Featured
The inspiration for New Orleans’ St. Mary’s Academy. By Bill Croxton / CBS News
Born in 1812, Henriette Delille was a Creole nun who lived in New Orleans. Her father was a White Frenchman. Her mother was a free person of color, the great-granddaughter of a slave from West Africa.
Delille, inspired by her Catholic faith and a desire to help others, taught slaves and free people of color, defying anti-literacy laws that punished those who tried to educate non-White people. In 1842, Delille founded Sisters of the Holy Family, one of the oldest Black Catholic sisterhoods in America. In 1867, inspired by Delille’s vision for education, the sisters established St. Mary’s Academy with the express purpose of teaching young African American women. For the last 19 years, St. Mary’s Academy has had a 100% graduation rate and a 100% college admission rate. Read more
Related: Watch “The inspiration for New Orleans’ St. Mary’s Academy” on 60 Minutes / YouTube.
Political / Social
The Unreal Spectacle of Trump’s Authoritarianism. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
I saw a picture this week. It’s of a scene in Washington, D.C., taken a few days ago.
In the background, you see the Department of Labor building. Hanging on its right side is a large American flag; hanging to its left is a huge banner of President Trump with the phrase “American Workers FIRST.” It is the president’s official portrait, supposedly inspired by his mug shot. He’s glowering, less a servant of the public than a stern, unforgiving father. He seems to demand respect and obedience without promising anything in return. Read more
Related: Trump has become the most power-hungry president of all time. By Jon Sopel / Independent
Related: The Unchecked, Unbalanced Reign of King Donald. By Frank Bruni / NYT
Related: The Supreme Court Is Backing Trump’s Power Grab. By Ezra Klein / NYT Podcast
Aligning With Trump’s Toxic Whiteness Will Never Keep You Safe. By Kali Holloway / The Nation
It has long been true that, in a country that requires whiteness to achieve full Americanness, non-European immigrants remain racialized as “perpetual foreigners at worst, or probationary Americans at best,” as Erika Lee writes. At a time when a not insignificant segment of white America is consumed by fears of imagined looming demographic erasure, that bargain hasn’t just resulted in diminished returns—it’s altogether dangerous.
Black Americans, of course, been knew. Perhaps because of their long history in this country—and near-epigenetic understanding of whiteness, the result of centuries of intimate exposure to its whims and contradictions—Black folks understand the limits of whiteness’s porousness, the folly of banking on its protection, and the rapidity with which it is prone to lash out while feigning victimhood. Read more
Related: Trump Is Building A Plantation Economy Using Black, Brown Cities. By Stacey Patton / Newsone
Rising inequality is turning US into an autocratic state, billionaire warns. By Phillip Inman / The Guardian
One of the world’s most prominent hedge fund billionaires has warned that rising inequality is turning the US into an autocratic state and condemned business leaders for failing to speak out against Donald Trump’s policies.
Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, said “gaps in wealth” and a collapse in trust were driving “more extreme” policies in the US. Speaking to the Financial Times, the veteran financier said many western countries were affected by growing inequality, leading voters to turn increasingly to autocratic leaders. Read more
The Terror and Cruelty of Trump’s Deportation Machine. By Sasha Abramsky / The Nation
White Social Media on The Real Reason White America Didn’t Vote for Kamala Harris. By Phenix S. Halley / The Root 
First Black Law School Dean At LSU Steps Down, Claims She Is Being Discriminated Against. By Nahlah Abdur-Rahman / Black Enterprise
Racist Lies About College “Quotas” Stoke Support for Trump’s War on Higher Ed. By Bedelia Nicola Richards / Truthout
Why an ‘America First’ Approach to Teaching Won’t Work. By Glenn Sacks / The Progressive Magazine 
The Excruciating Question Confronting Black College Applicants. By Justin Driver / NYTFor striving Black high school seniors, the generalized essay anxiety arrives in a particular, acute form: Should my personal statement address race? The Supreme Court decision two years ago eliminating affirmative action in college admissions fomented considerable uncertainty about the transformed admissions landscape, and the second Trump administration’s recent assaults on higher education have only exacerbated the confusion. Read more
World
Bolsonaro, dubbed “Trump of the tropics,” faces coup trial verdict in Brazil. By Carrie Kahn / Morning Edition – NPR
The final stage of the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro is underway in Brazil — a historic first, with the ex-leader accused of trying to overturn democracy after his 2022 election defeat.
