Politics
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#BlackLivesMatter to Clinton, Other Presidential Candidates: Get a Real Analysis on Race
When running for president, candidates are expected to be well-versed in many things: international relations, economics, education policy, immigration. But what about race? Daunasia Yancey and Julius Jones, both activists with the Black Lives Matter movement, think it’s time for candidates to brush up on their racial analysis because the issues of black people are…
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Ha! Sorry? Not Sorry: Bernie Sanders Nixes Aide’s Apology to Black Lives Matter
A day after an aide apologized to Black Lives Matter organizers on his campaign’s behalf, presidential wannabe Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly dissed the apology, telling Chuck Todd on Meet the Press Sunday that it wasn’t necessary. BuzzFeed’s Darren Sands reported Saturday that Sanders’ African-American outreach director, Marcus Ferrell, emailed a group of activists asking…
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Julian Bond Flirted With Presidential Run in 1976
Julian Bond is dead. His death is being widely reported today by media organizations. But here’s an important event in his life that those stories won’t tell you about the former communications director of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Council and board chairman of the NAACP: Julian Bond’s death comes 39 years after he flirted with…
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Black Voters Must Hold Democrats Accountable
For the second time in as many months, activists aligned with #BlackLivesMatter have disrupted a major speaking event featuring presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Activists have targeted Democratic Party candidates for their lackluster positions on winning racial justice. #BlackLivesMatter co-founder Patrisse Cullors, who participated in an earlier direct action at the Netroots Nation conference in Phoenix,…
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Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter and the Search for a Black Agenda
“I don’t know if I will do the fighting myself or other people will.” That’s what Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump threatened Tuesday at a press conference. He was talking about not allowing Black Lives Matter protesters to interrupt him at any forum. But while Trump talks hypothetical encounters with the burgeoning racial-justice movement, his…
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Why Black Folks Should Watch the 1st GOP Debate
And then there were 10. Fox News, in all its political wisdom, finally managed to whittle a crowded circus tent of 17 Republican presidential candidates into 10 bona fide, top-polling, first-Republican-primary-debate contenders. All men and overwhelmingly white (save a retired black neurosurgeon and a onetime wunderkind Cuban American), these self-ascribed castigators of conservatism will descend…
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On Its 50th Anniversary, the Voting Rights Act Is Under Full-Blown Attack
The national commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act takes place against the backdrop of a devastating full-scale assault on the civil rights movement’s signature legislation. For African Americans, the passage of the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965, represented the culmination of a centuries-long struggle for citizenship. President Lyndon Johnson’s…
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The Voting Rights Act Is 50 Years Old Today. Is It on the Agenda for the Republican Debate?
Tonight’s first Republican presidential debate for the 2016 election falls on the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. Will the Grand Old Party’s candidates blow yet another shot to embrace one of the most popular laws of our time? Every four years we see a new media cycle about the Republican National Committee’s efforts to…
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50 Years After the Voting Rights Act, Courts Play a Key Role in Protecting Access to the Ballot
On a hot summer day last month in North Carolina, protesters gathered outside the federal courthouse in Winston-Salem to demand the right to vote for the state’s black citizens. Inside the courtroom, Carnell Brown recounted his own story of disenfranchisement: Brown—a retiree who spent decades sharecropping cotton—had attempted to cast an early ballot in the…
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4 Senators Drop Bill for Cecil the Lion. #BlackLivesMatter? *Crickets*
Lions? Yes. Humans? Not so much. Four Democrats in the U.S. Senate were lightning-quick to offer legislation to prevent what happened to Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe from happening again. Who says you need a powerful union or an army of lobbyists in politics to move an agenda? The next question is, will a bill for…