Featured

1619 vs. 1776: Competing Origins of the American Story. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / Race Inquiry Digest

After American independence was secured, the bell fell into relative obscurity for some years. In the 1830s, the bell was adopted as a symbol by abolitionist societies, who dubbed it the “Liberty Bell”. Wikipedia

Two founding dates—1619 and 1776—and two corresponding projects—The 1619 Project and The 1776 Commission—offer sharply contrasting visions of America’s beginnings and its democratic character. The debate is not simply about when the nation was founded but about what kind of nation it has been and aspires to be. Read more

The Week’s Top Stories

Political / Social

America Needs a Mass Movement—Now. By David Brooks / The Atlantic

Without one, America may sink into autocracy for decades.

Other peoples have risen. Other peoples have risen up to defend their rights, their dignity, and their democracies. In the past 50 years, they’ve done it in Poland, South Africa, Lebanon, South Korea, Ukraine, East Timor, Serbia, Madagascar, Nepal, and elsewhere. For the United States, the question of the decade is: Why hasn’t a resistance movement materialized here? Read more

Trump’s war on ‘the enemy within’ keeps running into a legal buzzsaw. By David Ignatius / Wash Post

Lower courts are rejecting the president’s claims of rebellion to use the military on U.S. soil.

President Donald Trump claims a right to send troops into U.S. cities to battle what he calls “the enemy within.” But three federal judges have savaged his Justice Department’s arguments in recent rulings, and their scornful language sends a message that the lower courts, at least, won’t tolerate what they see as illegal presidential behavior. Read more

Trump Has Completed Nearly Half of Project 2025 Already. By Andrea González-Ramírez / New York Magazine

Remember Project 2025, the deeply unpopular far-right governing plan that Donald Trump spent the entire 2024 election pretending to know nothing about? Well, the president is bear-hugging it:

On October 2, as the government shutdown entered its second day, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would be meeting with Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.” Read more

Black People Knew This Would Happen. By Alain Stephens / The Intercept

Generational experience has taught us what happens when the state builds a weapon for someone else: Sooner or later, it finds a way back to us.

Before dawn, federal agents moved on Chicago’s South Shore in camouflage uniforms with rifles drawn, the thrum of chopper rotors breaking the sky. Officially, it was a “targeted immigration enforcement operation.” In reality, it looked like a military incursion into a historic Black neighborhood — home to working families, elders, and churches that have held the South Side together for generations. By the end of the night, an entire apartment building was under siege. Read more

Supreme Court takes up Republican attack on Voting Rights Act. By Mark Sherman / ABC News

A Republican attack on a core provision of the Voting Rights Act that’s designed to protect racial minorities comes to the Supreme Court this week, more than a decade after the justices knocked out another pillar of the 60-year-old law

In arguments Wednesday, lawyers for Louisiana and the Trump administration will try to persuade the justices to wipe away the state’s second majority Black congressional district and make it much harder, if not impossible, to take account of race in redistricting. Read more

Government shutdown is having an outsized impact on Black Americans. By Gerren Keith Gaynor / The Grio

Civil rights leaders and the president of the largest federal workers’ union warn that if a deal is not struck, the damage would further devastate Black communities, who are already experiencing disproportionate economic harm.

The impact of the government shutdown on Black federal employees also comes as the Black unemployment rate continues to climb (7.5%) and amid ongoing inflationary strain for households. Read more

The Indictment of Letitia James and the Collapse of Impartial Justice. By Ruth Marcus / The New Yorker

The question raised by the prosecution of James is: would any other federal prosecutor have brought this case against any other defendant? The answer seems to be no.