Bolsonaro, 70, is accused of leading a sweeping criminal conspiracy to stay in power after his defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil, Latin America’s largest country, returned to democracy just over 40 years ago after a brutal military dictatorship. Read more
Thanks to Trump, China claims mantle of the post-World War II order. By Ishaan Tharoor / Wash Post
Trump has plunged the world into an uncertain era of economic coercion and combat — one where many countries may see the merits in taking China’s side.
His brand of ultranationalism, his protectionist assaults on global trade, his bullying of allies and his contempt for international, multilateral institutions like the United Nations all mark a rupture from previous Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump and his allies are convinced that the rules of the international system — forged by Washington to great benefit for generations of Americans — are not in the U.S.’s interest. Read more
Related: Xi Parades Firepower to Signal That China Won’t Be Bullied Again. David Pierson / NYT
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Pope demands end to the ‘pandemic of arms’ as he prays for victims of Minnesota school shooting. By Nicole Winfield / RNS
History’s first U.S. pope spoke in English as he denounced the attack and the “logic of weapons” fueling wars around the world, during his Sunday noon blessing from his studio overlooking St. Peter’s Square.
“Our prayers for the victims of the tragic shooting during a school Mass in the American state of Minnesota,” said the Chicago-born Leo. “We hold in our prayers the countless children killed and injured every day around the world. Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.” Read more
Racial Reconciliation Is on the Move. By Stephen R. Haynes / Christianity Today
Karen J. Johnson’s new book Ordinary Heroes of Racial Justice: A History of Christians in Action displays the mind of a historian, the heart of a teacher, the spirit of a disciple, and the credibility of someone who has practiced the life she commends.
Yet Johnson, a history professor at Wheaton College, takes on a challenging task. In her book, she aims to convince evangelical readers that racial injustice in America is “systemic,” “generational,” rooted in “structures of inequality,” and established in “hierarchies embedded… in systems,” without giving them reason to suspect that she has sacrificed her Christian faith at the altar of “wokeness.” (It saddens me to have to put things this way, but such are the times in which we live.) Read more
Supporting religious diversity on campus is a surprising consensus among faculty across the red-blue divide. By Matthew J. Mayhew / The Conversation
The Templeton Religion Trust, a charity focused on improving societal well-being through understanding individual well-being, funded a recent national survey my team and I administered to 1,000 faculty members. The survey asked faculty about their perceptions of university life, including free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, often shortened to simply DEI.
The survey results reveal a striking divergence in perspectives on the often divisive issues of free speech and DEI among faculty. Those differences showed up particularly along the red state and blue state divide. Yet, amid these deep disagreements, a surprising point of bipartisan consensus emerges: faculty members’ belief in the importance of religious, spiritual and secular inclusion in diversity efforts. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Slavery Was Not Just Forced Labor but Sexual Violence Too. By Channing Gerard Joseph / The Nation
Calls to attenuate the brutality of slavery in museum depictions is absurd when our institutions already downplay one of its most horrific features.
It’s time that we finally speak clearly and plainly: Slavery was not only unpaid labor. It was horrific sexual violence—violence far beyond anything most of us have been taught in school, and far beyond what is depicted in our national museums. For example, in classified ads published in 19th-century newspapers, we find strong evidence for sadistic abuse targeting enslaved children. The perpetrators of this violence acted with total impunity and clearly felt no shame for what they did. Read more
Labor Day Special Featuring Howard Zinn & Voices of a People’s History of the United States. By Amy Goodman / Democracy Now
In 1980, historian Howard Zinn published his classic work, A People’s History of the United States. The book would go on to sell over a million copies and change the way many look at history in America.
We begin today’s special with highlights from a production of Howard Zinn’s Voices of a People’s History of the United States, where Zinn introduced dramatic readings from history. Alfre Woodard reads the words of labor activist Mother Jones; Howard’s son Jeff Zinn reads the words of IWW poet and organizer Arturo Giovannitti; Marisa Tomei reads the words of the women’s suffrage leader Harriet Hanson; and James Earl Jones reads from Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Read more and listen here
Trump’s ‘crusade to rehabilitate the Confederacy’ has backfired: conservative analyst. By Robert Davis / Raw Story
President Donald Trump appears to face a demographics problem as the 2026 midterm election nears, and one analyst thinks his “crusade to rehabilitate the Confederacy” could make matters worse.
