Featured
“Sum of all parts”: Kamala Harris nomination is the culmination of “fierce” Black women leaders. By Tatyana Tandanpolie / Salon
“This moment is just a continuation… the guts to stand up to Donald Trump is all of us together”
Roslin Spigner, a New York delegate, agreed Wednesday, declaring the moment a continuation of those ancestors’ efforts to create social change.
“This moment is just a continuation of what Harriet Tubman did. It’s a continuation of Isabella Bomfree, which is Sojourner Truth,” said Spigner, the founder of A Taste of Soul NY African American Heritage tours. “It’s just a continuation of Fannie Lou Hamer. It’s a continuation of Barbara Jordan, Marcia Fudge — all of these women who leaped down on faith to say, ‘Black women, you need to hear our voices. America, you need to hear our voices. We have something to say, and we’re going to say it.'” Read more
Related: In The Speech Of Her Life, Kamala Harris Forcefully Prosecutes The Case Against Trump. By
Related: Harris Wants America to See Itself in Her. Lisa Lerer and Erica L. Green / NYT
Related: Harris Crushes Trump by 22% in Convention Speech Ratings. By Josh Fiallo / The Daily Beast
Political / Social
Black Like Kamala. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Republican efforts to deny Senator Harris’s identity as an African-American and turn her into a noncitizen are destined to fail. Kamala Harris in 1966 during a family visit to Harlem.
It was probably inevitable that becoming Joe Biden’s running mate would result in controversy over Kamala Harris’s heritage. Harris, whose mother emigrated from India and whose father emigrated from Jamaica, is a woman of Tamil and African ancestry who identifies as Black. That’s why, after Biden’s announcement, she was described as the first Asian-American and African-American woman on a major-party presidential ticket. Not everyone thought this was the right description for Harris. Several allies of President Trump, for example, were quick to dispute the idea that Harris was or could be Black. Read more
Related: The Black Identity in Kamala Harris’s Jamaican Roots. By Brent Staples / NYT
Related: Who is Kamala Harris’ father? Donald Harris absent from DNC. By Margie Cullen / USA Today
Related: Everything to Know About Maya Harris, Kamala Harris’ Sister. By Phenix S Halley / The Root
Trump’s cult of personality threatens to hasten the demise of the GOP. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Establishment Republicans’ DNC epiphany may have come too late
Today’s Republican Party and the “conservative” movement belong to Donald Trump. They are an extension of his mind, character, emotions, personality, desires, and impulses. This means that Trump’s character failings, apparent emotional and psychological unwellness and challenged intellect are theirs as well. Donald Trump, convicted of 34 felonies, believes that he is above the law. Once the party of “law and order,” today’s GOP is a de facto political crime organization Trump is the boss. Read more
Related: Fox News Puts A Quick Stop To Trump’s Rambling During Post-DNC Phone-In. By
Related: By endorsing Trump, RFK Jr. betrays the Kennedy legacy. By Karen Tumulty / Wash Post
Jaime Harrison’s only-in-America story dispels my cynicism. By Eugene Robinson / Wash Post
Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, has come a long way from Orangeburg, S.C. — his hometown and mine.
Harrison, 48, was born and raised in Orangeburg, S.C., which is also my hometown. He told the delegates that he vividly remembers watching television coverage of the 1988 Democratic convention, where the Rev. Jesse Jackson — who finished second to Michael Dukakis in the race for the party’s presidential nomination — gave a powerful speech. What stuck with the 12-year-old Harrison was not just what Jackson said but who he was. “A Black man, from South Carolina, raised by a single mother — that was me,” Harrison told the convention delegates. “So … when our power was cut off, when there was nothing in the fridge, when we lost our home to a con man, I never lost hope.” Read more
What is Hakeem Jeffries’ ethnicity? By Melissa Brown / Wegotthiscovered
Hakeem Jeffries, the influential Democratic Congressman representing New York’s 8th Congressional District, has a diverse ethnic background that reflects the multicultural tapestry of America. Born in Brooklyn, New York, on August 4, 1970, Jeffries proudly holds American nationality. However, if we’re looking to get into the minutia of things, his ethnic roots run deep and span across continents.