One tier of justice for all Americans,” the U.S. Attorney General, Pam Bondi, wrote Thursday on X, shortly after a federal grand jury in Virginia indicted the New York attorney general, Letitia James, on charges of bank fraud and making false statements. Bondi had made a similar point, two weeks before, after the indictment of the former F.B.I. director James Comey. “No one is above the law,” she proclaimed. This self-satisfied triumphalism misconstrues the danger posed by the prosecutions of James and Comey—and by the other cases that President Donald Trump has demanded be brought against his perceived political enemies, which may soon follow. Read more

9 Reasons Diversity Is Good For America. By Shannon Dawson / Newsone

On Oct. 5, U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth delivered a speech marking the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy, using the occasion to both praise military service and voice controversial views on diversity in America within the armed forces. Speaking at the Navy’s anniversary celebration in Norfolk, Virginia, Hegseth began by commending soldiers for their hard work and bravery. However, he quickly pivoted to a divisive message, arguing against the value of diversity in military culture.

“Your diversity is not your strength. Your strength is your unity of purpose, your shared mission, your love of country,” the 45-year-old Republican told the crowd. According to the Guardian, Hegseth continued denouncing the “insane fallacy” of diversity throughout his speech. He said he had dismissed several military generals because of their embrace of progressive values related to uniting and celebrating people of different backgrounds.

Diversity in the military—and in all aspects of American life—is essential to our nation’s strength and well-being. Here’s why. Read more

Kyren Lacy’s Death at 24 Sheds Light on Black Male Suicide Crisis. By Janell Ross / Capital B

Kyren Lacy was a 6-foot-2 Southeastern Conference football player with a broad, if often absent, smile, a love for Buffalo Wild Wings and lemonade. Some sports analysts even predicted that the Louisiana State University senior might go to a National Football League team as early as the second round of the draft this year.

Instead, Lacy died by suicide at 24 and was buried on the final day of the NFL draft. The reason why a young person would end their life was, for a few weeks, the subject of rampant speculation, mostly on social media, websites, and podcasts that cater to Black audiences and the sports obsessed. The uncertainty about what led Lacy to end his life in many ways reflects a growing phenomenon. In the past five years, Black boys and young men are increasingly dying by suicide. During that time, Black male death by suicide grew almost 22%, the second-largest suicide rate increase in the country. Read more

Why African Americans are Twice as Likely to Get Alzheimer’s. By Laratee VanNieuwenhuyze / Level

A look at the disproportionate impact of Alzheimer’s on Blacks and the genetic discoveries that could lead to better treatments.

Researchers at Boston University tried to find out in a large study focused specifically on African Americans. What they discovered, published in the journal “Alzheimer’s & Dementia,” is that African Americans are about twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s compared to white Americans. The researchers pointed out that some of this difference is likely due to things like unequal access to healthcare, lower quality education, and higher rates of other health problems like heart disease and diabetes. Read more

Education

Inside the Trump Administration’s Assault on Higher Education. By Emma Green / The New Yorker

The culture wars gave Republicans political permission to target not just progressive bias in higher ed but the basic structures of the sector. This was, according to Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to push through some real conservative reforms.”

In Washington backrooms, a playbook took shape, centered on two insights. First, nearly all universities depend on federal money. There’s student aid, and there’s research money—at some top schools, federal funding has made up a quarter or more of their revenue in recent years. Second, some conservatives believed that research funds could be frozen or cancelled almost instantly, giving a future Administration a powerful tool to pressure universities. Read more

Community colleges are losing millions in funding under Trump. By Danielle Douglas-Gabriel / Wash Post

A spate of federal cuts are hurting a pillar of the higher-education system: community colleges. The schools, which educate about 40 percent of the nation’s college students, are contending with millions of dollars in lost funding for services such as campus-based child care, student advisement and academic support.

The Trump administration’s policy on cutting discretionary grants to programs that serve diverse student populations is disrupting the very type of college education that the administration says is critical for the nation’s workforce. Read more

MacKenzie Scott Gifts Another $63 Million to Morgan State. By Nahlah Abdur-Rahman / Black Enterprise

Her donations to the Maryland HBCU over the past five years have totaled $103 million. Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos gave a then-record $40 million to the school in 2020.

