With the cost of higher education skyrocketing, many young Americans from economically struggling communities across the South and elsewhere have turned to the military as a solution for student debt. By Benjamin Barber, Facing South — Earlier this month, after a United States drone strike in Iraq killed 10 Iranian military leaders including the country’s top security and intelligence commander, elevated tensions between the U.S. and Iran raised alarms about…
All of them returned to the South’s frontline struggle for racial justice. By R. Drew Smith — In 2020, January remembrances of Martin Luther King Jr. are occurring against the backdrop of two high-profile films emphasizing sacrificial servant leadership. First, the film Harriet provided a renewed focus on celebrated abolitionist Harriet Tubman. This biopic chronicles her mid-19th century enslavement in Maryland, her daring escape to a hard-won freedom in Philadelphia, and her…
By Julianne Malveaux — I was returning from an errand when the skies opened up. The punishing rain came down with such vigor that despite an umbrella, the bottom inches…
By Julianne Malveaux — The first week of July produced a somewhat positive Employment Situation report. While the unemployment rate ticked up just a bit, about 224,000 new jobs were…
By Julianne Malveaux — Twenty-four people are running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. From where I sit, at least half of them are only running…
By Brittney Drakeford and Ras Tafari Cannady II, Greater Greater Washington — The effects of historic discriminatory urban design practices, such as redlining and racially-restrictive zoning, are by no means relegated to…
A new study found that people who experience discrimination are almost twice as likely as others to struggle with hunger. By Greg Kaufmann, The Nation — With more than 40 million people in the country struggling with hunger, anti-hunger advocates in the United States have their work cut out for them. In 2017, nearly 12 percent of all US households were food insecure—meaning they didn’t have access to enough food for all household members…
By Keith Magee — Writing to fellow clergy from a Birmingham Jail (The Negro Is Your Brother), Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. – gravely concerned about all who were…
Economic inequality is an urgent problem. Deeper still is our loss of mutual respect, the foundation of a fair society. By Richard Reeves, Aeon — At the end of 2017, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority launched a new ad campaign. The Authority wasn’t selling anything. It was asking, on behalf of its bus drivers, for something; something that liberal societies need in order to flourish, that underpins social equality, and…
By Robert L. Fischer, The Conversation — On July 12, President Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers concluded that America’s long-running war on poverty “is largely over and a success.” I am a researcher who has studied poverty for nearly 20 years in Cleveland, a city with one of the country’s highest rates of poverty. While the council’s conclusion makes for a dramatic headline, it simply does not align with the reality of poverty in the U.S.…
The 50-year-old anti-poverty movement has seen a revival in the era of Trump. By Teke Wiggin, HuffPost — When lifelong civil rights activist Louise Brown took the mic at a Washington, D.C., rally on Saturday, she had a stark message for the thousands of people assembled before her to protest poverty. “I’m 83 years old, and only the strong survive,” she shouted. In a call to arms, she recounted how…
Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his mission to the United States of America Note by the Secretariat The Secretariat has the honour to…