Jeffries’ ancestry is a blend of African American heritage with connections to Virginia and Georgia, as well as ties to Cape Verde, an island nation off the coast of West Africa. This mix of cultural influences has played a significant role in shaping his identity and worldview. Read more
Teamsters union yet to decide on 2024 presidential endorsement. By Jared Gans and Taylor Giorno / The Hill
A potential endorsement from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in the 2024 race remains an open question following this week’s Democratic convention. Shown is Teamsters President Sean O’Brien.
The Teamsters union said it has historically waited until after the party conventions to endorse, making this week a pivotal milestone in the highly anticipated endorsement timeline. But joining its fellow large unions in endorsing the Democratic ticket is not a guarantee. The Teamsters are still working through their endorsement process, according to spokesperson Kara Deniz, with member polling continuing through the end of the month and a yet-to-be scheduled roundtable with Vice President Harris on the horizon. Read more
Palestinian allies make last-ditch push for speaker on the DNC stage. By Yonat Shimron / RNS
Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and their interfaith allies spent much of Thursday (Aug. 22) pushing Democratic officials to allow a Palestinian American to speak from the party convention’s main stage, to convey a message of solidarity despite the party’s so-far consistent support for Israel in its prosecution of the war in Gaza.
But the DNC denied a request to allow Americans to hear the stories of Palestinian people in Gaza, many of whose lives have been destroyed by Israel’s massive military retaliation for the Hamas attack that left 1,200 mostly Israelis dead. Read more
‘That Audio and Video Saved Your Life’: Black Man Accused of Raping White Neighbor Used Home Surveillance Cam to Beat Charges, Is Now Suing Her and Police for False Arrest.
A Black man has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city of Manvel, Texas, and its police officers, claiming that he was falsely arrested for sexually assaulting his white neighbor during a gathering to celebrate his new home.
According to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas this week, on Nov. 9, 2023, Manvel resident John Marks, 40, and his friend Freddie Douglas Jr., 43, had consensual sex in Marks’ pool with Amanda Zawieruszynski, a woman who lived nearby and with whom Marks said he had carried on an “intimate” relationship with for several months. She is also named in the lawsuit. Read more
Related: Deputy charged with manslaughter in shooting death of Black airman. By Lori Rozsa / Wash Post
Supreme Court Hands Republicans a Huge Win in Crucial Swing State. By Hafiz Rashid / The New Republic
The Supreme Court handed a win to Republicans Thursday by restoring a voting law in Arizona requiring proof of citizenship with state voter registration forms.
The restoration came in a 5–4 decision, with liberals Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting along with conservative Amy Coney Barrett. But the rest of the court’s conservative justices handed Republicans a win. Read more
Kentucky and Nebraska Dissolve Their DEI Offices. By Jessica Blake / Inside Higher Ed.
The political attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education continues as both the University of Kentucky and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln announced Tuesday that they will dissolve their DEI offices.
Kentucky president Eli Capilouto said his decision was a proactive move to avoid the imposition of harsher measures by conservative lawmakers; though the state’s General Assembly failed to pass legislation targeting DEI programs in the spring, Capilouto said he expects the Legislature—which has a Republican supermajority—to pursue similar bills next year. The Office of Institutional Diversity will be replaced by the Office for Community Relations, which will no longer make statements on political or partisan events or issues. Read more
Clark Atlanta sets record for student applications with over 45,000 applications. By WSBTV
On the first day of classes at Clark Atlanta University, the largest entry class in the school’s history really had to earn its way in.
