Featured
The Harlem Cultural Festival footage is getting wider recognition in the new ‘Summer of Soul’ documentary. By Farrell Evans / The Undefeated
Questlove, The Roots drummer and frontman, was in Harlem on Juneteenth for the premiere of Summer of Soul (…Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The Philadelphia native is making his directorial debut with this two-hour documentary featuring performances from the Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts held on Sundays from June 29 to Aug. 24, 1969, in the community’s Marcus Garvey Park. Back in 1969, in these six free shows in New York City, an estimated 300,000, mostly African Americans, got a chance to see performances from stars such as Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Mahalia Jackson, Moms Mabley, Pigmeat Markham, The Staples Singers, Gladys Knight & the Pips and The 5th Dimension. The documentary will be shown in theaters and available for streaming on Hulu on July 2. Read more Also, watch a trailer for ‘Summer of Soul’ here
Political / Social
DeSantis signs bill requiring Florida students, professors to register political views with state. By Brett Bachman / Salon
Public universities in Florida will be required to survey both faculty and students on their political beliefs and viewpoints, with the institutions at risk of losing their funding if the responses are not satisfactory to the state’s Republican-led legislature. The unprecedented project, which was tucked into a law signed Tuesday by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, is part of a long-running, nationwide right-wing push to promote “intellectual diversity” on campuses — though worries over a lack of details on the survey’s privacy protections, and questions over what the results may ultimately be used for, hover over the venture. Read more
Merrick Garland announces DOJ lawsuit against Georgia over new election law targeting Black voters. By Igor Derysh / Salon
The Justice Department is suing Georgia over its new voting law that Attorney General Merrick Garland said Friday was enacted with “the purpose of denying or abridging” the rights of Black Georgians in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Garland’s enforcement announcement came on the eighth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s infamous Shelby County decision gutting the preclearance section of the Voting Rights Act which the Justice Department uses to target states whose new voting restrictions may violate federal law. Read more
Related: Activists Honor Freedom Riders During Bus Trip For Black Voter Rights. J.L. Cook / The Root
Who’s afraid of critical race theory? Not the students in my classes. by Vincent Jungkunz / Wash Post
Vanderbilt professor explains how ‘White rage’ is ‘boiling in the blood’ of many Republicans. By Alex Henderson / AlterNet
When Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida was questioning Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley during a recent hearing, the far-right GOP congressman resorted to fear-mongering over Critical Race Theory and “woke” politics in the U.S. military — and Gaetz got more than he bargained for when Milley passionately responded that the history of racism is something that should be studied. Progressive Michael Eric Dyson, author of the book “Tears We Cannot Stop” and a professor at Vanderbilt University, discussed that questioning during an MSNBC appearance on June 23. And Dyson made it abundantly clear that he found Gaetz’s questioning to be horribly wrong-headed on so many levels. Read more
Related: Robin DiAngelo, author of ‘White Fragility,’ takes on ‘nice racism’. By John Blake / CNN
Biden executive order aims to further equity, inclusiveness in federal hiring. By Joe Davidson / Wash Post
President Biden issued an executive order Friday to “advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility across the Federal Government.” The directive builds on Biden’s Inauguration Day promise for “an ambitious whole-of-government equity agenda,” according to a White House fact sheet accompanying the order. The White House statement said “the enduring legacies of employment discrimination, systemic racism, and gender inequality are still felt today. Too many underserved communities remain under-represented in the Federal workforce, especially in positions of leadership.” The order, the White House said, is designed to “take a systematic approach to embedding” diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in federal hiring and employment. Read more
Derek Chauvin Sentenced To 22.5 Years In Prison. By Hayley Miller and Sara Boboltz / HuffPost