Scott’s latest donation is unrestricted, granting Morgan State officials the full authority to use it for strategic investments. The latest gift will deepen the school’s endowment and increase support for student success and its endeavors as a research institution. The school is already on track to become the second HBCU with Carnegie 1 Research status, a mission further supported by this new gift. Read more

Viewpoint Diversity Is a MAGA Plot. By Lisa Siraganian / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.

As Bradford Vivian observes in his book Campus Misinformation, “viewpoint diversity performs a deft linguistic trick,” modifying an old right-wing playbook of “unscientific partisan polemics” into a seemingly new and more palatable form.

As the right-wing activist David Horowitz advised conservative students 22 years ago, saying the quiet part out loud: “I encourage you to use the language that the left has deployed so effectively in behalf of its own agendas … There is a lack of ‘intellectual diversity’ on college faculties and in academic classrooms. The conservative viewpoint is ‘underrepresented’ in the curriculum and on its reading lists. The university should be an ‘inclusive’ and intellectually ‘diverse’ community.” Read more

World

Trump’s ‘oversold’ Middle East victory lap is a ‘false’ one: analysis. By Lesley Abravenel / AlterNet

President Donald Trump’s victory lap in the Middle East was a short one, and his declaration of a “new dawn” there may be a false one, according to a Washington Post column by Ishaan Tharoor.

“The joy of the hostages’ friends and family members — and the palpable relief among many Palestinians in the war-blighted Gaza Strip that two years of agony and despair may be coming to an end — are rightly worth celebrating,” Tharoor writes. But the celebration is ephemeral, he says, and, “as Trump resumed meetings in Washington on Tuesday, any belief in a new dawn is premature.” Read more

Head of US command overseeing Trump ‘drug boat’ strikes steps down after expressing concern with the attacks: report. By Rachel Dobkin / Independent

Admiral Alvin Holsey, the head of the U.S. Southern Command overseeing strikes on what the Trump administration claims are Venezuelan drug boats, has stepped down after expressing concern with the attacks, according to a new report. Holsey began his career “through the NROTC program at Morehouse College in 1988”. Morehouse is a private, historically Black college in Atlanta.

Over the past few weeks, Special Operations forces have launched hits on at least five boats off the Venezuelan coast in the Caribbean Sea that the White House claims were transporting drugs. A total of 27 people have been killed in the strikes. Read more

China refuses to give in to Trump’s tariff threat. By Ken Moritsugu / PBS

China signaled Sunday that it would not back down in the face of a 100% tariff threat from President Donald Trump, urging the U.S. to resolve differences through negotiations instead of threats. U.S. Vice President JD Vance defended Trump’s position and seemed to warn China not to be aggressive in its response.

“China’s stance is consistent,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.” Read more

South Africa’s ‘Iron Lady’ poses a test for identity politics. By Keith B. Richburg / Wash Post

“Iron Lady” Helen Zille hopes to become Johannesburg’s first White mayor since apartheid ended.

On paper, Helen Zille, who is running for mayor of South Africa’s largest city, Johannesburg, has it all. Zille has universal name recognition and credentials as a veteran anti-apartheid campaigner. For the past two decades, she has been a senior member of the Democratic Alliance, serving as the party’s national chairperson, similar to a secretary general. And one credential stands out: She has already served as mayor of Cape Town, widely considered South Africa’s best-run city. Read more

Ethics / Morality / Religion

Something Is Stirring in Christian America, and It’s Making Me Nervous. By David French / NYT

At this point it’s almost beyond debate that something important is stirring in American religion. There is too much data — and too many anecdotes — to ignore. The steady decline of Christianity in America seems to have slowed, perhaps even paused. There’s evidence that Gen Z men in particular are returning to church and younger generations of Americans are now attending church slightly more regularly than older generations.