“To see 46,000 applications for essentially 1,200 seats is nothing less than phenomenal,” said University President Dr. George French. French says it’s far and away a Clark Atlanta record. The number of applications received this year was even more than the University of Georgia. Read more
World News
US is unlikely to stop giving military aid to Israel − because it benefits from it. By Dov Waxman / The Conversation
The Democratic National Convention has been packed with prominent speakers and musical interludes that all focus on unity and moving forward into a more hopeful future. But this cheerfulness is shadowed by a split within the Democratic Party related to Israel’s war in Gaza. There have been calls by some delegates for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris to support a halt in U.S. military aid to Israel.
The Conversation U.S.’s politics editor Amy Lieberman spoke with Dov Waxman, a scholar of Israel studies, to better understand what is behind the U.S.’s relationship with Israel and the strategic reasons why an arms embargo is, at best, a remote possibility. Read more
No, the world isn’t heading toward a new Cold War – it’s closer to the grinding world order collapse of the 1930s. By David Ekbladh / The Conversation
The past decade and a half has seen upheaval across the globe. The 2008 financial crisis and its fallout, the COVID-19 pandemic and major regional conflicts in Sudan, the Middle East, Ukraine and elsewhere have left residual uncertainty. Added to this is a tense, growing rivalry between the U.S. and its perceived opponents, particularly China.
In response to these jarring times, commentators have often reached for the easy analogy of the post-1945 era to explain geopolitics. The world is, we are told repeatedly, entering a “new Cold War.” But as a historian of the U.S.’s place in the world, these references to a conflict that pitted the West in a decades-long ideological battle with the Soviet Union and its allies – and the ripples the Cold War had around the globe – are a flawed lens to view today’s events. To a critical eye, the world looks less like the structured competition of that Cold War and more like the grinding collapse of world order that took place during the 1930s. Read more
U.S. Sanctions Former Haitian President for Drug Trafficking.
The Treasury Department said former President Michel Martelly’s actions have contributed significantly to the unraveling of security in the country.
Mr. Martelly, who served as president of Haiti from 2011 to 2016, “abused his influence to facilitate the trafficking of dangerous drugs, including cocaine, destined for the United States,” the Treasury Department said. He also “sponsored multiple Haiti-based gangs,” the statement added. The sanctions prohibit U.S. financial institutions from making loans or providing credit to Mr. Martelly. Read more
Young Black people in England are disproportionately strip-searched—ways the justice system treats them as a threat. By Shirley Francis / The Conversation
A new report from the Children’s Commissioner for England has found that 457 strip searches of children by police took place between July 2022 and June 2023. The report shows that Black children were four times more likely, when compared to national population figures, to be strip-searched.
There are themes that continuously emerge from how young Black people are treated by the justice system, as well as in other areas of society, such as education and health care. One is adultification, when Black children are perceived as being older and more mature, and so also less vulnerable and innocent, than other children. This affects how they are treated by adults. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
How Mormons Became American. By McKay Coppins / The Atlantic
Perpetual outsiders, Mormons spent 200 years assimilating to a certain national ideal—only to find their country in an identity crisis. What will the third century of the faith look like?
By pretty much every measure, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has defied the expectations of its early observers. In the years immediately after its founding—as Mormons were being chased across the country by state-sanctioned mobs—skeptics predicted that the movement would collapse before the century was out. Instead, it became one of the fastest-growing religions in the world. The Church now averages nearly 700 converts a day; it has temples in 66 countries and financial reserves rumored to exceed $100 billion. Read more
Black Baptist organization gets $1 million megachurch donation to aid African girls. By Adelle M. Banks / RNS
The Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society accepts a $1 million donation, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in Memphis, Tenn., from Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia.