A Minnesota judge sentenced former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on Friday to 22.5 years in prison for the May 2020 murder of George Floyd. He is also banned from possessing firearms, ammunition or explosives for the remainder of his life. “Part of the mission of the Minneapolis Police Department is to give citizens ‘voice and respect,’” wrote Judge Peter Cahill in a 22-page brief laying out his rationale for the sentence. “Here, Mr. Chauvin, rather than pursuing the MPD mission, treated Mr. Floyd without respect and denied him the dignity owed to all human beings and which he certainly would have extended to a friend or neighbor.” Read more
White House Deputy Press Secretary Shares Thoughtful Coming-Out Message. By Sara Bobltz / HuffPost
White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre recalled Friday in a message for Pride Month how her family came to accept her as part of the LGBTQ community despite their initial disapproval. “I came out to my Mom when I was 16 years old. The revolted look on her face sent me running back into the proverbial closet and slamming the door shut,” Jean-Pierre wrote in a tweet. “After that, my sexuality became a family secret and it would stay that way for years.” Read more 
Civil Rights Groups Hold First National Rally for DC Statehood. Ari Berman / Mother Jones
Inspired by the Freedom Rides 60 years ago, civil rights advocates mobilized in Washington, DC, on Saturday against the backdrop of the US Capitol for the first ever national rally in support of DC statehood. Holding signs that said “protect our freedom to vote” and “DC statehood is racial justice,” civil rights activists linked the push for DC statehood with a broader effort to counter voter suppression, calling on the Senate to protect voting rights and pass the For the People Act, a sweeping democracy protection bill that offers support for DC statehood, and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which does not address statehood but would restore provisions of the VRA that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. Read more
Modern-day segregation in hospitals is killing Black patients. By Ekow N. Yankah, Brahmajee K. Nallamothu and John M. Hollingsworth / Salon
No physician is racist, so how can there be structural racism in health care?” wrote the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in a tweet promoting its podcast in early March 2020. In the podcast, Dr. Ed. Livingston, a white male surgeon and JAMA Deputy Editor, dismissed the concept of structural racism, protesting, “many of us (physicians) are offended by the concept that we are racist.” Backlash to the since-deleted tweet and the podcast was so swift that Livingston subsequently resigned from his post. Livingston’s sentiments naively suggest that a medical degree inoculates physicians from racism. It clings to the mistaken notion that racism only harms Black patients when actively schemed. This view flies in the face of countless studies, many appearing in JAMA itself, demonstrating widespread barriers to health care for Black patients from basic preventive services to cutting-edge treatments. Read more
Related: Combatting the Black Maternal Health Crisis. By Kate Silver / Politico
The Ugly War Between a White Police Chief and a Black Mayor in the Deep South. By Andrew Boryga / The Daily Beast
When Wayman Newton found out last week about the warrant for his arrest in the town that elected him its first Black mayor, he wasn’t surprised. Ever since Newton, 40, took office after winning his election in Tarrant, Alabama—population 7,000—by nearly 40 percentage points last year, a small minority of mostly white residents and city leaders have had it out for him, he told The Daily Beast. Read more
The Man Rewriting Prison from Inside. By Jelani Cobb / The New Yorker
It would be easy to skim the back cover of “This Life,” the vital, inventive new novel by Quntos (pronounced “QUAN-tuss”) KunQuest, glean the fact that the author has, for the past twenty-five years, been incarcerated at Angola prison, in Louisiana, for a carjacking committed when he was nineteen, and presume that the book belongs to the genre of prison literature predominantly concerned with exposing to the world outside the horrors of the one within. Read more
Related: Building the Prison-to-College Pipeline. By David L. Kirp / The Nation
Historical / Cultural
Their ancestors were enslaved workers. Now they’re among the first to get cash reparations. By Faith Karimi / CNN
Linda Johnson-Thomas’ grandfather worked at the Virginia Theological Seminary for more than a decade, first as a farm laborer before moving up to head janitor. Her grandparents lived in a little white house on campus with their four children, including her mother. But until two years ago, she had no idea that her grandfather, John Samuel Thomas Jr., had been forced to work at the school in Alexandria, just outside of Washington, D.C. For more than a century — during slavery, Reconstruction and beyond — the seminary used Black Americans for forced labor. Between 1823 and 1951, hundreds of Black people were forced to work for little or no pay on the campus as farmers, dishwashers and cooks, among other jobs. Read more
