Breaking News! History in the Making
Corporate America’s $50 billion promise
After the death of George Floyd, corporate America promised African American’s millions of dollars towards economic development, but has it been successful?
Ladies First: Smithsonian Hip-Hop Anthology Honors Women’s Contributions To The Genre
Kierna Mayo, a media maverick and an original staffer for groundbreaking hip-hop magazine The Source, has been one of the premier record-keepers of rap music. With an especial focus on the women of the genre (the debut 1999 issue of Mayo’s late magazine, Honey, featured Lauryn Hill on the cover), she has lovingly bridged the gap between lyricists and fans. Her essay “Hip-Hop Heroines” is a celebration of women’s contributions to hip-hop and is featured in the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, which is available now.
Giannis Antetokounmpo buys stake in Milwaukee Brewers
Fresh off his MVP performance in the 2021 NBA Finals, Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo is investing in a local business — the city’s professional baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers. Antetokounmpo also is firmly putting his roots down in the city he plays in. Last December, the then two-time reigning NBA MVP signed a five-year supermax contract extension with the Bucks, worth $228 million, as reported by the New York Times.
‘Cruel, Unfair and Racist’: Black immigrants whose fathers are U.S. citizens push to overturn law that keeps them from obtaining citizenship
Enacted in 1940, the Guyer Rule prevents U.S.-citizen fathers, but not U.S.-citizen mothers, from passing their citizenship status to foreign-born, non-marital children – in other words, children who were born “out of wedlock.” The rule disproportionately restricts how nonwhite parents could secure citizenship for their children – and for decades has been maintained for just that reason.
Kelvin Silva is one of many Black men held at Stewart Detention Center. He is facing deportation because of this archaic and racially inequitable law that prevented him from becoming a U.S. citizen as a child, even though his father was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Were it not for the Guyer Rule, Silva – who was born in the Dominican Republic but grew up in the United States – would have automatically gained citizenship when he was just 11 years old. Read about his situation and those of other Black men in immigrant detention.
A New Book Makes the Case that HBCUs Are Owed Reparations
In “The State Must Provide,” author Adam Harris discusses the fundamental inequalities in American colleges and asks whether it can be fixed.
8 Suspected Lynchings Have Taken Place in Mississippi Since 2000
There is no more blatant form of racial intimidation against a Black person that one can use than that of a noose. The practice of lynching was used against enslaved Black people, but it was an especially popular form of violence against Black Americans after slavery ended. It is considered a more dated form of violence today, but a story in the Washington Post reports that the practice of lynching never truly stopped.
Jill Collen Jefferson, a lawyer and founder of Julian, a civil rights organization named after the late civil rights leader Julian Bond, has been conducting her own research into lynching in Mississippi and found that at least eight Black people have been lynched in the state since 2000.
‘Waking up to racism’: New documentary tells truth about Confederacy, tracks root of ‘Lost Cause’ myth
Comedian CJ Hunt’s debut feature documentary, The Neutral Ground, not only exposes why Southerners cling to Confederate iconography but also challenges the “Lost Cause” mythology – a romanticized, and false, version of Southern history in which the Confederacy and its leaders were fighting for “states’ rights” and defending their region against Northern aggression.
“While the Confederacy was not successful at winning wars, it was incredibly successful when it came to creating a myth,” Hunt, 36, told the Southern Poverty Law Center. “When people want to say the Confederacy was not about slavery, those claims are not grounded in facts or supported by the Confederacy’s own founding documents.”
Neo-Confederates worked with other far-right groups in failed efforts to preserve monuments
A coalition of neo-Confederate groups protesting the removal of Confederate monuments include a man with simultaneous membership in Sons of Confederate Veterans and League of the South (LOS), and at least one person who attended the rally at the Capitol in Washington DC on 6 January, which turned into an attack on the building.
How a white mob lynched a Black man, destroyed a city – and got away with it
The lynching of Will Brown is one of the many riots and massacres of Blacks by whites that took place in and around the “Red Summer” of 1919. This one was meticulously documented in words and photos. It was also witnessed by 14-year-old Henry Fonda, who would become a highly acclaimed Academy Award-winning American film actor, best known for his roles as plain-speaking idealists. A commemoration of the lynching and placement of a marker on Brown’s grave was held in Omaha in 2019, on the hundredth anniversary of this episode of racial terror.
