Yusef Salaam spent nearly seven years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit — one of the five Black and brown teenagers Donald Trump targeted after the 1989 assault of a Central Park jogger. Decades later, after a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday indicted the former president on charges related to business fraud, Salaam […]
Brandon Tensley
Brandon Tensley is Capital B's national politics reporter.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
What Trump’s Legal Woes Mean to Black Americans
The wait is over: A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump. It’s a historic move that caps off years of anxiety and uncertainty about whether Trump’s Teflon coating of white privilege would ever lose its power. Details of the felony indictment are expected to be announced in the coming days, The New […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Alvin Bragg Isn’t the Only Black Prosecutor Taking on Trump
A Manhattan grand jury voted to indict Donald Trump on Thursday, according to multiple news sources — the first time a current or former U.S. president has faced criminal charges. Last week, when Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office was poised to issue an indictment against the former president, Trump called for Bragg’s arrest and […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Rasheem Carter’s Death Shows the Fault Lines of Jim Crow Still Run Through Mississippi
The investigation into the killing of Tiffany Carter’s son sheds light on a rigid pattern in which Black Americans find themselves at odds with the very institutions they’re supposed to trust. While Rasheem Carter’s death wasn’t the result of officer-involved violence — and while there are many unknowns about what happened — the case has […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
How an Anti-Drag Bill Is Creating Fear Among Some Black LGBTQ Tennesseans
Alexia Noelle Paris has been a drag artist for six years, performing nearly every weekend in Nashville, Tennessee, where she lives, or in California. For her, drag isn’t merely a form of entertainment — it’s an outlet. “I’ve always appreciated drag, even though initially I didn’t think that it was something for me,” Paris said. […]
Posted inMoney, Wealth Gap
The Case for Reparations: What Compensating Black Americans Could Look Like
Edmund Ford taught math for 14½ years and noticed that opportunities were sparse and unevenly distributed in Tennessee’s Shelby County Schools. “My classrooms were probably about 95% Black,” he said. “Many of my students weren’t getting the tools and resources they needed so that after they graduated from high school, they’d be impervious to social […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The History of White Lawmakers Trying to Take Over Mississippi’s Predominately Black Capital
Arekia Bennett-Scott didn’t expect her hometown to be thrust into the national spotlight just months after the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, resurfaced tensions over how state officials treat the majority-Black city. Yet, residents in the Democratic-led capital are now pushing back against efforts by white Republican state officials to gain more power over the […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The History of White Lawmakers Trying to Take Over Mississippi’s Predominantly Black Capital
Arekia Bennett-Scott didn’t expect her hometown to be thrust into the national spotlight just months after the water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi, resurfaced tensions over how state officials treat the majority-Black city. Yet, residents in the Democratic-led capital are now pushing back against efforts by white Republican state officials to gain more power over the […]