On the night before he died, April 3, 1968, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had traveled to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers, called the labor negotiations a matter of justice.“The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers,” he said. “Now the other thing we’ll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal … As Jesse Jackson has said...

As America prepares to celebrate Juneteenth this month, — this nation’s truest Independence Day — recent protests in Los Angeles against mass deportations have triggered the use of the National Guard to defend ICE agents as they pursue foreign-born residents. These aren’t members of MS-13 or drug cartel members. These law-abiding families simply wish to make a better life for themselves. The Trump administration’s actions are a reminder that law enforcement is an arm of the state, they have no d...

The Trump Administration has declared war on Black history. By way of executive orders, the administration has taken aim at not only DEI initiatives, but Black history taught in classrooms across the country and at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. These executive orders, along with the threat of withholding federal funding, garner compliance from the education community, which is a disservice to Americans of all ethnic groups. Thankfully, our society has teachers of a different kind—those whose unique talent bring Black history to life on film, teachers like Ryan Coogler.

It has become a frequent occurrence in the weeks since President Donald Trump’s inauguration — voters in majority Republican districts voicing their displeasure with the administration’s policy decisions at sometimes tense town hall meetings around the country.The gatherings — at which some lawmakers have been widely jeered and angry attendees removed — have become so charged that GOP officials have discouraged members of Congress from hosting them.While Democrats, too, have felt the wrath of th...

Teachers are under attack. Not teachers who choose to be apolitical, but teachers who actively choose to teach the truth to children. The truth is that the U.S. has a history of sins that include genocide and enslavement, both of which have played a role in the country’s successes. The truth is that families in the U.S. are often defined by societal constructs designed to foster control, compliance, and complicity. In President Donald Trump’s America, educators are at great risk if they teach...

Lloyd Austin, the former defense secretary and a four-star general with 40 years of military experience, was nonetheless labeled a DEI hire of the Biden administration. Pete Hegseth, the current secretary of defense, lacks adequate expertise and experience, on top of the fact that he’s had allegations of sexual assault and is known as an excessive drinker. A former National Security Council member and a Senate member deemed Hegseth unqualified for the position. However, according to Donald Trump, Hegseth had a tremendous track record that qualified him for the position.

As we near the seventh anniversary of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida, I am reflecting on my role as a parent and educator and how I cannot ignore the possibility that a school shooting could happen where I work or where my children attend school. It is a tragedy that so many children, parents, and educators live with the daily fear of gun violence in American schools. While it’s easy to blame policymakers for our current state, we, th...

Federal agencies under the Trump administration have started banning Black History Month, and now it’s more essential than ever to take the opportunity to recognize the accomplishments and struggles of African Americans throughout history. As an educator, I find it particularly important to acknowledge and honor the father of Black history: Dr. Carter Godwin Woodson, who founded Black History Month’s precursor, Negro History Week, at the behest of Black students. Now is also the time to examine...

A teaching colleague recently asked my opinion on whether she should take the lead on coordinating Black History Month activities at her school. To answer, I needed some context.I knew she was only one of three Black teachers in a school with several dozen total instructors, most of them white. (That’s a problem by itself, but I digress.) I asked if she was likely to get support from colleagues. She answered yes, but only if programming didn’t veer from the previous years of teaching sunny, wate...

This week, Mike Tyson returns to the ring after a 19-year layoff. His opponent is Jake Paul, the YouTube sensation turned professional boxer who some claim is bad for boxing. But boxing isn’t bad for Paul’s wallet. He may make up to $40 million from this fight, although neither Paul nor Tyson confirmed their payday. On the surface, the appeal is finding out if the 58-year-old Tyson can defeat Paul, who’s less than half Tyson’s age. There’s also this: learning if Paul can continue to build his resume as a boxer, defeating real boxers. However, at the lowest common dominator, the intrigue surrounds whether Jake Paul is the next great white heavyweight.

