Marcia Chatelain remembers that it was almost impossible to turn on the radio in 1996 and not hear the Fugees’ smooth cover of “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” That remake transformed the group’s sophomore album, The Score, which dropped on Feb. 13 of that year, into a decade-defining juggernaut. But The Score was more […]
Brandon Tensley
Brandon Tensley is Capital B's national politics reporter.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Texas Senate Primary Erupts After ‘Mediocre Black Man’ Remark
The Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas has been jolted by fresh controversy, one that has revived debates over race, power, and perceived political legitimacy in the Lone Star State and beyond. The flare-up began on Sunday. A TikToker posted a video in which she says that Democratic Texas state Rep. James […]
Posted inFederal Overhaul, Politics & Policy
Black Diplomats Say Trump’s Moves Are Pushing People Out of Public Service
Federal Overhaul is a multipart series that explores the impact of the Trump administration’s restructuring of the federal government on Black communities. Pamela L. Spratlen knows all too well how elusive diversity has long been within the U.S. Foreign Service. Her father, as a young man, applied to join the Foreign Service. But this was […]
Posted inEconomy, Employment, Food Access, Health, Politics & Policy
Partial Government Shutdown Looms as Battle Over DHS Funding Persists
Large swaths of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are poised to shut down on Saturday, as Democrats and the White House remain locked in a standoff over the Trump administration’s immigration measures. Some 13% of the federal civilian workforce would be affected by a shutdown, according to the Washington Post. Operations would be disrupted […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Lisa Cook Case Tests Presidential Power and Black Women’s Resolve
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in Trump v. Cook — a case some say crystallizes President Donald Trump’s ongoing tension with Black women leaders. Fueling the case is Trump’s effort to break with more than a century of law and fire Lisa Cook, the first Black woman to sit on the Federal […]
Posted inEducation, Politics & Policy, Student Loans
Student Loan Wage Garnishment Is Put on Hold. What Borrowers Need to Know.
The U.S. Department of Education has announced that it will delay wage garnishment for defaulted student loans. The move, revealed Friday, reverses the department’s earlier plan to gradually restart wage garnishment for groups of borrowers, and will allow the agency more time to finalize new repayment plans. Garnishing wages could have affect millions who are […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
Stevie Wonder’s Battle for MLK Day and the New Challenges to King’s Legacy
Stevie Wonder’s new album, Hotter Than July, had been burning up the charts for months by Jan. 15, 1981. But something bigger than music was on the artist’s mind that day. Along with other Black cultural giants, the 30-year-old was leading a rally of approximately 100,000 people on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Years […]
Posted inNews
Claudette Colvin, Whose Defiance Helped End Bus Segregation, Dies at 86
Nearly 10 months before Rosa Parks’s famous act of defiance, a 15-year-old Black girl named Claudette Colvin had already refused to surrender her seat on a segregated bus on March 2, 1955. Even as the police arrived, the high school student refused to move, holding her ground. “History had me glued to the seat,” Colvin […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Public Safety
Calls for Justice Grow After ICE Shooting of Minneapolis Mom
Jacob Davis suspected that nothing positive would come from the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it had deployed some 2,000 federal agents to the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota. One day later, Renee Nicole Good was dead. The mother of three was in her car when a U.S. Immigration and […]
Posted inHistory
As Federal Sites Remove Black History, Communities Organize to Fight Back
It all started with a QR code. When Gerry James learned this summer that signs had been posted at National Park Service sites encouraging visitors to use a QR code to report information that could be considered “negative about either past or living Americans,” he wanted to change the conservation. He felt as if the […]
