movement for black lives
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Do The Right Thing Turns 30 This Week. Not Much Has Changed Since 1989
Spike Lee’s third film, Do The Right Thing, turns 30 years old on Sunday, July 21, but its message is so fresh that it could have been made today. I was first introduced to this film during my senior year of high school, in March 1999. I borrowed it from a library in Oklahoma City,…
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ACLU and Center for Media Justice Sue FBI for Records on Surveillance of Black Activists
America has a history of secretly surveilling black organizations that gather in the name of equal rights. It happened during the 1950s and 1960s, through the notorious Counterintelligence Program (“COINTELPRO”). It happened with the Black Panthers and during the black uprising of negro leaders including Ida B. Wells, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr, and…
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Yes, the March for Our Lives Was About Black People, Too—and It’s About Time
The ability of the Parkland, Fla., school-shooting victims to organize nationwide gun control rallies less than six weeks after their school was attacked is nothing short of a political miracle. Even Byron Allen couldn’t have predicted the perfect storm of demographics, inept politicians, charismatic kids and engaged media that has overtaken the nation. What’s more…
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Why It Hurts When the World Loves Everyone but Us
I’ve been processing seemingly contradictory emotions since the Parkland, Fla., school shooting. I am at once in awe of and humbled by this youth resistance movement and its solidarity efforts, and yet almost indescribably devastated. This feeling of devastation goes beyond the tragic and preventable loss of life; it is connected to the loss of…
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Black Panther Begets Political Action Beyond the Big Screen
There is vibranium-level energy around Black Panther as millions of melanated people flock to theaters. Of course, most bask in the black pride, love and community of the film, but some are taking advantage of crowd sizes to enact political action. #WakandaTheVote, started by Electoral Justice Project founders Kayla Reed, Jessica Byrd and Rukia Lumumba,…
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Janaya Khan, Black Lives Matter Leader, Dismantles FBI’s Fraudulent ‘Black Identity Extremist’ Report
From the days of COINTELPRO—the targeting of black human rights leaders and sowing dissent within the ranks of black organizations committed to freedom and liberation for black people—to its unofficial subsidiaries like the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, whose sole purpose was to violently oppress black communities, the FBI has often operated as a terrorist group out…
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BIE, Felicia: Fighting for Justice and Our Basic Human Rights Isn’t Extremism
They are trying to turn black people into the bogeyman. They want everyone else in America to see us as a threat so that when we are killed with impunity, no one bats an eyelash. This is already happening anyway. In a country that was founded on the principles of life, liberty and the pursuit…