Featured
Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday and Jan. 6 offer two competing visions for America. By John Blake / CNN
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been called a socialist, a Republican, an “angry Black man” and a “teddy bear.” It’s an annual ritual on the birthday of the iconic civil rights leader: Pundits offer provocative interpretations of King to make him relevant for a contemporary audience. But these commentators won’t have to work as hard this year to explain why King matters. Anyone who wants to remind Americans about the urgency of King’s message can now cite January 6, 2021. That’s when supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol and tried to block Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election because they wrongly believed Trump had won.
January 6 and January 15: These dueling dates are just nine days apart, yet they offer two radically different visions of what the US stands for. Read more
Related: The white moderates MLK warned us about. By Victor Ray / CNN
Political / Social
Democrats Push Struggling Voting Rights Showdown to Tuesday. Lisa Hagen / US News
Democrats are postponing a planned recess next week and instead taking up their embattled voting rights legislation on Tuesday, setting up a major showdown in the Senate even as the bill is set for defeat and a rules change needed to advance it faces steep odds. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York initially sought to vote on the election reform bill by Monday – Martin Luther King Jr. Day – but he will push it off another day due to COVID-19 and anticipated winter weather over the weekend. Even in the face of opposition, Schumer still vows to act on the measure and an unspecified change to Senate procedure. Read more
Biden Fully Enters the Battle to Save Democracy … When It’s Nearly Over. By Charles M. Blow / NYT
Joe Biden has finally issued a full-throated, unreserved endorsement of ending the filibuster in order to pass voting rights legislation. But it came in the last days of the battle — less than a week before Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, plans to hold a vote on the legislation — and only after Biden’s other, superseding priority, the Build Back Better plan, flamed out. Read more
Related: Biden plans executive action on police reform to revive stalled issue. By , , and
Related: Biden Chooses 3 For Fed Board, Including First Black Woman. By Christopher Rugaber / HuffPost
The American polity is cracked, and might collapse. Canada must prepare. By Thomas Honer-Dixon / The Globe and Mail
By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship. We mustn’t dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace. Leading American academics are now actively addressing the prospect of a fatal weakening of U.S. democracy. Read more
Related: The Jan. 6 anniversary: How the media failed — and still can’t admit it. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
‘Not enough’: Critics say proposed Pa. districts limit Latino representation. By Nicole Acevedo / NBC News
Community members and local organizations in Pennsylvania are sounding the alarm over concerns that new legislative district maps could dilute the potential voting and political power of the state’s growing Latino population. Nearly 330,000 Latinos have moved to Pennsylvania over the past decade. Over 1 million Latinos now live in the state, according to the 2020 census, making them the third-largest racial or ethnic group. But preliminary maps the Legislative Reapportionment Commission approved last month show that predominantly Latino cities have been divided into further districts, which could limit opportunities to elect more Latinos to the Legislature, critics say. Read more
Related: Latino entrepreneurs use own savings to launch new businesses. By Charisse Jones / USA Today
‘Tenants have no choice’: Racism in urban planning fuels high rate of Black fire deaths. By Char Adams / NBC News
The deadly fires in the Bronx, New York and Philadelphia follow a historical pattern that sees Black people dying in accidents at alarming rates.
As leaders shift blame from electric space heaters to overcrowded housing in the wake of deadly fires in both the Bronx, New York and Philadelphia, experts say the true culprit is poor residential conditions and the racism rife in the nation’s urban planning and infrastructure decisions. Within days of each other, the fire in a Bronx building killed at least 17 people, including several Gambian immigrants, and another in a Philadelphia row house killed a dozen. But the fatal nature of these fires follows a historical pattern in which negligent policymaking and infrastructural decisions can kill Black people at disproportionate rates. Read more
‘Because we know it is possible’: Japanese Americans join fight for reparations. By Michela Moscufo / NBC News
Japanese Americans were one of the first major groups to receive redress from the U.S. government. Now they’re supporting the Black reparations movement.
