Posts by amstrat

The intersection of 136 and Lenox Ave in Harlem is a busy one: within feet of each other are a mosque, a beauty supply, a Dunkin’ Donuts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Countee Cullen Library, named for the famed Harlem Renaissance poet. It is a quintessential mix of commercial and…

Another disappointing turn of events for women in U.S. politics is unfolding, this time in the Democratic Party primaries.  Of the five top candidates, the two women—Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar—are currently at the bottom of the delegate count.  Indeed, the rise to the top elected political job has not been easy for women anywhere in…

Gail Warrior, who created one of the largest woman- and minority-owned construction companies in the U.S., remembers her first experience applying for a business loan back in 2000. She was chief executive of Dallas-based Warrior Group, a modular construction company that had just won a government contract to build a barracks at Fort Bliss, and…

Bellen Woodard was the only Black girl in her third grade class in a Virginia school. “My friends were asking for the ‘skin color’ crayon,” she said, knowing what that meant, what it implied—and what it didn’t. After talking with her mom later that day, Bellen came up with a response other than handing over…

Since at least 1900, members of the House and Senate have tried to pass a law making lynching a federal crime. The bills were consistently blocked, shelved or ignored, and the passage of time has rendered anti-lynching legislation increasingly symbolic. But on Wednesday, a measure to add lynching to the United States Criminal Code passed…

Sixty-five years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi, the House has approved legislation designating lynching as a hate crime under federal law. The bill, introduced by Illinois Rep. Bobby Rush and named after Till, comes 120 years after Congress first considered anti-lynching legislation and after dozens of similar efforts were defeated. The measure…

During a visit to the State House on Tuesday, civil rights icon Rev. Jesse Jackson said South Carolina should hold the nation’s first presidential primary in future years. Jackson, a Greenville native, told members of the S.C. Legislative Black Caucus that Iowa and New Hampshire, which currently are home to the first and second presidential…

After the Nevada caucuses, Bernie Sanders is now the front-runner in the Democratic presidential race. In South Carolina, the next primary, former Vice President Joe Biden is the favorite, buoyed by his support among African American voters. But Sanders will come into the state with real momentum, having won the popular vote in each of…

Oscar Stanton De Priest had presence. Fair-skinned enough to pass for white, and standing at least 6 feet tall with white hair adorning his head, he was distinctly noticeable, “perhaps the most striking Negro in Chicago,” one Tribune reporter penned. But it was his presence as the only black person in national political leadership that…

Local 24 News Reporter Rebecca Butcher had the chance to sit down with Daphene McFerren to discuss an upcoming, full-length feature surrounding the life and accomplishments of Ida B. Wells. Wells was an African-American investigative journalist in the 1800s who reported on lynchings in Memphis. She was an early leader in what became known as…