The U.S. Supreme Court is currently settling a case that will determine whether South Carolina Republicans designed a congressional map that benefits their party at the expense of Black voters. But South Carolina isn’t the only state with eyebrow-raising district boundaries. A new report card from the Coalition Hub for Advancing Redistricting and Grassroots Engagement shows that states across […]
Brandon Tensley
Brandon Tensley is Capital B's national politics reporter.
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
The Next Big Voting Rights Case to Watch
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday hears oral arguments in a South Carolina case that could make it exceedingly difficult for Black voters to challenge racially discriminatory district maps and limit their ability to elect a representative who might fight for them. Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP is one of the most […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
What Black Voters Should Know About the Legal Battles Over Redistricting
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected Alabama’s attempts to prevent the redrawing of the state’s congressional map, meaning that the process of creating new district lines will continue. Earlier this month, federal judges struck down Alabama’s new map, saying that it ignored the high court’s directive to design a second majority-Black district or “something […]
Posted inCulture, History
How This Infamous Civil Rights-Era Church Bombing Still Haunts America
Lisa McNair never knew her sister, Denise. But Denise’s story has always been with her. Sixty years ago, on Sept. 15, 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan planted some 15 sticks of dynamite under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which was a nucleus of the Civil Rights Movement. […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
A New Voter ID Requirement Has North Carolina Civil Rights Organizers on Edge
The Republican-led North Carolina Supreme Court in April tossed out a ruling that had been handed down when the court leaned Democratic. The move reinstated SB 824, a 2018 law that provides a rigid list of photo IDs approved for voting in the Tar Heel State. This fall’s local elections will be the first contests […]
Posted inEducation, HBCUs
Here’s Your Overdue History Lesson on Edward Waters University
A white gunman on Saturday killed three Black people at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida — after he’d been chased from the campus of nearby Edward Waters University. But the historically Black school is much more than a stop on the way to the site of a murderous rampage: Edward Waters looms large in […]
Posted inCriminal Justice, Gun Violence
The Racist Attack That Roiled Black Jacksonville Decades Before the Dollar General Shooting
The city of Jacksonville, Florida, is reeling from the racist killing of three Black people at a Dollar General on Saturday, after a white gunman targeted a historically Black neighborhood with weapons emblazoned with swastikas, authorities said. This weekend was already a notorious one for Black Jacksonville, falling on the 63rd anniversary of one of […]
Posted inEducation, K-12
How to Combat the Whitewashing of Black Studies
The backlash to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ assault on Black history and the release of the Florida Board of Education’s new teaching standards has been swift — but with the new school year starting this month, enraged parents and educators may not have much of a choice in the classroom. The requirement that middle school […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones Won, but the Assault on Democracy Continues
Tennessee state Reps. Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones — the two young Black Democrats who were expelled in April after they joined gun reform protests on the chamber floor — handily reclaimed their seats in special general elections on Thursday, per unofficial results. Even so, civil rights advocates say that this moment ought to serve […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
A Roundup of Cases Against Trump
Former President Donald Trump faces a slew of state and federal charges, including most recently charges brought against him by a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., relating to the 2020 election. In the run-up to the contest and in its aftermath, when it was clear that Joe Biden would win the White House, Trump’s […]