Adolph Reed, who is a University of Pennsylvania emeritus professor of political science, hails from the last generation that consciously experienced the Jim Crow system. Born in 1947, he grew up in segregated New Orleans and Arkansas in middle-class circumstances. Though his family came from the South on both sides, he spent some early years in New York and Washington, D.C., where he attended an integrated elementary school. Moreover, since his family traveled extensively in the South, he often had to be reminded of the local variations of Jim Crow: Segregation rules thus never became second nature to him. He recalls an episode from his childhood when he took the New Orleans ferry with his grandmother. The deck was bifurcated by chicken wire, with whites on one side and blacks on the other. He asked his grandmother why that was. She replied in a tone meant to be overheard by the white people in front: “Well, you see, a lot of crazy people ride this ferry, and they have to sit on the
A diversity and inclusion officer at the University of Maryland who was charged with running the institution’s antisemitism task force has a history of making statements accusing Israel of war crimes and genocide.
As a Polish American journalist and a media freedom advocate, I would like to end Black History Month by honoring an African American news reporter and writer. Homer Smith, Jr. (1909-1972) was a 20th-century fighter for freedom and human dignity who deserves to be admired and remembered by more people.