The Hidden History of Paul Robeson. By Paul Von Blum / The Progressive
Historian Joe Dorinson called Paul Robeson “the greatest legend nobody knows.” Robeson was a quintessential genius, exceptional in everything he did: as an athlete, a scholar, a film and stage actor, a vocalist––and a tireless political and social activist for Black and other oppressed peoples. He stands in a great tradition of Black militancy that includes Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Once known the world over, Robeson died in relative obscurity in 1976. In Ballad of An American: A Graphic Biography of Paul Robeson (Rutgers University Press), graphic artist Sharon Rudahl and her scholarly collaborators Paul Buhle and Lawrence Ware do their part to promote Robeson’s legacy. Read more
In Amazon’s ‘Mary J. Blige’s My Life,’ she shows how much power came from her vulnerability. By Aramide A. Tinubu / NBC News
For the past 30 years, Mary J. Blige, aptly crowned the Queen of Hip-Hop and R&B, has spilled her guts in her music, flooring audiences with her haunting tracks like “Not Gon’ Cry” and “No More Drama.” The multi-platinum Grammy winner has lived out many triumphs in the spotlight throughout her career beyond her music, including two Oscar nominations, for her supporting role and song in Netflix’s “Mudbound,” and her work in the fan-favorite drama series “Power Book II: Ghost.” However, as much as her fans have celebrated Blige’s successes, she’s also been open about her hard times, which have included addiction, abuse and her tumultuous divorce following a 15-year marriage. She reflects on all of that, and more, in the new Amazon Prime Video documentary “Mary J. Blige’s My Life.” Read more and watch the official trailer.
On original Black music, successful white cover songs, and a culture of covetousness and cruelty. By Denise Oliver Velez / The Daily Kos
As the month officially devoted to celebrating Black music here in the U.S. draws to a close, trust that we will continue the celebration each week here on #BlackMusicSunday. I’d planned to explore music from and inspired by the Caribbean for this week’s offering, since June is also Caribbean American Heritage Month. Instead, I got sidetracked and highly irritated while I was doing research. Here’s an example: Do a search for “I Shot the Sheriff” and see what pops up. This song, written by Bob Marley, was released in 1973 on the album Burnin’, by Bob Marley and the Wailers. Over the years, I’ve heard it played and sung at many Caribbean festivals and parades in my home borough of Brooklyn, New York, as well as in local restaurants where I’d go to get an order of jerk chicken, peas and rice. First thing that popped up on Google, for me, was the cover version by Eric Clapton, which he recorded in 1974, a year after Bob Marley released it; Clapton’s “cover” was inducted into the GRAMMY Hall of Fame in 2003. My annoyance spurred me to revisit a topic I’ve written about here in the past, though from a slightly different angle. In ”Black people create, white people profit: The racist history of the music industry,” Read more
Sports
The NFL’s concussion settlement marginalizes Black athletes. By JP Acosta / SBNation
The NFL has found itself in a lawsuit coming from retired Black athletes, who claim that the administration of the league’s concussion settlement discriminates against Black athletes. Former players Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport claim that the testing automatically assumed Black players’ cognitive test scores were lower, making them ineligible for the money owed to them, in a concept known as “race-norming.” The lawsuit was settled with over $1 billion going to the former players. The news of the lawsuit came with outcries of shock and surprise at a league that could do something so outrageously racist it would make George Wallace shudder. However, I wasn’t as shocked as I was disappointed. Read more
Mavericks agree to hire Jason Kidd as coach in franchise overhaul. By Ben Golliver / Wash Post
Ten years after teaming with Dirk Nowitzki in Dallas to win the 2011 NBA title, Jason Kidd will return to the Mavericks as head coach, two people with knowledge of the situation said Friday. The 48-year-old Kidd, who spent the past two seasons as a Los Angeles Lakers assistant, agreed to replace Rick Carlisle in his third stint as a head coach. Longtime Nike executive Nico Harrison agreed to join the Mavericks as general manager, replacing Donnie Nelson, who departed this month after 24 years amid an internal power struggle. Both agreements, which were first reported by the Athletic and ESPN, signal Luka Doncic’s growing influence in the organization. Read more
Gwen Berry turns away from flag at U.S. track and field trials: ‘I feel like it was a setup.’ By Adam Kilgore / Wash Post
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