Americans just witnessed an immense stadium filled to the brim with people mourning Charlie Kirk, in a memorial service that was one part worship service, one part political rally. And that service was replicated at a smaller scale at vigils across America. Read more

Pope Leo takes aim at MAGA’s false gospel. By Sphia Tesfaye / Salon

Even though Pope Leo XIV, the first-ever U.S.-born pontiff, was labeled the “woke pope” soon after he was chosen in May by cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis, conservatives in the U.S. reportedly held out hope the new pope would abandon the progressivism of his outspoken predecessor.

Now, five months into his tenure, the Chicago-born leader of the Catholic Church has angered MAGA-aligned conservatives on multiple fronts, including escalating his pointed criticisms of the Trump administration as it ramps up deportation operations. Read more

From Fisk Jubilee Singers to megachurch hits, new museum celebrates Christian music. By Bob Smietana / NCR

The lobby of the new Museum of Christian & Gospel Music in downtown Nashville was filled with the sounds of drills, vacuums and other power tools recently as workers scurried to put the finishing touches on displays ahead of the grand opening a couple days away.

Patillo said she began work on the museum four years ago, during what she called a tumultuous time in the Christian and gospel music industries. She felt Christian music needed a “stake in the ground” or gathering spot, and thought a museum might fill the bill. An exhibit pays tribute to the famed Jubilee Singers from Fisk University, whose prowess in the 1800s helped give Nashville the nickname of Music City. Read more

Detroit church with Black Jesus mural to close, though family would like to see it saved. By Louis Aguilar / The Detroit News

The Detroit Catholic church where a painting depicting Jesus as a Black man, generating both international acclaim and violent threats, is shutting down, and the fate of the building and the renowned mural is unknown.

The image of a Black Jesus in the domed ceiling behind the altar was created in 1968 by local artist DeVon Cunningham. It was in response to the changing demographics of the neighborhood, the 1967 civil uprising in Detroit, and the Civil Rights movement, according to various media accounts, including 2023 interviews by The Detroit News. Read more

Benjamin Watson and Russell Moore on The Just Life. By Russel Moore / Christianity Today

Christian justice, gospel-centered living, and faithful action

Retired NFL player Benjamin Watson has been on this show several times over the years, and he’s recently released his own podcast, The Just Life. Russell was a guest on the show, and together they talked about Russell’s background along with matters of justice, gospel-centered living, and faithful action. Check out Ben’s show here. Listen to the interview here

Historical / Cultural

The Lincoln Way. How he used America’s past to rescue its future. By Jake Lundberg / The Atlantic

We can still hear in Lincoln’s final, lyrical turn something of what the American Revolution sounded like in his head: transcendent and alive. With good reason, he believed the same to be true for other Americans. They, too, had been reared in a culture of deep veneration for the Revolutionary past; they, too, had heard the stories, memorized the speeches, attended the parades, and worshipped “the fathers.”

The problem was that he saw himself as the protector of the Revolution, while those who formed the Confederacy claimed to be its rightful heirs. What he called “the momentous issue of civil war” could not be averted. On the verge of 250 years from 1776, the mystic chords of memory are badly out of tune, the better angels nowhere to be seen. Read more

Donald Trump’s new “American Midnight” is upon us. By Chauncey Devega / Salon

In his award-winning book “American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis,” leading historian Adam Hochschild draws a parallel to an even darker and more perilous time in American history: A century ago, in the years following World War I, when President Woodrow Wilson’s administration and its allies crushed dissent by targeting newspapers, imprisoning political rivals, inciting political vigilantism and engaging in a mass deportation campaign to root out supposed communists and socialists, and other “undesirables,” in America.

I recently spoke with him about this era’s frightening echoes in Trumpist America, our embattled democracy, the importance of collective action and maintaining hope — and his warning that Trump is quickly moving to declare martial law in Democratic-led cities to achieve a chilling end. Read more

These Iconic Landmarks Were Built By Black Americans. By Mahalia Otshudy / The Root

If it weren’t for the forced labor of Black Americans who built universities, churches, public landmarks, and even the original map of Washington, D.C., we would not have the America we know today.