“They did a little better with African-Americans, only 87% voted against them [in 2024],” he added. “This crusade to rehabilitate the Confederacy isn’t particularly helping them with African-Americans. We’ve seen that little boom that they had with young voters, particularly male voters, seems to have collapsed.” “Right now, racism is working completely to the benefit of the Trump people,” Stevens said. “They get out there and they can use all this racial stuff and it works, and no one in the Democratic party is calling their number on it. No one is making them pay for being racist.” Read more and watch here
This 45-year-old case explains the “Jim Crow juries” that still haunt Louisiana. By Richard A. Webster / Salon
When a source first told me about the case of Lloyd Gray in late 2024, I jotted down these notes: two Black jurors, a swastika and Gov. Jeff Landry. That was an oversimplification of a deeply troubling issue, but it also got to the heart of a story published this week by ProPublica and Verite News that haunts Louisiana and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Gray was just 19 in 1980 when he was tried in a New Orleans courtroom on a charge of aggravated rape. After one day of testimony, the jury returned with a 10-2 split verdict. The 10 white jurors voted guilty and the only two Black jurors not guilty. If you’re a regular consumer of courtroom dramas, you might think a split verdict would mean a mistrial, and today it would. But back then in Louisiana, where nonunanimous juries were legal, it resulted in a life sentence for Gray. Read more
Black America has put Red Lobster back on the map–CEO Damola Adamolekun was betting on it. By Kay Wicker / The Grio
Red Lobster CEO Damola Adamolekun discusses how he’s returning the seafood chain to its glory days with the help of Black America
Red Lobster’s triumphant return to the cultural mainstream is owed squarely to Black America, whose love, nostalgia, and joy have reignited the brand’s popularity. For many, Red Lobster has always been more than a place for seafood. From being one of the first restaurants to welcome Black diners and workers with open arms in the late 1960s to becoming the venue for countless family dinners, graduation celebrations, and first dates, to even earning a mention in Beyoncé’s iconic song “Formation,” the chain has been deeply rooted in Black culture. Adamolekun is leaning into that legacy, restoring Red Lobster as a space for Black joy, connection, and celebration. Read more
Sports
Why does Naomi Osaka play for Japan? Explaining tennis star’s relinquished USA dual citizenship. By Daniel Chavkin / Sporting News
Naomi Osaka is one of the biggest stars in tennis, who peaked when she won four Grand Slam tournaments between 2018 and 2021.
In tennis, nationality is a big deal since players represent their home countries during every tournament. For Osaka, however, the decision of which country she would represent was not a clear-cut choice, since she could’ve represented any of a few different nationalities. In the end, Osaka decided to play for Japan, which meant that she played for the country as it hosted the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2021. So, how did Osaka come to that decision? Here is what you need to know. Read more
‘You don’t trade a generational player’: Micah Parsons trade a Packers no-brainer, Cowboys head-scratcher. By Jason Reid / Andscape
Former NFL GM says Green Bay gets a star in his prime while Dallas is left with questions to answer
Now, with the Cowboys preparing to face the Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles next Thursday in the league’s curtain-raiser, they’ll have to regroup in an effort to fill a canyon-sized hole on defense that most likely can’t be filled by anyone on their roster. Or most rosters, for that matter. Parsons is just that good. Read more
Michael Vick kicks off coaching career close to home at Norfolk State: ‘It’s just in me.’ By Grace Raynor / The Athletic
“I had the conversation with Mike,” said Rouse, a Democrat who represents parts of Virginia Beach. “And I was like, ‘Yo, bro, this would be great, you coaching at an HBCU. This would be epic for the 757, it would be epic for you and also for the next generation of student-athletes.’”
The former Virginia Tech and NFL star quarterback was living in Florida and working for Fox Sports as an NFL analyst. He wanted to get into coaching at some point, but he hadn’t expected an opportunity to come this soon. Rouse could hear the tone in Vick’s voice shift on the other end of the phone. The wheels were turning. And when Vick confirmed he’d be interested, Rouse later connected him on a three-way phone call with Webb. About three weeks later, on Dec. 17, Michael Vick announced to the world via his Facebook page that he was coming home. Read more
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