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Actor Sidney Poitier poses for a portrait in Beverly Hills, Calif. on June 2, 2008. Poitier, the groundbreaking actor and enduring inspiration who transformed how Black people were portrayed on screen, became the first Black actor to win an Academy Award for best lead performance and the first to be a top box-office draw, died Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. He was 94. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles, File)
MFP Voices

Rest in Peace, Dignity: A Brief Tribute to Sidney Poitier

Sidney Poitier was dignity personified, which allowed him to portray every type of existing Black man on American terrain that was stolen from indigenous people and worked by the children of the sun. Poitier was not concerned about the paycheck he might lose from his act of artistic and political defiance; he was concerned about his art aiding in the uplift and liberation of African peoples. 

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A purple Emmett Till River SIte sign, riddled with bullets, behind plexiglass with a plaque beneath it
MFP Voices

They Said Emmett Till’s Name to Me. Now, I Say it for Myself.

I was 15 years old the first time someone said Emmett Till’s name to me, and I’d hear it countless times over the ensuing years. I say his name now for myself, proving my English professors’ belief that Emmett Till’s blood cries out to us from the pen of Mississippians. I say it even though the governor and half the Legislature might say that it’s proof of the nefarious “critical race theory” infiltrating Mississippi schools.

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Tucker Carlson screenshot
MFP Voices

Opinion | Fear of a Black-Brown Planet: Pushing ‘Replacement Theory’ and Banning CRT to Save White Supremacy

Data from the 2020 U.S. census released last Thursday placed the white population at around 58%, the first decrease in the number of people who identify as white since 1790. That statistic sounded alarm bells for the conservative media personality Tucker Carlson and has helped him mainstream the white supremacist fear that people of color will erase the white population, an idea referred to as “replacement theory.”

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Bob Moses teaching math to students at Lanier High School
MFP Voices

The Algebra Project: Bob Moses’ ‘Gateway to Equality’ for Black Students

As an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s, Bob Moses traveled to the most dangerous parts of Mississippi to help African Americans end segregation and secure the right to vote. But it would be tutoring students in math 20 years later at his daughter’s racially mixed middle school in Massachusetts that would lead to his life’s work—The Algebra Project.

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