Archive for July 2018

Ida B Wells: Long Overdue Salute

Story originally appeared on the July 22 newsletter of TBTNewsService.com Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), more commonly known as Ida B. Wells, was an investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of…

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The Janus Ruling Is a Blow to Public Unions. It’s Especially Bad for Black Women.

The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing employees to opt out of paying fees to the unions who represent them will impact public-sector unions across the country, potentially weakening their collective bargaining power. But the 5-4 ruling in the case, known as Janus v. AFSCME, could have an especially bad impact on African-American women, according to an analysis done…

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The White Men’s Club Leading America’s Largest Cities

For a brief period beginning last December, London Breed had gained entry into a club that has, of late, almost exclusively belonged to white men: the ranks of big-city mayors. Breed, a 43-year-old African American woman and president of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, had automatically become the city’s acting mayor following the sudden death…

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Why I’m Raising Money To Build An Ida B. Wells Monument

Last week marked the opening in Montgomery, Alabama, of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a first of its kind exhibit commemorating over 4,000 lynching victims. The project, spearheaded by the Equal Justice Initiative, also includes a museum that traces America’s history of racism, from slavery to our current era of mass incarceration. It…

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‘If You Want to Win, Get a Black Woman Candidate’: A Q&A With Melanie L. Campbell

There has been a long-simmering tension between the Democratic Party apparatus and its African-American base. Many black women, especially, voice frustration at what they interpret as a lack of commitment from a party that repeatedly depends on them to push its candidates to victory. In last year’s Alabama special election, black women played the deciding…

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The worst thing to be in many Democratic primaries? A white male candidate.

The newest star of the Democratic Party, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, launched her New York congressional campaign by declaring “women like me aren’t supposed to run for office” — a jarring embrace of her distinction as a 28-year-old Latina less than a year removed from a job tending bar. Her campaign slogan: “It’s time for one of us.” That…

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A street renaming proposal that is all ‘Wells’ and good

Honoring legendary African-American civil rights activist and journalist Ida B. Wells by officially renaming a city street after her is a good idea. So is changing the name of East Balbo Drive, a four-block stretch just south of downtown named for fascist aviator Italo Balbo. But combining the two — renaming Balbo Drive for Wells, as…

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