American History - KOLUMN Magazine

What everyone should know about Reconstruction 150 years after the 15th Amendment’s ratification | The Conversation

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020African American History, Slavery

I’ll never forget a student’s response when I asked during a middle school social studies class what they knew about black history: “Martin Luther King freed the slaves.” [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929, more than six decades after the time of enslavement. To me, this comment underscored how closely Americans […]

A 1970 Law Led to the Mass Sterilization of Native American Women. That History Still Matters | Time

January 2, 2020January 2, 2020Native Americans, Navajo

Marie Sanchez, chief tribal judge on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, arrived in Geneva in 1977 with a clear message to deliver to the United Nations Convention on Indigenous Rights. American Indian women, she argued, we’re targets of the “modern form” of genocide—sterilization. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Over the six-year period that had followed the passage of the […]

White people assume niceness is the answer to racial inequality. It’s not | The Guardian

January 1, 2020January 1, 2020African American Commuities, Race ...

“While most of us see ourselves as ‘not racist’, we continue to reproduce racist outcomes and live segregated lives.” [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] I am white. As an academic, consultant and writer on white racial identity and race relations, I speak daily with other white people about the meaning of race in our lives. These conversations are […]

What Louis Armstrong Really Thinks | The New Yorker

December 20, 2019December 20, 2019African American History, African American Music ...

On October 31, 1965, Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong gave his first performance in New Orleans, his home town, in nine years. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] At twelve, he marched in parades for the Colored Waif’s Home for Boys, where he was given his first cornet. But he had publicly boycotted the city since its banning of integrated bands, […]

US taxpayers spent almost $1 billion incarcerating innocent black people | Yahoo Finance

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019Criminal Justice Reform, Mass Incarceration

In total, among all known exonerees, Americans have shelled out a staggering $4.12 billion to incarcerate innocent men and women since 1989, according to a Yahoo Finance analysis. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Over the last few weeks, the Rodney Reed case has ignited a firestorm of interest, as celebrities, activists, and politicians worked to delay his Nov. […]

Possible mass grave from 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre found by researchers | NBC News

December 17, 2019December 17, 2019African American History

Experts in Oklahoma believe they found a mass grave site from the deadly race riots, recently recreated in HBO’s “Watchmen.” [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Experts at the University of Oklahoma believe they have found a possible mass grave site from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre at a city cemetery, although they are unsure how many bodies are […]

Danny Glover, national activists converge on Evanston as city funds reparations with cannabis tax | Chicago Sun Times

December 14, 2019December 14, 2019Reparations, Slavery

The north suburb, with its historic passage last month of legislation creating a $10 million reparations fund seeded by cannabis sales, drew activists and scholars to a “Reparations Town Hall” Wednesday night, keynoted by actor Danny Glover. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Actor Danny Glover told an Evanston town hall Wednesday night the Chicago suburb will go down […]

A 1970 Law Led to the Mass Sterilization of Native American Women. That History Still Matters | Time

December 9, 2019January 15, 2020Native Americans

Marie Sanchez, chief tribal judge on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, arrived in Geneva in 1977 with a clear message to deliver to the United Nations Convention on Indigenous Rights. American Indian women, she argued, were targets of the “modern form” of genocide—sterilization. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Over the six-year period that had followed the passage of the […]

US city to pay reparations to African-American community with tax on marijuana sales | The Telegraph

December 5, 2019December 5, 2019African American History, Reparations

A city in Illinois has announced it will create a reparations fund for its African American community through a new tax on marijuana sales. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Recreational use of the drug will become legal in the state from January and officials in Evanston, which is 12 miles north of Chicago, have voted to approve a […]

Red Summer, 100 years later: Its legacy of racial division and hate is buried in our demography | Daily Kos

December 1, 2019December 1, 2019African American History

The events of Red Summer are important to remember in part because they are representative of the kind of horror that lies within the history of being black in America, a horror most white Americans little understand or appreciate, reinforced by their often willful ignorance. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] However, these events all were noteworthy in another […]