When the shuttered economy reopens, how many black Americans will be left out in the cold? By William M. Rodgers III — As the COVID-19 pandemic worsened in April, many…
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for coronavirus reparations for minorities, claiming higher numbers of COVID-19 fatalities in low-income communities stems from underlying inequality. By Ebony Bowden, New York Post —…
Pre-existing health conditions leave one group particularly vulnerable. By Charles M. Blow, NYT — Early Monday morning the email arrived. The subject line began, “ALARM AT THE GATE,” written in…
By Donne Levy, AlterNet — America is a deeply divided nation. That fact may be the only thing that Americans of all racial, ethnic, and political groups can agree about. A Washington…
In this conversation, moderated by the Dream Defenders’ Rachel Gilmer, Black women activists explain their support for Sanders’s campaign. By Teen Vougue — Senator Bernie Sanders has attributed his success in the 2020 presidential campaign to his “multigenerational, multiracial coalition” of supporters. Sanders’s win in Iowa has been credited in part to his support among the minority and immigrant voters who turned out to the “satellite” caucuses set up for those who couldn’t make it to…
Black Americans’ relocation back to the south is changing voting blocs and making Democratic races more competitive. This month, for the first time, South Carolina registered a million voters of color. By Kenya Evelyn, The Guardian — Najeema Davis Washington spent more than 15 years as a federal employee in Washington DC before she returned to Charleston, the city she left in 1996. She brought with her a progressive outlook…
Managing race relations from above. By Adolph Reed Jr., The New Republic — On September 18, 1895, Booker T. Washington gave his famous address to the Atlanta Cotton States and…
By Andrew Joseph Pegoda — During Black History Month and beyond, Americans are generally taught to believe that contact between white and black Americans was gradually prohibited after Reconstruction through a combination of social and legal traditions. Under the regime of Jim Crow segregation, two supposedly “separate but equal” societies gradually emerged — one for white people, another for black people — and lasted until the ’50s and ’60s. The two societies in that infamous phrase were never equal…
‘This was supposed to be reparations’ Why is LA’s cannabis industry devastating black entrepreneurs?
Black merchants affected by the war on drugs are denied licenses and thrown into debt as white owners thrive. By Sam Levin, The Guardian — A Los Angeles government program set up to provide cannabis licenses to people harmed by the war on drugs has been plagued by delays, scandal and bureaucratic blunders, costing some intended beneficiaries hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. Black entrepreneurs and activists across LA told…
By Alan Singer, HNN — Author’s note: On January 9, 2020 I delivered the Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute lecture at the Uniondale Public Library in Uniondale, New York. The presentation…
By C. Dwayne West, CEO MG Media — This prophetic thought first pondered in my brain several years ago when CNN’s personality Soledad O’Brien presented a series of stories titled Blacks in America and Latinos in America….
From slavery to Reconstruction to Dylann Roof, the idea of “race war” has a long and bloody legacy in the United States. By Michael E. Miller, The Washington Post — It was high noon on Easter 1873 when the white mob came riding into Colfax. Five months earlier, Louisiana had held its second election since the end of the Civil War and the beginning of black male suffrage. But some…