LOCKING UP OUR OWN
By James Forman Jr.
A COLONY IN A NATION By Chris Hayes 256 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $26.95.
… Two new books offer timely and complementary ways of understanding America’s punitive culture and, in the process, stark pleas to abolish it. In “Locking Up Our Own,” James Forman Jr. explains how and why an influx of black “firsts” took the municipal reins of government after the civil rights movement only to unleash the brutal power of the criminal justice system on their constituents; in “A Colony in a Nation,” Chris Hayes shows that throughout American history, freedom despite all the high-minded ideals has often entailed the subjugation of another.
Former HUD secretary says it s offensive to claim Black people can t find ID on Hannity
To see what racism and race-baiting look like, look no further than today’s Democrat-Left. From relentless obsession with critical race theory, baseless claims of systemic racism, critical race theory brainwashing sessions, to delivery of health care based on skin color, Democrats and their ideological brethren see everything through black-and-white glasses.
A perfect case in point is the Democrat-Left response to the rebuttal by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott to President Joe Biden’s address to Congress Wednesday night.
The $6 Trillion Man spoke softly and carried a big shopping list. After Biden quietly left no spending stone unthrown, the South Carolina Republican delivered a warm, stirring and confident reply. He spoke about growing up poor, fatherless and Black. He also explained that he personally had experienced racism. But he added a key point. Hear me clearly: America is not a raci
HISTORY
The first Freedom Ride departs from Washington, D.C.
On May 4, 1961, a group of thirteen young people departs Washington, D.C.’s Greyhound Bus terminal, bound for the South. Their journey is peaceful at first, but the riders will meet with shocking violence on their way to New Orleans, eventually being forced to evacuate from Jackson, Mississippi but earning a place in history as the first Freedom Riders.
Two Supreme Court rulings,
Morgan v. Virginia and
Boynton v. Virginia, forbade the racial segregation of bus lines, and a 1955 ruling by the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed the practice of using “separate but equal” buses. Nonetheless, bus lines in the South continued to abide by Jim Crow laws, ignoring the federal mandate to desegregate, for years. The Congress of Racial Equality, with assistance from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, decided to protest this practice by sending white and Black riders together into the South, drawing inspira
State lawmakers will be discussions this year to alter the image of the coat of arms to make it more historically accurate. A similar effort occurred in Baldwin County in 2015, in which the county's seal was changed that included removing the Confederate battle flag.
Over-policing in Black communities comes at a cost and addressing it can save cities from unnecessary deaths, considerable anguish and financial loss, Laura Hill writes in a guest column.