Posts by amstrat

Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data showing that African Americans have been contracting and dying from COVID-19 in numbers far out of proportion to their share of the population. And because so little testing has been completed, experts predict that the impact might be much greater than the CDC’s numbers…

It’s a rule so common, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was law across the U.S.: that in order to be convicted by a jury of your peers, that jury has to unanimously agree on your guilt. For almost a hundred years, this wasn’t the case in Louisiana, where split decision votes of at least…

In American epidemics, race is a preexisting condition. Whether it’s the influenza pandemic of 1918 or COVID-19 over a century later, race and ethnicity have been, and continue to be, enormous factors in determining whether people will receive medical attention when they become ill, and the sort of attention they will receive. Read more at…

On Saturday, voters in South Carolina will sound the starting gun for the race to the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. After giving white America a head start on selecting the party’s nominee, the Democratic Party now turns to South Carolina. Black voters cast about 6 percent of the combined votes in Iowa, New…

Writer James Baldwin was 24 when he arrived in Paris in 1948, with only $40 in his pocket. Entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker was just 19 when she left the United States and began dazzling Parisian crowds in 1925 draped in just a pink flamingo feather. Despite their humble beginnings, these iconic figures…

Tuskegee University Archives recently released new recordings from the Tuskegee Civic Association records that feature prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. These speeches, addressing the Tuskegee community, fill in historical gaps to illuminate the relationships between leaders and their constituents. The collection was digitized from reel-to-reel tape under the care of university archivist Dana…

“The world is not tender with Black women,” write Deesha Philyaw and Vanessa German. “And we are not always tender with ourselves, or with each other. Pittsburgh, in particular, is not known for tenderness where we are concerned.” That’s from the introduction to “tender,” a new literary anthology Philyaw and German co-edited. The collection features…

Octavia Spencer portrays Madame C.J. Walker, America’s first self-made female millionaire, in the new Netflix series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame C.J. Walker. The four-part limited series hits the platform on March 20th. Read more at The Rolling Stone.

We must recognize the systemic discrimination that infects our country, and we must work actively – and deliberately – to root it out and set us on a better path. This agenda is a work in progress and will continue to be updated based on input and insight from Black activists, community leaders, organizers, policy…

The primary school in Crellin, Md., a village of 260 people, sits on a reclaimed coal-loading site in the Appalachian Mountains. On top of reading, writing, and arithmetic, students get to look after chickens and lambs in the barn outside. They also learn about pollution by testing water from the nearby river. It’s a place…