birmingham
-
Negro Southern League Museum to Honor Negro Leagues With Virtual 100 Year Anniversary Celebration
In December, Major League Baseball finally committed to something that was bittersweet, yet long overdue: it officially recognized the Negro League for its groundbreaking contributions to professional sports by including its stats and records in MLB’s official database. But instead of holding our breath waiting for Major League Baseball to explain why the Negro Leagues…
-
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin Hospitalized With COVID-19
Five days after announcing that he tested positive for the coronavirus, Birmingham, Ala., Mayor Randall Woodfin has been hospitalized with COVID-19 complications. The announcement came just days after Woodfin lost his grandmother to the disease. “COVID-19 has made its way to my doorstep,” wrote Woodfin in a Wednesday tweet revealing that he was suffering from…
-
Harlem Globetrotter Demands Apology After TV Anchors Throw Banana At Him on Live Television
I have a thing about being touched. Unless you’re my girl or my child, keep your goddamn hands to yourself. Don’t brush against me in the hallway, don’t poke or prod me ever and you sure as hell better give me my six feet as long as COVID is floating around. That said, I can’t…
-
The Last Bomber Convicted in Church Killing of 4 Black Girls in Birmingham, Alabama Has Died
Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr., a former member of the Ku Klux Klan and one of three men convicted of murdering four Black girls in Alabama by bombing a church in 1963, has died in prison at 84 years old. Blanton was serving a life sentence and died of natural causes on Friday, according to a…
-
A Letter Not From a Birmingham Jail
“If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and…
-
‘Damn That Statue’: Birmingham Proves Protests Work by Forcing Mayor to Confront Racism With ‘Gangsta Shit’
Compared to most cities its size, Birmingham, Ala., didn’t really have a police brutality problem. While extrajudicial killings are always a problem, Birmingham sat near the bottom of the spectrum for American cities with 4.7 police killings per 100,000 citizens, according to Mapping Police Violence. And curiously, as the fourth-blackest city in the nation, Birmingham…
-
Video Shows Birmingham, Ala., Police Officer Body Slamming Black Woman to the Ground for Not Wearing a Mask
Video footage of a police officer slamming a black woman to the ground over her failure to wear a face mask in a Birmingham, Ala., Walmart on Tuesday has been shared on social media thousands of times, and now authorities are investigating the incident. According to AL.com, the altercation happened while the off-duty officer was…
-
'This Ain’t Nothing But Racism': Alabama Lawmaker Goes Off on GOP Confederate Monument Protection Law
The Alabama state Senate postponed a vote on a bill designed to preserve and protect the history and culture of white supremacy after a black state senator pulled out a noose to remind GOP lawmakers of the racial terrorism committed by Confederate traitors. State Sen. Rodger Smitherman represents Birmingham, Ala., America’s third-blackest city. In 2017,…
-
Alabama Lawmakers Want to Force One of America's Blackest Cities to Celebrate White Supremacy
The mayor of the city with one of the highest percentages of black residents in America spoke out on Tuesday against legislation that compels the city to celebrate its Confederate heritage even though—and this part is absolutely bonkers—the city doesn’t have one. Birmingham, Ala., is 72 percent black, making it the fourth-blackest municipality in America…
-
Exclusive: Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin Endorses Joe Biden for President
In an exclusive conversation with The Root, the mayor of America’s third-blackest city announced his endorsement of former Vice President Joe Biden for President of the United States, explaining how he came to his decision, why the election is not just a referendum on Trump and why he rejects the notion that “moderate” Democratic candidates…