This Indigenous Peoples’ Day, we are reminded that the European colonial framework, which led to the genocide of Indigenous peoples, also established and perpetuated the system of chattel slavery for African Americans. Therefore, it is crucial to reflect upon and highlight the significant contributions created by the labor of Black America. Read more

History shows war against immigrants will backfire on all Americans. By Eduardo Porter / The Guardian

Deportations are likely to cause employers to let go of US workers, and reduce the labor force

As economists repeatedly try to explain to the likes of Vance and Miller, the economy doesn’t work like that. A newly deported migrant does not yield an employed native. Indeed, the deportation is likely to cause employers to let go of American workers too. What deportations do achieve is to reduce the labor force. The native-born workforce shrank last year. Hiring is slow largely because kicking migrants out means there are fewer workers to hire. American history keeps teaching us the same lesson: the prosperity of this land relies on immigrant work. Somebody let Trump know. Read more

Trump ‘OK’ with DC statue honoring Civil War leader who fought for slavery: ‘Lot of people in this room’ agree. By Andrew Feinberg / Independent

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he’d have no problem with erecting a massive statue honoring Robert E. Lee, the Civil War general who led the South in rebellion against the United States to try and preserve the enslavement of Black people — within sight of the Lincoln Memorial.

Trump made the remarks to a group of wealthy executives and donors who are contributing to the planned White House ballroom at a fundraising dinner in the State Dining Room as he also touted his plans for a grand Arc de Triomphe-style monument. Read more

Our HBCU We Never Knew and the arts center, artists, and scholars working to keep its memory alive. WPLN

Nothing remains of Roger Williams University except a couple of historical plaques tucked away on Vanderbilt’s Peabody Campus. Founded in the wake of the Civil War alongside Fisk and Meharry, this historically Black institution once thrived before being destroyed in two suspicious fires in 1905.

Today we uncover the forgotten history of Roger Williams, visit the nearby The Curb Center for Art, Enterprise & Public Policy, and meet artists and scholars working to both memorialize the university as well as honor their ancestral heritage through monuments and art. Read more and listen here

Zora Neale Hurston’s Play Comes Alive for the First Time. By Salamishah Tillet / NYT

“Spunk,” a fable weaving together music and movement, is getting its first full staging since being rediscovered in 1997.

Like her groundbreaking novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Hurston’s 1935 play, “Spunk,” has lively Black southern vernacular, a self-actualized heroine and witty, folk humor. But, even after that book became canonized, “Spunk” remained essentially unknown for years. That’s because, until its rediscovery in 1997, the play had languished in the Library of Congress’s drama collections. Read more

How D’Angelo Embodied Black Genius. By Andew R. Chow / Time

When I showed up to Golden Gate Park on August 7, 2015 for a D’Angelo concert as a part of the Outside Lands music festival, it was unclear if he would even show. D’Angelo died on October 14, 2025.

But not only did D’Angelo show up that night, he delivered perhaps the greatest musical performance I’ve ever witnessed. He showed off the full range of his virtuosic singing and songwriting, playing sultry R&B ballads, punk-infused protest anthems, and jazz-inflected interludes. He crooned in falsetto like Prince, stomped and shrieked like James Brown, sashayed across the stage like MJ, melding generations of Black artistic traditions into a style fully his own. Read more

Black Music Sunday: Flowers for drumming legend Art Blakey. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos

Art Blakey, a true innovator of modern jazz drumming, left an indelible mark on the genre with his powerful and thunderous style. As the leader of the Jazz Messengers, he recorded nearly 70 albums, collaborating with legendary musicians such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk.

