2020

By Katie Shepherd Oct. 30, 2020 at 4:34 a.m. EDT On Thursday, the nation’s largest police union posted a photo to social media taken during the unrest in Philadelphia this week, where hundreds of protesters clashed with officers over the police killing of Walter Wallace Jr. The Fraternal Order of Police’s posts showed a Philadelphia police officer…

Read More Police took a Black toddler from his family’s SUV. Then, the union used his photo as ‘propaganda,’ attorneys say.

By Elizabeth Nelson The English language can be tough. Our alphabet contains 26 letters that can make many, many different words. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary comes out with new words each year. Several words contain silent letters, meaning that when you pronounce a word, you may not be able to sound it out. One or more…

Read More The Only Letter That Is Never Silent

African-American folk artist Harriet Powers External, nationally recognized for her quilts, was born in rural Georgia on October 29, 1837. Using a traditional appliqué technique, Powers recorded local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events on her quilts. Considered among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Southern quilting, Powers’ work is on display at the Smithsonian Institution and is featured…

Read More Harriet Powers

By Ian Shapira Oct. 29, 2020 at 6:55 p.m. EDT Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors voted Thursday to remove the prominent statue of Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson as pressure builds for the state-supported military school to address allegations of racism. The board’s unanimous decision follows a Washington Post report this month detailing bigotry at the 181-year-old school in…

Read More VMI votes to remove Stonewall Jackson statue amid racism accusations by Black cadets

October 29, 2020 By Jessica Mendoza Multimedia reporter; Samantha Laine Perfas Story Team Leader [This is one of a series of articles/podcasts in the Christian Science Monitor.] As Tulsa, Oklahoma, gears up to commemorate the 1921 race massacre, a new generation of Tulsans are finding ways to make the story of Black Wall Street their own. What can the country…

Read More Tulsa’s Black Wall Street burned. These artists have a new vision (audio).

Read more about Zadie Smith’s essay HERE or buy the essay collection Feel Free (hopefully at an independent bookseller).

Read More Zadie Smith

EVAN ANDREWS @ history.com [A]t least 12 chief executives—over a quarter of all American presidents—enslaved people during their lifetimes. Of these, eight held enslaved people while in office. George Washington Thomas Jefferson James Madison James Monroe Andrew Jackson Martin VanBuren William Henry Harrison John Tyler James K. Polk Zachary Taylor Andrew Johnson Ulysses S Grant

Read More How Many U.S. Presidents Owned Enslaved People?

CHRISTOPHER KLEIN In his ambition to rise above his humble beginnings, Hamilton appeared to have frequently swallowed his anti-slavery sentiments as he pushed for acceptance into America’s colonial elite—most of whom enslaved people. In 1780, he married into the wealthy, slaveholding Schuyler family. As a New York delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Hamilton saw the…

Read More Alexander Hamilton’s Complicated Relationship to Slavery