As in the infamous 1955 murder of a black teen, society sought to taint the character of a 12-year-old black boy recently killed by police with the sins of his father.
Race & Ethnicity
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Obama in Selma, and the Definition of America
View image | gettyimages.com I wanted to say a bit about President Obama’s speech on Saturday in Selma, which I think will (and should) stand as a key document in one of the central arguments of the Obama years. That argument is this: What is America? It’s an argument as old as the nation itself, […]
Posted inLaw and Justice
Selma March Commemorated By Politicians Who Support Gutting of Voting Rights
The 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday—the catalyst for passage of the Voting Rights Act—is being remembered at a moment when voting rights in the South are at their most precarious in half a century.
Posted inCivil Rights in America
CPAC Labor Panel Does GOP No Favors in Outreach to Latinos, Women
Organizing among fast-food workers and home health-care aides has clearly gotten under the skin of anti-labor leaders—even as they boast of another anti-union triumph in Wisconsin.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
CPAC, Congress and 2016: How Immigration Continues to Pull the Republican Party Down
For Republican primary voters, immigration is a cultural issue, every bit as much as abortion or gay marriage. Candidates have gotten the message.
Posted inBooks
Historian as History-Maker: Isabel Wilkerson Calls All of America to Account for Racial Injustice
The acclaimed author of The Warmth of Other Suns is not about to let the North off the hook. A conversation with the chronicler of the Great Migration.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
America’s Only Black Piano-Maker Soldiers on Through Slights and Triumphs
When musician Warren Shadd decided to manufacture a line of high-tech pianos based on his own designs but with little capital, everyone thought he was crazy.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Anti-Choice Activists Dishonor Black History, Co-Opting Language of #BlackLivesMatter
But do they join the protests around the country calling for an end to police brutality? Not so much.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
‘Selma’ and ‘The Birth of a Nation’: A Tale of Two Films, 100 Years Apart
A century after D.W. Griffith’s artful abomination, Selma succeeds by telling the true story of everyday people who come together to achieve the improbable.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
How Mindfulness Can Transform Movements for Racial Justice and Equality
While Black History Month is rightly steeped in regard for the struggles and triumphs of the past, consciousness in the present is what will move us forward through the other 11 months of the year.
