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Black America

Seven Supreme Court Cases That Black Americans Should Track This Summer

From voting rights to health care to workplace equality, the U.S. Supreme Court will weigh in on a number of issues this summer that could have major implications for Black Americans. “In America, for Black people, we’ve had a long season where our rights were generally respected,” said Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU, who has been closely following the Trump administration’s legal moves. “We have Black elected officials … Black leaders in corporate America, we have extreme poverty, but we also have thriving middle class communities. We have many areas where we have lots of highly educated black people. All of those things rest on a legal framework that allows those rights to be protected.”

The Fall Of 2020: How Liberals Ceded Solidarity

Last Sunday marked five years since the world witnessed the public lynching of George Floyd at the hands, or as it was, the knee of the State. The aftermath of the livestreamed white “supremacy” webinar on the denial of the human rights of Black/Afro-resident people in the United States was the proliferation of incendiary uprisings nationwide that saw the incineration of buildings that housed businesses and even police precincts. - The nation was jolted awake after months of being moribund due to State-sanctioned covid quarantines and isolation. The streets were transformed from apparition avenues to lively lanes of social activity as people of all races, ethnicities, and genders coalesced to demand “justice” for Floyd and Brianna Taylor, both executed by the State, and Ahmad Aubrey who was shot to death by a civilian lynch mob.

Black People, Palestine, And The Maintenance Of Empire

When Palestinian resistance forces broke free from their open-air prison in Gaza on October 7th, 2023, many did not realize the events that would unfold–that we were all about to bear witness to the world’s first live-streamed genocide. Israel thought this would be business as usual, that they could continue their brutalization of the Palestinian people, and the world would go about its business—as it has for decades. Not only did they have to contend with the resistance on the ground in occupied Palestine, but the groundswell of support around the world, and specifically from within the imperial core that is the U.S.

Ryan Coogler, Shedeur Sanders, Karmelo Anthony, Rodney Hinton, Jr

Ryan Coogler, Shedeur Sanders, Karmelo Anthony, and Rodney Hinton, Jr. have all captured the collective Black imagination, although for very different reasons. A successful film director, an athlete and two Black men in the throes of a punishing legal system are all the recipients of support and love from millions of Black people. It is true that the love of a “Black face in a high place” is a problematic phenomenon, but it is also true that Black people will rally around their own. That commendable instinct seems to be reserved for individuals, and not for the masses as a whole, and therein lies a problem.

Grieving Black Father Avenges Son’s Slaying By Killing A Police Officer

Around 2:00 in the morning, a white police officer–who would later acknowledge that the unarmed teenager startled him– fatally shot Thomas once in the chest. Three days later, the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood was on fire. Thomas’ death brought to 15 the number of African American men killed by Cincinnati police officers between 1995 and 2001. In the most high-profile of these cases, police mistook Roger Owensby Jr.--a sergeant in the U.S. Army who had no criminal record—for a drug dealer, put him in a chokehold, maced, and beat him. Officers were tried and acquitted. Thomas’ killing was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

Graylan Hagler: Capitulation Masquerading As Political Thought

One can only say that making such a dispensation is very generous of Rev. Graylan Hagler. It isn’t clear what he means by “emotionally understand” but the subtext is troubling. Is he insisting that a group whose people are victims of a genocide ought to support the perpetrators of the war crimes? If that is his stance it is not understandable, emotionally or in any other way. The statement encapsulates what is highly problematic about Hagler’s recent essay The Betrayal of the Black Community . Hagler’s 2,500 word screed is a muddled apologia to the Democratic Party after their ignominious defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, despite raising $1 billion in the effort to elect Kamala Harris.

Ready For The Revolution But Unable To See It

The snowflakes that began to pelt Chicago on an early January weekend in 1979 were bigger and wetter than anyone could remember, eventually burying the city under two feet of snow, shutting down O’Hare International Airport for only the second time ever, and producing snowdrifts that resembled a lumpen Sahara of marshmallow-white sand, swallowing cars, collapsing roofs, and disabling “L” trains. The transit cars that remained operational, however, were just as problematic, skipping stops in the city’s African American neighborhoods and whizzing off to the lily-white northwestern suburbs, stranding Black commuters and reducing public transportation to a taxpayer-funded private shuttle service for whites.