Scripps National Spelling Bee 2021: Zaila Avant-garde becomes first African American winner
A 14-year-old from Harvey, Louisiana, breezed to the championship at the 2121 Scripps National Spelling Bee, becoming the first African American winner and only the second Black champion in the bee’s 96-year history.
Union will defend teachers in ‘critical race theory’ fights
One of the nation’s largest teachers unions on Tuesday promised to defend members who are punished for teaching an “honest history” of the United States. The AFT said it is adding $2.5 million to its legal defense fund in anticipation of local battles.
Two Iconic Writers Join Howard U. to Help Educate the Next Generation of Black Journalists
Nikole Hannah-Jones and Howard alumnus Ta-Nehisi Coates will join the faculty of HBCU Howard University.
The panic over critical race theory is an attempt to whitewash U.S. history
In the same week when Juneteenth became a national holiday, schoolteachers in Texas, where the commemoration originally marked the end of slavery in that state, could teach about these events only at their peril. An author of the original Critical Race Theory explains the consequences of “erasing” the truth about our country’s history.
‘Bring More Black Farmer Voices Together’: How the Black Farmers Collective Is Growing a Black-Led Food System Rooted in Black Liberation
Black farmers make up less than 2 percent of the overall farming population in the US and have been stripped of millions of acres of land in the last century. Even the USDA itself played a major role in financially bankrupting Black farm families. The US Dept. of Agriculture was to offer a multibillion dollar loan forgiveness program for farmers of color as part of COVID relief, but is on hold now due to white farmers’ claim of “reverse discrimination.”
Revealed: neo-Confederate group includes military officers and politicians
Leaked membership data from the neo-Confederate Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) organization has revealed that the organization’s members include serving military officers, elected officials, public employees, and a national security expert whose CV boasts of “Department of Defense Secret Security Clearance” violent neo-Confederate groups such as the League of the South (LoS).
Opinion: The cold truth about Republicans’ hot air over critical race theory
Christopher Rufo, a clever propagandist who has done more than anyone else to whip up the national uproar over critical race theory, tweeted out in March an explanation of how he was redefining the term.
ABHM Book Club presents Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
ABHM Book Club is reading A Long Walk to Freedom: the Autobiography of Nelson Mandela during June and July. Sign up for the free Book Club meetings here and learn more about the world-touring exhibition about Mandela currently at the Milwaukee Public Museum.
Black Workers Stopped Making Progress on Pay. Is It Racism?
African-American Employment in the United States has remained stagnant compared to their White counterparts. Economists determine why.
I’m happy Juneteenth is a Federal holiday–but don’t let it be whitewashed
An Op-Ed: We should be happy to popularize and celebrate Juneteenth. But we should celebrate it with the same fervor in which it was celebrated the summer of 2020, with protests, political education, and an understanding that the house of the slavemaster still stands, despite a fresh coat of paint. We must celebrate Juneteenth knowing the kind of force it took for enslaved Black people to attain emancipation – and the equivalent political force it may take to finally and absolutely uproot the American capitalist. Wisconsin celebrated it 50th Juneteenth in 2021 with a long parade up Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, complete with Civil War re-enactors, beauty queens and kings, and Black public servants, among them County Executive David Crowley and Congresswoman Gwen Moore. This city was one of the first in the nation to celebrate the holiday.
Special News Series: Rising Up for Justice! – Congress approves bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday
The United States will soon have a new federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery. The House voted 415-14 Wednesday to make Juneteenth, or June 19th, the 12th federal holiday.
Why History Museums Are Convening a ‘Civic Season’
The Smithsonian Institute’s American History Museum decided to re-create the training experience of the nonviolent direct action workshops like those Reverend James Lawson had begun in 1959 in Nashville where he taught Ghandian tactics to eventual movement leaders like John Lewis and Diane Nash. Read about how complicated histories can be exhibited in museums in new, highly engaging ways and watch a 20 min. video of that play and audience participation.