Jonathan Odell writes that HGTV home-rehabilitation show “Home Town” sweeps Laurel’s racist past and gentrified present under the rug.
Laurel, Miss., native and author Jonathan Odell reflects on the summer of 1971 when he was a door-to-door salesman of the Ebony Pictorial History of Black America. As a young, white man brought up in white supremacy, Odell learned later that summer that Black history is for everyone. “You can’t understand Black history without reflecting on white history,” he writes. “We created this history together.”
Donna Ladd writes that many white Americans try to co-opt and water down Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of facing and overcoming systemic racism rather than acknowledging his real words and goals.
All of us—Black, Indigenous, Latino, Asian and White—must work to acknowledge and grapple with the trauma caused by centuries of systemic racism in this country, Rhea Williams-Bishop of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation writes.
Duvalier Malone believes democracy is at stake due to voter-suppression efforts and suggests that the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act should pass to rightly protect the voting rights of U.S. citizens.
Dr. Gilbert Mason Jr. helped bring a discrimination lawsuit in 1964 against Biloxi Separate Municipal School District, which led to the desegregation of Biloxi’s schools. Biloxi Public School District was the first to integrate classrooms in Mississippi. Dr. Mason passed away on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.
Duvalier Malone encourages the American people to hold our legislators accountable by participating in local, state and federal elections. He believes democracy is at stake and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act must be passed in order to rightly protect the voting rights of the people.
Rev. Rosa Lee Harden challenges us all to not only remember the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this holiday, but to actively work toward fulfilling his dream of economic equality together.
The Poor People’s Campaign’s “Third Reconstruction” resolution highlights what it calls a congressional failure to elevate the poor through social programs, voting-rights expansion and the elimination of systemic racism. It details suggested solutions for each of these problems, including an increase in the long-stagnant federal minimum wage, provisions to expand insurance coverage, a large-scale reduction of student debt and prison reform.
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