Injustice revealed and dramatized
June 14, 2019Many know them as the Central Park Five, but filmmaker Ava DuVernay forces to us see the five wrongfully convicted men as individuals. Their names are names we must remember, as individual, courageous, principled Black and Brown men. They are Korey Wise, Raymond Santana, Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray and Kevin Richardson. DuVernay’s Netflix mini-series, “When […]
The Census means more than just counting bodies
June 6, 2019Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II Every 10 years our country must count its residents. This count tells us not only how many people we now have in the United States, but also what race they are, their ethnicity, their gender, where they live, and more. This data is then used by every single facet […]
School vouchers are a failed experiment
May 30, 2019“How bad are school vouchers for students? They are far worse than most people imagine. Indeed, the use of school vouchers—which provide families with public dollars to spend on private schools—is equivalent to missing out on more than one-third of a year of classroom learning.” – Center for American Progress study, “The Highly Negative Impacts […]
Graduation Season: Celebrating accomplishments, committing to equality
May 23, 2019“You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, ‘There’s a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that’s just begun.’” — James Weldon Johnson. Each year I have the privilege to speak at commencement ceremonies at colleges and universities large and small, across the country. Most recently I had […]
The Dudley-A&T Revolt Revisited
May 17, 2019The Struggle for Democracy and Beloved Community in Greensboro’s 1969 Segregated, Jim Crow School System May 23 and 24, 2019 will mark 50 years since North Carolina A&T State University (A&T) was assaulted by 650 National Guard troops. The troops fired 50 caliber machine guns into Scott Hall and lobbed tear gas canisters through the […]
GOP, not Russia, is greater threat to free elections
May 10, 2019We all have heard about WikiLeaks and Russian interference in the 2016 election. The report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller has once more put that on the front pages. Too often lost in the furor, however, is the far more damaging TrikiLeaks — the tricks and laws used to suppress the vote by partisans, largely […]
We must address the crimes of big banks
May 2, 2019Last week, as Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., convened a House Financial Services Committee hearing, featuring the CEOs of Wall Street’s biggest banks, the financial watchdog group Better Markets released a stunning report on the banks’ criminal records: Wall Street’s Six Biggest Bailed-Out Banks: Their RAP Sheets and Their Ongoing Crime Spree. The report profiled the […]
Hate crime surge continues with burning of Black churches
April 25, 2019“A lot of people want to make it a hate thing. Well, we don’t represent hate. We represent love. Togetherness. Peace. Long suffering. Hope. That’s what we’re here today to say, not just to our community, but to our country. Be strong.” — Rev. Gerald Toussaint, pastor of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, one of three […]
CEPB denied duty to protect military personnel from predator lenders
April 19, 2019America’s 1.29 million member-strong, all-volunteer military includes men and women from all 50 states, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations. Regardless of race or ethnicity, each made a choice and swore an oath to protect our nation. Together, they wear our nation’s uniforms and carry our flag on assignments and deployments in times […]
After 51 years, fair housing still an unfinished journey
April 12, 2019Fifty-one years this month, the Fair Housing Act (the Act) was enacted to ensure that housing discrimination was illegal. Yet just days before the annual observance of Fair Housing Month began, headline news articles reminded the nation that housing discrimination still exists. For example, on March 19, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency […]
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