At a virtual town hall meeting in August, generations of Japanese American community organizers spoke alongside leaders from the Black reparations movement. Called “Reparations Then, Reparations Now!” the meeting coincided with the 40th anniversary of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians hearings, which marked a turning point in the Japanese American redress movement. “Just as Black Americans supported our community’s struggle for redress, we will strive to support and show solidarity with Black people as they fight for reparations today,” said Michael Nishimura, a 29-year-old doctoral student and organizer. Read more
He transformed a small university in Maryland. Now Freeman Hrabowski is ready for his next act. By Lauren Lumpkin / Wash Post
Ethics / Morality/ Religion
Jon Meacham, Bishop Michael Curry discuss religion, politics and insurrection. By Jack Jenkins / Religion News
In the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attacks — where Christian symbols and prayers were on full display — can religion still be a force of unity and goodness in America? That’s one of several questions undergirding a virtual event on Thursday (Jan. 13), hosted by Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy, featuring two prominent Episcopalians: the Rt. Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, and Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who assists President Joe Biden with speechwriting and serves as canon historian at the Washington National Cathedral. Read more
Joe Biden Vows To ‘Stand Against’ Anti-Semitism After Colleyville Hostage Standoff. By Khaleda Rahman / Newsweek
President Joe Biden vowed the U.S. will stand against anti-Semitism and extremism, after an hourslong standoff with a man who took hostages a Texas synagogue. The man took over services at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville on Saturday and was heard ranting and talking about religion on the synagogue’s livestream. “There is more we will learn in the days ahead about the motivations of the hostage taker,” Biden said in a statement. Read more
American secularism is growing — and growing more complicated. By Michelle Boorstein / Wash Post
Its impact on politics and self-identity looms large, experts say
Americans are getting less “religious,” you’ve probably heard. They do fewer traditionally religious things, such as belonging to a denomination, attending worship services or feeling certain that God exists. But what does that lead to? As research in the past couple of decades has reflected those drops in behaviors and beliefs, conventional wisdom has lingered on a superficial understanding about what it really means — for our identities, our yearnings for something “bigger than ourselves” and our ideas about the role of religion in politics. Read more
Evangelicals do battle with “critical race theory” in new online video course. By Kathryn Joyce / Salon
This week, Focus on the Family — James Dobson’s behemoth Christian-right ministry, with nearly 900 employees, its own zip code and an estimated worldwide audience of 200 million — did its part, asking followers to sign up for its free online course teaching parents how to “empower” their families to “face CRT.” The course consists of five videos, hosted by FOF vice president of parenting and youth Danny Huerta, speaking with a handful of evangelical leaders: the Hoover Institution’s Shelby Steele; John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview; and Carol Swain, co-author of the 2021 book “Black Eye for America: How Critical Race Theory Is Burning Down the House.” Read more
How Ohio’s Indigenous sacred sites became a religious flashpoint. By Diana Kruzman / RNS
Chief Glenna Wallace spent the summer solstice this past June walking the narrow asphalt path that encircles Serpent Mound, a low, serpentine wall of earth built by her ancestors hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Wallace, who leads the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma, was joined by Chief Ben Barnes of the Shawnee Tribe, and the two talked to crowds of visitors to the historic site about their tribes’ connections to the mound and the 19th-century policies that forced them out of the area. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Ethical US consumers struggled to pressure the sugar industry to abandon slavery with less success than their British counterparts. By / The Conversation
Starting in the 1780s, British abolitionists had urged and organized consumer boycotts to end the transatlantic slave trade. Sugar was its engine, and activists like the poet Robert Southey condemned those who “sip the blood-sweeten’d beverage” with a clear conscience. They published pamphlets and circulated petitions urging consumers, particularly women, to stop buying sugar made by enslaved people. Americans who bought a quart of molasses or pound of refined sugar crystals either didn’t know or didn’t care very much about the struggles of tens of thousands of African Americans . Sugar was a prestige item, signaling wealth and refinement. Read more
Black Remembrance and Racial Violence in New Orleans. By Sowande’ M. Mustakeem / AAIHS
In 1831, Nat Turner—who led a band of bondpeople into insurrection in Southampton, Virginia –was executed, quelling what a great many whites thought permanently ended their greatest living Black fear. However, historian Andrew Baker has produced a riveting and page-turning account of how, sixty-nine years later, yet another Black man rose to fame and became, within mere days, a marked target, resulting in the detonation of horrific violence that crossed many racial lines in New Orleans, Louisiana. Throughout To Poison A Nation: The Murder of Robert Charles and the Rise of Jim Crow Policing in America Baker reveals a war within a war shadowed by history while probing the dangerous interplay of murder, the archive, and the death of memory. Read more