These Black Architects Are Helping Rebuild Altadena After The LA Wildfires

Carla Flagg remembers the joy of growing up in west Altadena. “We had these great pool parties where all the cousins and everybody would come to the Fair Oaks house,” she says, smiling, as tears welled up in her eyes. Her parents owned the house and passed it down to her sister and her sister’s kids. “ We had that home for 50-some odd years, and there are still people who know the original phone number.” Flagg’s family home was one of some 9,400 structures that were destroyed in the Eaton Fire in January. It was also one of many homes passed down within the Black community by family members. Discriminatory redlining of the 1960s steered her parents away from Pasadena, and realtors encouraged them to purchase on the west side of Altadena.

These Black Bookstores Are Committed To The Fight For Freedom

Blooming from the tumult of the Civil Rights era, Black bookstores emerged during the Black Arts Movement as cultural hubs where some of the first seeds of slam poetry, spoken word and hip-hop were planted. In 1968, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover hoped to curb ​“the establishment of Black extremist bookstores which represent propaganda outlets for revolutionary and hate publications,” ordering his agents to pursue a targeted, nationwide surveillance. Today, a new generation of Black bookstores is blossoming amid the upheaval of the Movement for Black Lives.

Natural Disasters Are Driving A School Crisis

Adrinda Kelly watched from New York as Hurricane Katrina swallowed her hometown of New Orleans in 2005. Floodwaters rose, neighborhoods disappeared underwater, and she felt a familiar ache deepen. Her family was safe, but devastation quickly compounded a painful realization: Black children were portrayed as disposable, and New Orleans’ education system was almost completely privatized. Black students’ test scores faltered. Almost two decades later and nearly 2,000 miles away, similar echoes reverberated in Altadena, California, as wildfires swept through Los Angeles County in January.

Malcolm X, Black Nationalism And The Cold War

During his stay in prison in the state of Massachusetts between 1946-1952, Malcolm X began to reflect seriously on his life’s mission. He would join the Nation of Islam (NOI) after being urged to do so by four siblings, a fact documented in a series of letters archived in his Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files which contained tens of thousands of pages. In extensive letters written to his brothers he strongly stated that his future career would be preaching the religious beliefs enunciated by Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.

The Power Of Black Self-Defense In Lincoln Heights

While there are endless think pieces written on the phenomenon of Donald Trump’s second ascendancy to the white house, working class Black people in a town near Cincinnati, Ohio took matters into their own hands and faced down a group of white supremacists. On February 7, 2025, a group of white men waving flags adorned with swastikas hung a banner from an interstate overpass between the towns of Evendale and Lincoln Heights which proclaimed, “America for the White Man.” It must be pointed out that the statement, while quite racist, is an accurate description of United States history and politics.

The Death Of DEI

The sight of Al Sharpton holding a protest at a New York City Costco store is a sure sign that very problematic politics are being practiced. In this instance, Sharpton’s theatrics were inspired by the corporations which discontinued their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs. DEI has been in conservative crosshairs with conservative think tanks and activists filing numerous lawsuits claiming that the programs are discriminatory. The same corporations who joined in the performative DEI programs when it was convenient have now run for cover.

Dispatch: Through The Fire

Unprecedented January wildfires devastate Los Angeles, as communities face both natural disaster and militarized state response. The Eaton Fire displaces numerous families in the Pasadena-Altadena area, including multigenerational Black households who have built lives in these neighborhoods for decades. Among them, the Edwards family stands displaced from their home of 32 years. For those seeking to support impacted community members, the Edwards family’s GoFundMe, provides direct aid to one of many displaced households fighting to survive. A broader directory of displaced Black families seeking support can be found here.

The DC Bus Fare Evasion Crackdown

To make good on the promise implicit in the "Secure DC Omnibus Crime Bill ,” to intensify its war on the Black working class, the DC government is now targeting anyone who can’t afford to pay for public transportation. In December 2024, a new enforcement campaign was launched called “Operation Fare Pays for Your Service” professing an intention to decrease fare evasion on DC’s Metrobus system. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) argues that increased fare enforcement is necessary after reporting that more than 70% of metrobus riders do not pay their fare, and claiming a $50 million dollar loss in annual revenue.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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