Social Justice
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Census 2020 Is Happening Right Now. Here's Why It Matters to the Black Community
“Three-fifths. That’s all we were counted for. We were voiceless.” That’s how a recent Fair Count ad began. Of course, the advertisement referenced the 1787 Three-Fifths Compromise, which recommended counting three out of every five slaves as people when determining political representation. Sure, we’ve come a long way, but just how far, exactly? The Urban…
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Netflix's Malcolm X Documentary Forces Manhattan District Attorney's Office to Reexamine Murder Convictions
In what serves as the latest example of a popular documentary forcing authorities into action, the Manhattan district attorney’s office will reexamine the circumstances surrounding the 1965 murder of civil rights icon Malcolm X. The ABA Journal reports that a preliminary review of the convictions in the case will be conducted in order to determine…
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On What Would've Been Trayvon Martin's 25th Birthday, Black Twitter Celebrates His Life and Legacy
Today is Trayvon Martin’s 25th birthday. But instead of rallying his boys to grab a drink after work, or scrolling through birthday text after birthday text on his iPhone, the Miami-born, would-be pilot is dead—his life cut short by a murderous coward who spends his evenings roaming the same Earth that his 17-year-old victim was…
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Jay-Z Might Be Past Kneeling, But He’s Not Past Explaining Why He and Beyoncé Sat During the Super Bowl National Anthem
Over the weekend, multi-hyphenate Jay-Z drew the ire of Wendy Williams, exiled quarterback Colin Kaepernick, and pretty much the rest of the free world when he and Beyoncé decided to remain seated during the Super Bowl’s national anthem. While MAGA Twitter roasted the Roc Nation overlord for what they assumed was the latest treasonous protest,…
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East River State Park in Brooklyn to Be Renamed After Marsha P. Johnson
It has only been three days and Black History Month has already gotten off to a solid start this year. NBC News reports that on Saturday during a speech at a Human Rights Campaign gala, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed that East River State Park will be renamed after Marsha P. Johnson. Johnson was…
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‘I Am Somebody’: A Landmark Documentary’s Enduring Lesson That Labor Rights Are Civil Rights
In the spring of 1969, Coretta Scott King stood in front of a packed church in Charleston, S.C., to address a group of striking hospital workers. She wore a simple white dress and layered strands of necklaces, her pressed, shoulder-length hair nestled under a blue cap with 1199 written in large, white lettering. She called…
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MLK Day 2020: Defining the Next Narrative for Black America
“Freedom is experienced as deliberation, decision and responsibility.” —Martin Luther King Jr. text It’s time for black leaders to end our Stepin Fetchit approach to racial equity. Overemphasizing our failings has unified friend and foe in defining black people by poverty, pathology, and problems. While we’ll never ignore those conditions, they have never defined us.…
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Dr. King Understood the Power of Unions
On what would have been his 91st birthday, we celebrate the towering legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—his moral force as a faith leader, his devotion to nonviolent resistance and, of course, the sacrifices he made to end legalized segregation in the South. But there is an often-overlooked aspect of his work: Dr. King…
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Yo Gotti and Roc Nation’s Threats to Sue Mississippi Over ‘Inhumane’ Prison System Already Yielding Fast Results
If you listen to some of their lyrics, you would think that they could give zero f—-s about other people’s problems. But don’t ever say that Yo Gotti and Jay-Z didn’t use their powers for good. The Memphis-born rap artist and New York-born hip-hop mogul threatened to sue the state of Mississippi with a civil…
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‘The More Things Change…’: Cyntoia Brown-Long Pens Op-Ed in Support of 17-Year-Old Chrystul Kizer
Cyntoia Brown-Long, freed in August after spending half her life behind bars for killing the man who had trafficked her for sex, vowed upon her release to work on behalf of other survivors of sexual abuse and exploitation. In the months since, Brown-Long has been a fierce public advocate for these women and girls, particularly…
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