MLK And Lillian Smith. By Matthew Teutsch / AAIHS
On Sunday October 16, 1960, three days before the October 19 Atlanta sit ins where Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested and jailed, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee concluded a three-day meeting at Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Atlanta. Numerous individuals spoke that day, including Howard student and vice president of the National Student Association Timothy Jenkins and the chairman of the Atlanta Committee on the Appeal for Human Rights Lonnie King, delivering speeches to the almost 300 attendees at the conference. The meeting concluded with a keynote speech by Lillian Smith, a white, Southern woman who, since the early part of the twentieth century, spoke out extensively against racism in all its forms. Read more
Va. attorney general overturns 58 historic legal opinions that perpetuated racism. By Emily Davies / Wash Post
Let us rejoice today with music honoring and celebrating the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. By Denise Oliver Velez / Daily Kos
The words, works, and activism of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr., born on Jan. 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia, have lived on despite his assassination on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. Though he is now honored with a federal holiday on the third Monday of January (which took a decades-long struggle to achieve), his life and legacy is still being explored and debated by historians and activists. For many of us around the globe, the holiday has become a day of service in his name, and is gearing up to focus on voting rights this year. Last year, I discussed his love of Black music, posting musical tributes to his life and work, which I am continuing here for today’s Black Music Sunday. Join me in celebrating Dr. King—today, tomorrow, and every day. Read more
Lionel Richie to receive Gershwin Prize for pop music. Jonathan Landrum Jr / PBS
Lionel Richie will be honored all night long for his musical achievements. The Library of Congress said Thursday that Richie will receive the national library’s Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. He will be bestowed the prize at an all-star tribute in Washington, D.C., on March 9. PBS stations will broadcast the concert on May 17. “This is truly an honor of a lifetime, and I am so grateful to be receiving the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song,” Richie said in a statement. “I am proud to be joining all the other previous artists, who I also admire and am a fan of their music.” Past recipients include Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson, Tony Bennett, Emilio and Gloria Estefan and Garth Brooks. Read more
Denzel Washington wants viewers to look past Macbeth’s race. By Arturo Conde / NBC News
“We ought to be at a place where diversity shouldn’t even be mentioned, like it’s something special,” Washington, who stars in the new film “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” said.
Joel Coen’s new film “The Tragedy of Macbeth” is putting a diverse spin on the 400-year-old Shakespearean play, with Denzel Washington starring as the infamous Scottish king. But the Academy Award winner said diversity isn’t the only reason to watch this movie. The film, which premieres Friday on Apple TV+ after a limited run in theaters, also features Frances McDormand as Lady Macbeth, Corey Hawkins as Macduff, Moses Ingram as Lady Macduff and Kathryn Hunter as the witches. Read more
Sports
Mike Tomlin shows how rare real opportunity is for Black coaches. By Jerry Brewer / Wash Post
Mike Tomlin keeps trolling NFL coaching volatility. Look at him, not the cuddly type, now blowing kisses after big victories. Listen to him, not the chatty type, sharing that he “dozed off” Sunday night during the wild Raiders-Chargers game that decided the playoff fate of his Pittsburgh Steelers. There is little security in his job, especially for a Black man, as recent days have shown, but Tomlin lives and sleeps peacefully. The Steelers are in the postseason for the 10th time in Tomlin’s 15 seasons coaching them. Read more
Related: LeVelle Moton and Mike Tomlin develop coaching bond across sports. By Mia Berry / The Undefeated
Texans fired David Culley, and NFL goes on acting like it’s inclusive. By Nancy Armour / USA Today
Never forget what the NFL really is. League officials worked overtime Thursday to show how progressive the NFL is, letting everyone know a woman is being considered for the general manager’s job with the Minnesota Vikings. But the lie of its supposed “inclusion” was exposed just a few hours later when the Houston Texans fired David Culley, leaving the NFL with one Black head coach. Yes, you read that right. One. In a league where more than two-thirds of the players are Black. It’s embarrassing, it’s disgraceful and it’s shameful. Read more
He Makes Tom Brady’s Offense Work. By Robert O’Connell / NYT
When Tom Brady fires a game-winning touchdown pass, it can seem as fated an outcome as there is in football. But even Brady cannot orchestrate an entire offense by himself against a generation of N.F.L. defenses that grew up dissecting his tendencies. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers rank second in the league in scoring, in large part because Byron Leftwich, their offensive coordinator, adapts the offense to the playmakers who revolve around Brady, their star quarterback. Read more
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