Mission: Capital B’s journalism is rooted in people. This means that we center our election coverage around how political issues and policy decisions affect Black people in America. Too often, mainstream newsrooms gloss over or ignore what issues matter to Black communities, where there’s often the most to lose or gain when it comes to […]
election 2024
Posted inCourts, Elections, Voting
Supreme Court’s Blow to Right to Protest Is Another Attack on Black Political Power
The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene in a case involving a prominent Black Lives Matter advocate could have a chilling effect on people hoping to organize and demand racial justice. The high court on Monday virtually outlawed the right to mass protest in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas when it declined to step in and […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Are We Really in the Middle of a ‘Racial Realignment’ in Politics?
The claim that Black voters are bolting to President Donald Trump’s Republican Party not only feels premature: It also fuels a troubling narrative that pins the blame for a possible second Trump term on Black voters. This notion of realignment has gotten more attention in recent months, as political observers try to make sense of […]
Posted inEconomy, Money
How ‘Bidenomics’ May Not Be Adding Up for Some Black Americans
Tyler McFadden hoped a college degree would help her land a well-paying career in politics, but the 31-year-old didn’t expect it would come with hefty debt, poor credit, job instability, and anxiety, she says. After earning a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from George Washington University in 2014, McFadden became a bartender. With limited income, […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Federal Court Strikes Major Blow to Black Voting Rights
A federal district court’s order on Thursday allowing South Carolina to use a racially discriminatory congressional map for the 2024 election cycle is a gut punch to Black voters. “For over a century, the NAACP has worked fervently to protect Black Americans’ access to the ballot box. Make no mistake — these discriminatory maps are […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The GOP’s Long-Shot Bid for Black Voters
When Kermit Williams hears a new pro-Donald Trump radio spot that’s supposed to draw in Black voters, his mind sprints in the opposite direction: He thinks about the former president’s history of aggression toward marginalized communities. “I can’t unsee the Central Park Five and what Trump did to try to get a group of innocent […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The Fight for Democracy and Black Votes Loomed Large in Biden’s Speech
Among the many special guests at President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday was the jazz singer and civil rights legend Bettie Mae Fikes. Beloved as the Voice of Selma, Fikes is known for having led protests in song. She often changed the lyrics of Black standards to match the movement: “Tell […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
Biden, Bloody Sunday, and the Ongoing Fight for Black Votes
Fifty-nine years ago on Thursday, white state troopers brutalized voting rights protesters as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Footage of the carnage — one officer cracked 25-year-old John Lewis’ skull with a billy club — enraged the country, and galvanized widespread support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, […]
Posted inElections, Politics & Policy
Why Super Tuesday Is a ‘Dress Rehearsal’ for the General Election
Kristin Powell vividly remembers watching the Super Tuesday returns in February 2008 and being consumed by a single question: Can he actually make it? A college student spending a semester in Italy at the time, Powell was referring to Barack Obama, the youthful U.S. senator from Illinois who was challenging the establishment darling Hillary Clinton […]
Posted inPolitics & Policy, Voting
How the Legacy of a Reconstruction-Era Massacre Shapes Voting Rights Today
Shauna Sias, 48, has lived in Opelousas, Louisiana, almost her entire life. And thanks to her father, a civil rights advocate who battled racial segregation in the Deep South, she’s always known about the massacre that shattered the small Louisiana city during Reconstruction. Over the course of around two weeks beginning on Sept. 28, 1868, […]