A Baptist missions organization has received a $1 million donation from a Virginia megachurch, boosting its efforts to help girls in Africa. Lott Carey, a predominantly Black organization long known as the Lott Carey Baptist Foreign Mission Society, has traditionally had fundraisers as part of its annual gathering, which this year occurred from Monday through Thursday (Aug. 12-15) in Memphis, Tennessee. “It was our trip to Ghana that exposed us to the slave trade industry that you wouldn’t believe still existed in 2024,” Wesley said. “We really felt like God gave us an opportunity to make a difference in freeing some of these young ladies.” The money will be used to support the ministry of the Ghana Baptist Convention, one of the largest denominations in Ghana, to rescue young girls whose families have sold them into the long-established system opposed by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. Read more
Biden, first Catholic president since JFK, will leave legacy shaped by his faith. By Brian Fraga / NCR
President Joe Biden, only the second Catholic president in the United States’ nearly 250-year history, has had a strained relationship, at best, with the U.S. Catholic hierarchy. Even before he took the presidential oath of office in January 2021, at least one bishop years earlier had used the term “Joe Biden Catholic“as a pejorative.
But when Biden leaves the Oval Office in January, it will mark not only the eclipse of a 50-year political career but also the departure of a Catholic commander-in- chief who always carried a rosary in his pocket, peppered his speeches with religious references and arranged his public schedule to attend Mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Nat Turner’s Insurrection. By Thomas Wentworth Higginson / The Atlantic (August 1861 Issue)
The Atlantic’s account of a Virginia slave revolt that would become one of the bloodiest in American history
How a racist letter from 1858 relates to current-day politics. By Charles B. Dew / Tampa Bay Times
As we talk about “childless cat ladies,” the letter shows how even motherhood became a commodity in the antebellum South.
I was doing research in the McCormick Collection at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin on a project that eventually became the book “Bond of Iron: Master and Slave at Buffalo Forge.” The letter was dated Feb. 4, 1858. The letter writer was a Virginia woman named Ann Davis, and it was written to her husband, William. “Children must be attended to white or black and now I want to ask you why I did it all. Did you not tell me from your own lips that they were for our Children … did I not nurse Edgar with the fever when very low too low to be raised from the bed to the pot …. Yes Dear William I done it for my Children.” I was stunned. For Ann Davis, acting as a mother to these Black children was predicated on the expectation that someday they would belong to her own children. Read more
Indigenous and Black people tell their own stories at the Mystic Seaport Museum. By Diane Orson / NPR
“Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty and the Sea” at Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut explores Indigenous and African ties to the waterways of New England. The exhibition calls on visitors to think about history, water and spirituality in new ways.
“Walking through the exhibition space you get the sense that time is cyclical, not linear. And that everything cycles and has a birth, a life, a death and a rebirth, as do our histories,” said curator Akeia de Barros Gomes. There are loaned “belongings” — or objects — from Indigenous and African communities dating back 2500 years. They show maritime navigational skills and spiritual connections to the ocean on both sides of the Atlantic. Read more
Confederate statues come down as Black history rises across the U.S. By Krystal Nurse / USA Today
For nearly 100 years, Robert E. Lee’s 10,000-pound monument rode high over the city of Charlottesville. Now, it’s been melted into bronze slabs and another memorial in town has risen to national prominence. It’s on the UVA campus, titled the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. It stands as the antithesis to the Confederacy, honoring the slaves forced to work at the university in the 1800s as carpenters, blacksmiths, roofers, stone carvers and other back-breaking trades.
That same monumental transformation in thinking is playing out across dozens of states in the USA, as communities from Alabama to Alaska rethink who the true heroes were from their pasts. The result is memorials and renaming of historic places that pay homage to honorees who, not so long ago, would have been seen by some community leaders as too obscure or too underprivileged to merit such recognition. Read more
A sequel of injustice 60 years in the making. By Rann Miller / Salon
For perspective on the 2024 DNC, we mustn’t look to 1968, but rather 1964
In 1964, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) was founded—by Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Bob Moses, and James W. Wright—to counter the white supremacist politics of the Mississippi Democratic Party. Pro-Palestinian uncommitted activists’ protests outside the United Center in Chicago were smaller than advertised and largely ignored. As for those uncommitted activists on the inside—the thirty delegates as a result of voting uncommitted in the Democratic primary for president—they were delayed… only to be denied. Read more
Inside the KKK plot to kill Barack Obama — and the FBI informant who stopped it. By john Kennedy / NY Post
In September 2008, members of a Wayward, Fla., chapter of the Ku Klux Klan concocted an elaborate scheme to kill Barack Obama days before he was elected president.
