Dominika Parry never stopped fighting for Jackson, Mississippi, residents even after the Trump administration terminated a multibillion-dollar program last year meant to help the Black city still reeling from a water crisis. For years, if water did flow out of Black households’ faucets in Jackson at all, it was often brown. It left elders and […]
Courts
Posted inCourts, History, Rural Issues
How One Woman Landed in Jail Over a Fight to Protect Her Family’s Land
Jennine Labuzan spent two weeks in federal custody in June — shuttled from her residence in Georgia to Tennessee to Mississippi — after refusing a judge’s order to sign away more than 1,300 acres of land she says her family has owned for generations. Her arrest and release came after a legal battle she never […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Culture, Incarceration, Religion
The Legal Fight Over Locs in Prison Is About More Than Hair
A year after Brittany Martin was released from a South Carolina women’s prison, she obtained 11 videos from inside the facility that captured what she calls one of the most traumatic moments of her life. Prison guards can be seen pinning her to the ground in a video dated Jan. 23, 2023. As she remained […]
Posted inCourts, Culture, Politics & Policy
World Cup Joy Gave Way to Deportation Fears for Haitian Families
For one night this past Wednesday, Miami’s Little Haiti forgot to be afraid. Haiti was on the field — its first World Cup appearance in more than half a century — and the neighborhood came alive in the way it used to: loud and together, Ruth Jeannoel recalled. Then Thursday arrived. The U.S. Supreme Court […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice, Juvenile Justice
Karmelo Anthony Convicted of Murder in Track Meet Trial
A Texas jury on Tuesday convicted Karmelo Anthony of murder, rejecting the Black teen’s claims of self-defense during a confrontation with another teen in a stadium’s bleachers last year. The 19-year-old has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. After being remanded to the custody of the sheriff’s office, he could be seen crying when […]
Posted inCourts, Health, History, Science
Henrietta Lacks’ Family Reaches Settlement in Fight Over Her Stolen Cells
A long overdue reckoning for Henrietta Lacks — the Black woman whose cancer cells led to breakthroughs in the field but were harvested without her consent — has been slow but steady in recent years. It took decades for her relatives to learn that her tissue had been used for research and for them to […]
Posted inCourts, Culture, History
S.C. Court Victory Grants Gullah Geechee Temporary Access to Blocked Cemetery
Julia Scott is disappointed. Despite a judge granting her and other Gullah Geechee residents in St. Helena Island, South Carolina, access to the centuries-old Big House Cemetery, they must give the property owners — who put up a gate to block the entrance — written notice first. “It’s a start, but I am not pleased […]
Posted inCourts, Economic Development, Eminent Domain, History, Politics & Policy, Rural Issues
Georgia Is Letting a Railroad Seize Land a Black Family Has Owned For 100 Years
SPARTA, Ga. — In 1850, Andrew Benjamin Tarbutton enslaved 25 people in central Georgia. A year later, he purchased more than a dozen additional people off the docks in Savannah and marched them toward his home, setting the foundation for his family’s generational wealth. Four generations later, a railroad company owned by one of his […]
Posted inCourts, Politics & Policy
Federal Court Declines to Rehear Marilyn Mosby’s Perjury and Mortgage Fraud Case
Marilyn Mosby won’t get a do-over in her perjury and mortgage fraud case. A federal appeals court has denied a request to rehear the former Baltimore state’s attorney’s appeal. The U.S. Attorney’s Office and Mosby’s attorneys had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to take up the case. Yet, no judges […]
Posted inCourts, Criminal Justice
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to 50 Months in Federal Prison
Hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs was sentenced Friday to 50 months in federal jail following his conviction on prostitution charges. Combs, who turned a career as a music producer into a portfolio of businesses worth a billion dollars, was convicted on July 2 after prosecutors said he coerced women into sexual encounters with male escorts. […]
