July272010
First Black Politician Elected In Russia »
“People in this Russian town used to stare at Jean Gregoire Sagbo because they had never seen a black man. Now they say they see in him something equally rare – an honest politician.”
March102010
Progress Towards a Multiracial Nation »
“By the middle of this century, people of color will make up the majority in the United States, a culmination of this country’s long and often-violent struggle with its multiracial identity. But alongside assorted celebrated ‘firsts,’ landmark court cases such as Brown v. Board of Education, and legendary protests such as the March on Washington, are lesser-known political, social, and cultural milestones that have gradually marked the way.”
Tags: /race
February152010
NOW & THEN: Looking At America Through 100 Years of the NAACP »
“The most savage and brutal example of white supremacy was a lynch mob. In 1919 the NAACP published a landmark report, Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States: 1889-1918. The report was the foundation used to end this brutal form of political and economic terrorism. To show that the members of the organization would not be intimidated, it held its 1920 annual conference in Atlanta, considered at the time to be one of the most active Ku Klux Klan areas in America.”
Related: Consider the revolutionary progress made every day by ordinary people at the NAACP’s Unsung Heroes Project
Tags: /race /Now and Then
February112010
NOW & THEN: 20 Years After Nelson Mandela's Release »
“We did not get each other much, then, us South Africans. But Mandela’s release unleashed a period which, between the races, started us on a journey which brought us slowly closer. Before Mandela, suspicion and hatred were the dominant emotions between black and white…. Zuma’s ignominy will remind us that the new South Africa is not everything we wanted it to be that faraway day in 1990. But we will dance and maybe shed a tear and celebrate Mandela’s life still. I know, we know, that the place we were in in 1990 as Mandela walked out of jail was infinitely worse than this: just another precious young democracy.”
Tags: /Africa /race /Now and Then
January272010
Racist Arizona Sheriff's Popularity Nosedives »
“Arpaio’s support among independents stood at 62 percent in 2008; today, the sheriff musters approval from among just 34 percent of these voters. Support for the sheriff, a Republican, overall has sunk to just 39 percent of all voters. Even among Republicans, support for Arpaio has slipped 9 percentage points since 2008, to 57 percent. Arpaio’s ‘roundups’ of illegal immigrants have proved expensive and economically pointless, snaring but a handful of luckless immigrants.”
Read more: Arpaio sued in 2008 for racial profiling and for keeping inmates in tents, with 90-cents worth of food per day, which resulted in the National Commission on Correctional Health Care stripping his jail of accreditation.
January182010
A Reason for Optimism, Incarnate: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. »
Listen to the I Have a Dream speech, the A Knock at Midnight speech, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam, and 1961 speech at Southern Seminary
Watch the I Have a Dream Speech and excerpts of his last speech (I Have Been to the Mountaintop)
Watch an excerpt of this speech: “How long? Not long. Because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice”
Or read several of his most famous speeches
And watch this: the 1957 program “The Open Mind,” where Dr. King and federal Judge Waring (read more about this truly honorable judge here) discuss the civil rights movement at that moment
Read: A 1956 comic book about “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story”
And read: One of Dr. King’s final speeches, at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in April, 1968
Peruse the vast resources, including speeches, photos and video at the King Institute and the King Center
And, finally, listen to Nina Simone’s tribute, “Why (The King of Love is Dead)”
Tags: /justice /race /compassion
January152010
Historic Black Schools in South Restored As Landmarks »
“[In 1923] a Chicago philanthropist named Julius Rosenwald, the president of Sears, Roebuck, took up the cause of long-neglected education for blacks at the urging of Booker T. Washington, the proponent of black self-help. By the late 1920s, one in three rural black pupils in 15 states were attending a new school built with seed money, architectural advice and supplies from the Rosenwald Fund….
Today, this hard-used wooden building, which narrowly escaped demolition, is one of several dozen Rosenwald schools being restored as landmarks — newly appreciated relics of important chapters in philanthropy and black education.”
Tags: /race
January72010
Federal Court Upholds Voting Rights, Decries Racial Bias in Criminal Justice System »
“The decision, written by Judge A. Wallace Tashima, said the studies [presented to the court] ‘speak to a durable, sustained indifference in treatment faced by minorities in Washington’s criminal justice system — systemic disparities which cannot be explained by ‘factors independent of race.” … [T]he ruling, if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, would apply to all 48 states that ban voting by felons in prison or on supervision.”
Read more: The NAACP’s work on the case
January62010
Generational Shift Seen In Acceptance of Homosexuality, Racial and Ethnic Diversity »
“About six-in-ten say that increasing racial and ethnic diversity is a change for the better. About two-thirds of those ages 18-29 and those 30-49 say this, as do 58% of those 50-64 and 49% of those 65 and older. There is, however, a large divide between how the youngest and oldest Americans view the increasing acceptance of homosexuality. Comparable percentages in the two younger age groups say that increasing acceptance of gays and lesbians has been a good thing.”
December262009
European Court of Human Rights Declares Racial and Religious Exclusion Unlawful »
“The court found, by 14 votes to 3 (16 votes to 1 with respect to the presidency), that the exclusion of Jews and Roma could not be justified. It stated that the ‘authorities must use all available means to combat racism, thereby reinforcing democracy’s vision of a society in which diversity is not perceived as a threat but as a source of enrichment.’”
