Breaking News! History in the Making
In the Turmoil Over Race and Policing, Children Pay a Steep Emotional Price
By YAMICHE ALCINDOR, New York Times In the past week alone, there was the 4-year-old girl in Falcon Heights, Minn., who was captured on video consoling her mother after they watched a police officer shoot the mother’s boyfriend through the window of a car. And there was the 15-year-old boy in Baton Rouge, La., who sobbed uncontrollably in…
Study Supports Suspicion That Police Are More Likely to Use Force on Blacks
A new study has found that the race of the person being stopped by police officers is significant in terms of how much force is used. The study of thousands of use-of-force episodes from police departments across the nation has concluded what many people have long thought, but which could not be proved because of a lack of data: African-Americans are far more likely than whites and other groups to be the victims of use of force by the police, even when racial disparities in crime are taken into account.
What White America Fails to See
By Michael Eric Dyson, Op-Ed Contributor, New York Times IT is clear that you, white America, will never understand us. We are a nation of nearly 40 million black souls inside a nation of more than 320 million people. We don’t all think the same, feel the same, love, learn, live or even die the same.…
Critics of Police Welcome Facebook Live and Other Tools to Stream Video
After back-to-back killings of black men by police officers this week, scores of African-Americans declared on social media that they would be equipping themselves with a powerful tool: FacebookLive.
Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence?
FOR more than two centuries, we have been reading the Declaration of Independence wrong. Or rather, we’ve been celebrating the Declaration as people in the 19th and 20th centuries have told us we should, but not the Declaration as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams wrote it. To them, separation from Britain was as much, if not more, about racial fear and exclusion as it was about inalienable rights.
Pillars of Black Media, Once Vibrant, Now Fighting for Survival
When Johnson Publishing, a black-founded and owned company, announced a little more than two weeks ago that it had sold Ebony and Jet to a private equity firm in Texas, there was a sense of loss. Traditional media companies have struggled for years to adapt to a digital world, but the pressure on black-owned media has been even more acute.
Black Holocaust Museum convenes diverse group for film/dialogue series
ABHM’s White Frame/Black Frame film and dialogue series brought together people of different races, ages and genders to discover the hidden roots of the very different realities experienced by black and white Americans and to talk about the role institutional racism plays in their lives.
Jack Daniel’s Embraces a Hidden Ingredient: Help From a Slave
On its 150th anniversary, the Jack Daniel’s Distillery, home to one of the world’s best-selling whiskeys, has begun telling a new story. Daniel, the company now says, learned distilling from an enslaved black man, Nearis Green.
BuzzFeed Features Dr. Cameron and ABHM in “How to Survive a Lynching”
Lynching, in the American imagination, is considered to be solely the provenance of the Confederacy. But one particular souvenir photo, taken in Marion, Indiana, in 1930 has served as the most glaring visual reminder of the country’s decades-long spectacle of racism and public murder. The photo of the lynching of two Indiana teenagers would never grace the pages of the local paper. But that image is still everywhere. This article explains the background of the photo, what became of the sole survivor of that lynching, and the relevance of that event today.
Grand Jury Declines to Indict Cop Who Slammed Teen Girl to Ground
A grand jury declined to indict a white McKinney, Texas, policeman who slammed a teenage girl to the ground at a pool party. A bystander’s video showed the officer aggressively tossing the 15-year-old black girl to the ground before pinning her with his knees. Casebolt also pulled his gun on two other youths who came running to help the girl.
Time of Terror Book Talks & Exhibits in June 2016
Listing and descriptions of book talks and traveling exhibit locations in June 2016.
Lynching Survivor’s Memoir Wins Prestigious Book Award
Dr. James Cameron’s memoir A Time of Terror: A Survivor’s Story received the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Silver Award for the Great Lakes – Best Regional Non-Fiction during a ceremony held May 10th in Chicago. It is the only account of a lynching ever written by a survivor. The prize-winning 3rd edition contains 50 vintage photos, over 100 background notes, never-before-published chapters, and a Foreword, Introduction, and Afterword.
Black Media Excluded from U.S. Justice Department’s Anti-Smoking Campaigns
U.S. Justice Department cuts an anti-smoking deal that excludes black media, thus disproportionately affecting black communities,
Nate Parker’s “The Birth of a Nation”, Hollywood Clapback or Just Another Slave Movie?
By Riley Wilson and Shantrelle P. Lewis, Colorlines.com In this point/counterpoint about Nate Parker’s buzzy directorial debut, two Black independent filmmakers wrestle with the notion of seeing more chains, whips and nooses on the big screen. Riley Wilson: “The Birth of a Nation” Didn’t Change the Game …On the one hand, we have a film written, directed, and starring…
‘Proof of Life’ Video Shows Some of Chibok, Nigeria’s Kidnapped Girls
See the video in which parents saw their children for the first time in two years.
SNL’s “The Day Beyoncé Turned Black” and How White America Went Nuts
Watch white folks go off when they find out that Beyoncé is, gasp, black.
President Proclaims National African American History Month 2016
The full text of President Obama’s Proclamation, dated January 29, 2016, in which he states: “During National African American History Month, we recognize these champions of justice and the sacrifices they made to bring us to this point, we honor the contributions of African Americans since our country’s beginning, and we recommit to reaching for a day when no person is judged by anything but the content of their character.”
