Marcus McDonald’s roots run deep on both his sides of his family in Charleston, South Carolina. He’s a descendant of the Boone Hall Plantation, where his ancestors in his father’s family were once held captive. They come from a line of Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of the West and Central Africans who were enslaved […]
History
Posted inCulture, History, Incarceration
In New Orleans, Black Cowboy Tradition Collides With Prison Rodeo Spectacle
NEW ORLEANS — Outside, along Claiborne Avenue in the Algiers section of New Orleans, Sunday looked familiar. Black children slurped snowballs in the street, adults danced around them, and Black riders eased their horses through the crowds, past corner stores and shotgun houses, hooves clapping against the asphalt. For Black riders like Robert Pollar, who […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
The Supreme Court Fight That Could Unravel Who Gets to Be American
With birthright citizenship — which was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to clarify the legal status of Black Americans following the Civil War — on the chopping block, civil rights groups are on high alert for threats to all rights, even those long seen as safe. There’s concern that a decision undermining birthright citizenship “could […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
U.S. Votes No as UN Calls Slave Trade ‘Gravest Crime’ and Backs Reparations
The United States joined Israel and Argentina on Thursday in voting against a Ghana-led resolution that declared the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans the “gravest crime against humanity” and urged countries to pursue reparations. The nonbinding measure, backed by more than 120 nations, calls for formal apologies, compensation, and other forms of reparatory justice for […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment, Culture, History
More Than a Singer: How Sam Cooke’s Family Built a Legacy After His Death
CLARKSDALE, Mississippi — Nicole Cooke-Johnson loaded her car full of children’s books and traveled to her grandfather’s hometown, Clarksdale, Mississippi, for the first time in her life. It was a journey as old and as common as the Great Migration. But her grandfather, Sam Cooke, was no ordinary man. Cooke, an iconic, groundbreaking recording artist […]
Posted inCulture, History, LGBTQ, Politics & Policy
As Chicago Celebrates Jesse Jackson’s Life, Those He Inspired Confront What’s Next
Jeanette Taylor, the alderwoman of Chicago’s 20th Ward, first met the Rev. Jesse Jackson in 2012. At the time, she was an organizer with the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, and her executive director insisted that she meet him. Taylor was nervous: She knew his national stature, his speeches, his mystique — and “sometimes when you […]
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 inCulture, Economy, Employment, Equity, History, Politics & Policy, Rural Issues
The Mississippi Delta Is a Testing Ground for the Nation
The majority-Black Mississippi Delta region is shrouded in both magic and myth for many outsiders, writer and essayist W. Ralph Eubanks says. Dubbed the “Most Southern Place on Earth,” the Delta’s rich culture and blues music brings millions of tourists to the region every year. The Magnolia State broke records in 2024 when about 44 […]
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 […]