His drumming was characterized by showmanship and explosive solos, making him stand out in the jazz scene. Art Blakey’s technical prowess, including his mastery of advanced drumming techniques and incorporation of unique rhythms, set him apart as a trailblazer in the world of jazz. Join us as we dive into the Genius Of Art Blakey. Read more and listen here

Sports

Turning Point USA Plans ‘All American Halftime Show.’ By Zack Linly / Newsone

As we have reported, Puerto Rican popstar Bad Bunny was announced as the headliner for the Super Bowl LX halftime show, and MAGA America is furious about it. So, Turning Point USA is providing a remedy for racists and xenophobes who hate Spanish and the people who speak it, and don’t understand how U.S. territories work, which is why the alternative halftime show is titled, “The All-American Halftime Show,” as if Bad Bunny isn’t a whole U.S. citizen.

Advertised as an event that will celebrate “faith, family and freedom” (they forgot to include fascism, fake news and field slavery fantasies), the show will premiere on February 8, 2026, while the overwhelming majority of Americans will be joining NFL fans around the world in watching the actual halftime show — because we’re not crazy cultists who think brown people should be off our stages and tending to our gardens or filling the seats of ICE paddy wagons. Read more

The peerless A’ja Wilson may already be the WNBA’s greatest ever player.

After a one-of-one season without precedent in NBA or WNBA history, the unstoppable Aces star has made a credible entry into the GOAT discussion before her 30th birthday

Aja Wilson’s one-of-one season didn’t end merely with confetti so much as a deeper confirmation. When her Las Vegas Aces finished off a four-game sweep of the Phoenix Mercury on Friday night to become only the second team in WNBA history to win three titles in a four-year span, the final horn felt less like a climax than a verdict: the best team of the era led by the best player of the era. When the dust settled the 29-year-old from Columbia, South Carolina, had achieved a quadrafecta no player in the NBA or WNBA had ever managed: winning the scoring title, the Most Valuable Player award, Defensive Player of the Year honors and MVP of the finals in the same year. Read more

Olympian Marion Jones is done apologizing for her past. By Jason Jones / The Athletic

The greatest women’s track and field star of her generation flashes a contagious smile. The energy is undeniable. The intensity that once defined her on the track is still present, but in a different form.

Jones celebrates her 50th birthday on Sunday. It’s been a roller coaster of a half-century. She was an all-around star of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney as a sprinter and a jumper. Six years prior, Jones, then a dual-sport athlete at the University of North Carolina, where she won an NCAA basketball championship. But Jones also had track accomplishments stripped — along with those of her teammates — after a tempestuous doping scandal, which led to her serving six months in a federal prison in 2008. Read more

Colorado, Deion Sanders get vital Big 12 win, big fine for field rush. By Brent Schrotenboer /USA Today

“I’ve claimed that as my prayer spot,” Sanders said after his team beat the 21st-ranked Cyclones 24-17. “I went there this morning to pray and be good with decision-making and understanding all the different nuances of the game so I could be on my game and sharp. So I kind of felt in my spirit that the outcome would be what it was. I thought it would be greater, that we would win by 14 actually.”

Colorado instead barely held on to win at the end, but what a win it still was for Sanders and the Buffaloes. Sanders called it “vital.” Instead of blowing a lead, like they did in their previous two games, the Buffs made big plays at the end to beat only the second ranked team in Sanders’ three seasons in Boulder. Read more

LeBron James is defined by his hometown. Now he’s reshaping it. By Kevin Merida / Wash Post

LeBron James is unmistakably from Akron. It’s where he first found joy and solace in basketball, discovering that the court could be his escape from a sometimes difficult childhood. LeBron also lives in L.A. now, but his cares, his philanthropy and his heart are rooted in Akron.

LeBron, who missed 100 days of fourth grade while his mom struggled to provide a stable home life as a single parent, who was encouraged by mentors who wouldn’t let him fail, who didn’t go to college but became a billionaire through success beyond the basketball court, is not just defined by his hometown — he is a focal point of how his hometown is defined. Read more

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