Paul Robeson fought Jim Crow, lynching, and McCarthyism | People’s World

Tony Pecinovsky, People’s World Paul Robeson, Trafalgar Square, London, June 1959, ullstein bild/Getty Images. Featured Image [dropcap]Gerald[/dropcap] Horne has made an amazing contribution to African American radical history with the newly published biography Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Though not as widely known as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Malcolm X […]

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Harlem street renamed in honor of Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis | New York Amsterdam News

AMNews Staff, New York Amsterdam News Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis with their children, Featured Image [dropcap]The[/dropcap] northeast corner of 123rd Street and Saint Nicholas Avenue in Harlem now bears the names of famed acting and civil rights couple Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] The Dwyer Cultural Center hosted the ceremonial unveiling of […]

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These High School Murals Depict an Ugly History. Should They Go? | The New York Times

Carol Pogash, The New York Times One of the 13 murals that make up “The Life of Washington,” at George Washington High School in San Francisco. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times, Featured Image [dropcap]SAN[/dropcap] FRANCISCO — In one of the murals, George Washington points westward over the dead body of a Native American. Another […]

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American Exceptionalism (White Exceptionalism by a nicer name) | Medium

William Spivey, Medium Illustration by Matthieu Bourel, photograph by Edu Bayer for The New York Times, Featured Image [dropcap]American[/dropcap] Exceptionalism has been described by historians since the mid-1800s. Definitions fall basically into three camps. 1. Because of its unique origins, born from revolution, America is unique from all other nations. Never having Kings and Queens […]

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Why black people discriminate among ourselves: the toxic legacy of colorism | The Guardian

Kaitlyn Greenidge, The Guardian Colorism is not just an American phenomenon; skin bleaching cream is sold in majority black or people of color countries throughout the world. Illustration: Jamilla Okubo., Featured Image [dropcap]You[/dropcap] cannot separate the often painful stereotypes of colorism from misogyny and the sexual exploitation inherent in American slavery. To combat it we […]

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Akala: “I don’t enjoy explaining that black people are human beings” | New Statesman America

Anoosh Chakelian, New Statesman America [dropcap]In[/dropcap] late 2017, the rapper and political thinker Akala was driving in London, on his way to a meeting, when a police car pulled him over. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] “Gang members drive cars like this,” the suspicious officer claimed, before an embarrassed colleague took him aside. She’d recognised Akala, whose activism, […]

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She Survived a Slave Ship, the Civil War and the Depression. Her Name Was Redoshi. | The New York Times

It has long been believed that a man named Cudjo Lewis was the last living survivor of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in the United States. Now a researcher at Newcastle University in Britain says she has discovered testimony from someone who may have lived even longer — a woman named Redoshi.  The new findings, published […]

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