killed by a white man at a gas station when the 17-year-old refused to lower the volume of the rap music playing in his…

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Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of 2nd-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery.

‘This Is Historic’: Why the Van Dyke Guilty Verdict Is a Victory For the Movement For Black Lives

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Miles Kampf-Lassin, In These Times — “We are far from done. This is the beginning and we should use this momentum to keep going forward.” Chicago has long been a city on the brink. Decades of racial stratification, disinvestment, segregation and endemic poverty have left large swaths of the population struggling to survive, while new development has disproportionately favored wealthier residents. The communities left behind by this process are…

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Russia Is Exploiting American White Supremacy Over and Over Again

By Editors' Choice

Russia’s troll army was not interested in stirring up generic ‘chaos’ in America. The Kremlin is strategically tapping into the inexhaustible fuel source of white grievance. By Spencer Ackerman, Daily Beast — Not many Russians are likely to understand a shotgun formation or the strategy behind not punting on fourth down. But between September and December 2017, social-media accounts now associated with the Kremlin-backed troll farm known as the Internet…

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Mourners attend a candlelight vigil in memory of 18-year-old Vonderrit Myers Jr. on October 9, 2014, in St. Louis, Missouri. Meyers was shot and killed by an off-duty St. Louis police officer.

Research Shows Entire Black Communities Suffer Trauma After Police Shootings

By Editors' Choice

Police killings of unarmed African Americans have created a mental health crisis of enormous proportions. By Tasha Williams, YES! Magazine — Following several nationally publicized police killings of unarmed Black Americans in the United States, Eva L., a fitness instructor who identifies as Black, started to experience what she describes as “immense paranoia.” She would often call in sick, because she feared risking an encounter with police upon leaving her…

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Martin Luther King - By Mr. Fish

The Danger of Leadership Cults

By Editors' Choice

By Chris Hedges — No leader, no matter how talented and visionary, effectively defies power without a disciplined organizational foundation. The civil rights movement was no more embodied in Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. than the socialist movement was embodied in Eugene V. Debs. As the civil rights leader Ella Baker understood, the civil rights movement made King; King did not make the civil rights movement. We must focus on building new,…

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Lezley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, prays with Benjamin Crump, attorney for the families of Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Stephon Clark, at the IOP's forum on the Black Lives Matter movement four years after Brown's slaying.

Black Lives Matter: A next chapter

By News & Current Affairs

Discussion of Michael Brown’s killing also reflects on how to improve conditions By Clea Simon (Harvard Correspondent) — Four years after Michael Brown was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., young people of color are still dying. Still, as a panel discussion at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum noted on Monday, a movement has grown at the same time. With a new documentary shedding light…

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A demonstration in Rome on March 25 to remember Brazilian councilwoman and activist Marielle Franco.

We Must Not Let Marielle Franco’s Killing Go Unpunished

By Commentaries/Opinions

By Jurema Werneck — My sister in struggle Marielle Franco was shot to death on March 14. I was abroad, working alongside other brave women who campaign against police killings of black youth in Brazil, Jamaica and the U.S. We had joined forces and were planning to make our voices heard in order to stop the constant stream of killings committed by some of those who are supposed to protect us. The news hit…

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Veronica Curry and other Black Lives Matter activists and supporters during a rally on Interstate 5 in Sacramento, California, March 22, 2018

Sacramento Is Seething Over the Police Killing of Stephon Clark

By News & Current Affairs

His fate has sent a collective shudder of horror through the city’s African-American community. By Sasha Abramsky — After the white hearse, trailed by a van from the funeral company that repaired Stephon Clark’s broken body, pulled into the Boss Bayside church in South Sacramento, dozens of mourners began filing in to view the dead man. It was 1 pm on March 28, a hot, cloudless day, more than a…

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