Breaking News! History in the Making

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – In a year of BLM protests, Dutch wrestle (again) with the tradition of Black Pete
The ambivalence surrounding Black Pete’s status in the Netherlands is not an isolated issue. Rather, it mirrors an international unease about the function and significance of blackface images and performances globally.

Reckoning With Slavery Requires Access to Records of the Past
The consequences of 400 years of the Atlantic slave trade are still felt today. Untangling the power structures and systemic racism that came with slavery is ongoing, with police brutality, memorials to slave owners, and reparations forming part of the discussion.

Black and Latino students in California are suffering most from the pandemic, a lawsuit says.
Minorities in California are impacted the most from Coronavirus, amplified by the inequalities present in the Californian education system.

Lawsuit to Prevent Confederate Statues From Being Removed Heads Back to Georgia Courts
You know, you would think betraying your country and getting bodied for it hundreds of years ago would be enough to stop people from sympathizing with the Confederacy, but no. Instead, we’re in the year 2020, where a man in Georgia feels the need to file a lawsuit preventing the removal of two ugly-ass Confederate statues.

Nationwide, Firefighters Escalated Claims of Discrimination, Racial Bias in 2020
Back in July, Black firefighters in Winston-Salem, N.C., protested outside Station 1 firehouse, demanding the termination of the current chief of the fire department and asking the city to seriously address years of racial and sexual harassment claims in the department.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – ‘MLK/FBI’ Director Sam Pollard on Filmmaking After BLM: ‘You’ve Got to Keep Pushing’
The Oscar nominee and three-time Emmy winner, Sam Pollard shares how the time is right for “MLK/FBI,” similarities between King’s time and now and why we have to keep pushing through the “continual struggle.”

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – BLM helped shape the 2020 election. The movement now has its eyes on Georgia.
Founder Patrisse Cullors on the Senate runoffs, the impact of the protests, and what the movement wants from the Biden administration.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – Black Lives Matter OKC Demands Justice After Teen Suspect Shot, Killed By OCPD
Black Lives Matter is demanding justice for 15-year-old, Stavian Rodriguez, shot and killed by six OKC police officers. “It is appalling…”

About Damn Time: NFL Makes History With All-Black Referee Crew During Monday Night Football
If you watched Monday Night Football last night, not only were you treated to Tom Brady catching a glorious L at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams but for the first time in the history of the NFL, we were treated to an all-Black officiating crew.

Crackdown on White Supremacist Gangs by California Authorities Leads to Charges Filed Against 102 People
It’s Thanksgiving this week, and I don’t know about you, but I feel like there isn’t much to be thankful for in a year like this. Well, 102 people connected to two white supremacist gangs now face charges as part of an investigation by state and federal authorities. I suppose that’s something to be thankful for.

Too Many of Them Have Been Wrong’: Black Ex-Prosecutor Exposes Misdeeds of Los Angeles Legal System In Volume of Online Stories
A former LA proscecutor’s online memoir details his “good fight” against an “assembly-line of incarceration.”

Black male teachers can have a profound impact in the classroom. Unfortunately, they’re a rarity.
The story of Jarvis Ragland and his experiences as a teacher shed light on the importance of black teachers in schools.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – BLM urges Gov. Newsom to appoint Black woman to fill Kamala Harris’ Senate seat
Sen. Kamala Harris is set to make history as the first Black woman vice president — which means her Senate seat will soon be open. Black Lives Matter is calling on Gov. Newsom to replace Harris with another Black woman.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – How a bloody night of bullets and brutality quashed a young protest movement
Protesters, inspired by BLM, in their struggle against police brutality (#EndSARS) were massacred at the eight-lane Lekki toll gate in Lagos, Nigeria.

The Challenge of Black Patriotism
African-American patriotism is complex, with the combination of national pride with the cruel injustices African-Americans’ face

New Book Claims the Destruction of Black Relationships Is ‘America’s Unrecognized Civil Rights Issue’
The effort to explain why so many extraordinary Black women are involuntarily single has initiated one study after another, after another, and solicited the unflattering insights of many Black men who, just by default of being Black men, have been arbitrarily promoted to subject matter experts.

FBI Report: 2019 Was a Great Year for Racist Murderers
While Donald Trump has repeatedly taken credit for rises in the stock market, Black employment and administration officials who didn’t die from the coronavirus, newly released hate crime data also shows steady growth in the white supremacist murder industry, which has been booming under his leadership.

Whitewashing the Great Depression
Although the photographers who worked for the FSA took many pictures of people of color—in the streets, in the fields, out of work—the Great Depression’s main victims, as Americans came to visualize them, were white.

Special News Series: Rising Up For Justice! – After Biden win, Black activists demand reparations for slavery, police reform
After a tumultuous election year victory, one that both gave rise to a new civil rights movement in response to the death of George Floyd and saw Black Americans suffer disproportionately from the COVID-19 pandemic and staggeringly high unemployment, Black Lives Matter activists are asking the new administration to make Black matters paramount.