RETRACTED (6/12/18):

A few weeks before his death, 77-year-old Frederick Douglass was asked what advice he would give to a young black American.

Eight years after learning that her daughter had tested positive for dangerous levels of lead—the result of living for years in lead-tainted public housing—Tiesha Jones has finally received some measure of justice.

RETRACTED (6/12/18):

Updated Thursday, Dec. 28, 2017, 4:55 p.m. EST: Erica Garner is still fighting for her life after suffering brain damage, following a heart attack over the holiday weekend.

Kwanzaa, like black America, was birthed in struggle and chaos, then bathed in blood. It was born in the freedom movement, against the backdrop of the Watts rebellion, the rise of the Black Panther Party, the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the assassination of Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz).

Daniel Shaver, 26, is dead. Mesa, Ariz., Police Officer Philip “Mitch” Brailsford, 27, a cowboy armed with an AR-15—with the words “You’re fucked” etched on the dust cover—executed him in a hotel hallway as he sobbed and begged for his life. The video of the 2016 shooting was not released until after Brailsford was…

With the number of lethal and nonlethal shootings, robberies and assaults on the rise in Baltimore, police and government officials are clamoring for ways to make sense of what is happening. But even with public finger-pointing and posturing, there still isn’t a consensus about who should be blamed for the current…

When tens of thousands of people converge on statehouses across the nation and the U.S. Capitol in May 2018, it will be to further the work of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Poor People’s Campaign that Marian Wright Edelman, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr. and so many other freedom fighters…

Updated Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, 11:19 p.m. EST:

There are spoilers in this piece. Consider yourself warned.

On Thursday they told us once again that what we saw with our very own eyes is not what happened. They switched the narrative, painted another black man as an aggressor who caused his own death, and even with video evidence that directly contradicts their narrative, no cops are being charged.

You’ve heard it before. It is the most frequent response to any accusation of police brutality. It is the repeated sleight of hand used to distract and drown out the voices of Black Lives Matter. It is an oft-used “alt-right” refrain and a sincere query from curious white questioners. It is the weapon of choice for…

For more than 4,000 years, the Dalits of India were called “the untouchables,” the lowest of the low. The Dalits are at the bottom of the Indian caste hierarchy and are currently the oldest surviving oppressed group in the world. They suffer the worst of human miseries and were once deemed impure and polluted human…

Updated Sunday, June 11, 2017, 1:05 p.m. EDT: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Humboldt Bay Fire Chief Bill Gillespie as having worn and defended the wearing a “Police Lives Matter” pin. That has been corrected to accurately reflect that it was Eureka Police Chief Andrew Mills who both wore a…

One in 3 American adults—70 million in total—have a criminal record, making it difficult for them to re-enter their communities, find gainful employment, build stability and find success after incarceration. A report from the American Civil Liberties Union highlights the benefit to all that comes when companies give…

Late Monday, a federal judge in Ann Arbor, Mich., ruled that residents may continue with their lawsuit against the city of Flint and top state water officials in Michigan over allegations that they violated the residents’ “bodily integrity” by exposing them to lead-contaminated water and failing to disclose the…

Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, who became an advocate for the Black Lives Matter movement after her son was senselessly slaughtered by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman five years ago in Sanford, Fla., says that not enough is being done to save the lives of black children who continue to die in…

The hunger strike at Folsom State Prison continues to go strong, with supporters planning a rally to take place this Sunday, June 4, in front of the notorious prison, located 20 miles outside of Sacramento, Calif.

Lezley McSpadden, 37, mother of Michael Brown Jr. and the Ferguson movement, graduated from high school on May 26, 21 years after she left school during her junior year to care for her son.