The nation abandoned any hope for a multiracial democracy on Nov. 5 in favor of reelecting Donald Trump for president. For me, this election is a mirror of 1877. The Union victory over the Confederates in the Civil War birthed the nation’s first attempt at a multiracial democracy. Black men throughout the South were elected to state houses and even Congress. However, the progress was short-lived. In 1877, the white power structure abandoned the multiracial democracy, choosing to violen...

Palestinians in Gaza began running, again, on October 8, 2023. “We Palestinians are always running,” Suheir Hammad writes in the poem Silence from her collection, "Born Palestinian, Born Black." “Where do we go?” One day after the deadly Hamas attack in Israel, the Israeli government warned and directed Palestinians in Gaza to leave targeted areas. Nowhere in Gaza was safe. One year after Hamas’ massacre, much of Gaza is reduced to rubble.

The Black Church is a stalwart institution in the African American community, serving as a major hub of spiritual enlightenment, social activism, and economic empowerment for Black people. It’s hard to overstate the impact the Black Church has had on the United States, particularly its artistic culture and politics. It’s the institution that gave us the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as a rich musical tradition that was foundational to popular culture, impacting everything from “blu...

In 1995, New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman considered taking control of specified functions within Camden municipal government. Understandably, she was concerned about a lack of resident buy-in. However, an editorial in the Courier-Post urged Gov. Whitman to press forward, saying:“Gov Whitman, perhaps, is reluctant to take over the entire city ... because some may call her racist; however, she shouldn’t care. Pulling the race card without cause is what desperate people do when they can’t de...

Democrats did their due diligence and achieved a “united” convention. President Biden’s decision to no longer seek re-election could have facilitated a contested convention. However, Democrats — starting with Biden — quickly got behind Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. That was the test before the convention. The test in Chicago was Palestine. The Biden Administration’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the vice president’s ambiguous posture on the campaign trail made for a potential confrontation between moderates and progressives. However, congressional progressives, from AOC to Bernie Sanders, have toed the party line and have backed the Harris Campaign.

President Joe Biden approached the 2024 presidential election with a historically low approval rating, and despite his desire to seek reelection, he was forced to drop out of the race, passing the torch to his Vice President Kamala Harris with the goal of keeping the presidency away from former President Donald Trump. It’s no secret that Biden’s trouble with the Black community affected his decision to depart from the race. He couldn’t have made enough visits to Black churches and Black radio...

Juneteenth memorializes the day when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, to announce all enslaved peoples were free upon the surrender of the last Confederate stronghold. More than 150 years later, in 2021, President Joe Biden made Juneteenth a national holiday. Holidays and memorials remind us of who we are as a country—our past and who we hope to become in the future. Juneteenth celebrations provide the opportunity to remember the real national Independence Day.

This month marks the 70th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. The ruling in the 1954 case was one of the most consequential court decisions in American history, overturning the doctrine of separate but equal—or separate and unequal, depending on who you ask—established by Plessy v. Ferguson. The case also set the stage for Civil Rights Movement activists to dismantle the racial caste system that was Jim Crow.

"Brown v. Board of Education" desegregated our schools. It also made it harder for Black teachers to succeed, argues Rann Miller. Read more In April, Philadelphia hosted the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. While the planners of the convening may have glowing remarks about its host city, researchers took Pennsylvania to task. At the meeting, Travis Bristol of the University of California, Berkeley, and Sharif El-Mekki, CEO of the Center for Black Educator Develo

Mayor Cherelle Parker was the first woman elected mayor in the history of Philadelphia. She vowed to voters that she will vigorously fight crime and believes she’s doing just that. She has a mandate to do so. Historically, Philadelphia has regularly contended with poverty and gun violence. While gun violence is down compared to last year, 2023 follows three of the most violent years in recent memory and the trauma remains something residents continue to navigate. According to a Pew Charitable Trust 2023 poll, Philadelphians from all backgrounds want their elected leaders to prioritize reducing the city’s crime rate in the coming years. According to the poll, those most affected are Black and Latino/a/x residents, who make up a majority of city residents.