They planned every detail, identifying the day, time, and location of the hit; obsessing over the senator’s motorcade alignments; securing .50-caliber rifles for the deed; and arranging for the assassins’ vehicles to be destroyed afterward. There was only one scenario they hadn’t considered: that the intricate plan would be undone by one of their own. Read more
“The spark that ignites the flame”: Black sororities flex “collective power” for Kamala Harris. By Tatyana Tandanpolie / Salon
Members of the Divine Nine, the collective of the nation’s nine historically Black sororities and fraternities, stepped out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week adorned in the array of bright colors and regalia that define their groups.
Black Greek life participants offer Vice President Kamala Harris both an especially loyal voting bloc and experienced voter mobilizing force as she carries out her presidential campaign over the next 75 days. Though the groups, given they are registered charity organizations, do not endorse political candidates, the momentum generated by AKA member Harris’ campaign has galvanized many of their millions of participants to enter a new realm of political engagement. Read more
Sports
Anthony Edwards trashes skill level of old-school NBA players. By Scooby Axson / USA Today
When asked how his generation of basketball differed from older generations, the 23-year-old Edwards had more than a few thoughts about the old-school NBA, particularly the 1990s.
Edwards then continued to speak on it. “They say it was tougher back then than it is now, but I don’t think anybody had skill back then,” he said. “(Michael Jordan) was the only one that really had skill, you know what I mean? So that’s why when they saw Kobe (Bryant), they were like, ‘“’Oh, my God.’”’ But now everybody has skill.” Read more
Thank you, Al Attles. Your legacy will live on. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
Basketball Hall of Famer and Golden State Warriors legend died at 87 as a pioneering Black coach, executive and ambassador
Attles was the longest-tenured employee in the NBA, having been affiliated with the Golden State Warriors franchise from 1960 until his death after a long illness at 87 on Tuesday in his Oakland Hills home. The former star guard at historically Black North Carolina A&T joined the Philadelphia Warriors as a fifth-round pick in 1960. Attles starred at guard for 11 seasons with the Warriors, became the franchise’s first African American coach and general manager and served as a community ambassador. Read more
Atlanta Falcons owner gifts HBCUs millions to improve facilities. HBCU Gameday
Arthur M. Blank’s foundation donates $6.5 million to improve HBCU training facilities at four institutions, enhancing athletic programs. Shown is Albany State
The funding will be distributed across four institutions: Albany State University in Albany, Georgia; Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta; Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama; and Savannah State University in Savannah, Georgia. These enhancements will provide top-tier facilities that support the development of student-athletes and strengthen the athletic programs at each school. Read more
Why the new Steve McNair Netflix documentary, while informative, feels incomplete. By Jason Jones / The Athletic
Steve McNair’s football story has been told plenty. Fans know how he emerged from being a star quarterback at HBCU Alcorn State to becoming a Heisman Trophy finalist and, eventually, the No. 3 pick in the 1995 NFL Draft by the Houston Oilers.
He led the Tennessee Titans to Super Bowl XXXIV. He was the 2003 NFL co-MVP with Peyton Manning and was regarded as one of the toughest quarterbacks to play because of his physical style over 13 seasons with the Oilers/Titans and Baltimore Ravens. His No. 9 was retired by the Titans in 2019, and he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame (2012) and the College Football Hall of Fame (2020). But the questions surrounding McNair’s death have persisted for more than 15 years. “Untold: The Murder of Air McNair” is the new Netflix documentary that seeks to tell the story of how he became an NFL star and fan favorite while delving into the circumstances surrounding his murder on July 4, 2009, in Nashville. Read more
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