Category: Race and Ethnicity in America
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On June 19, 1865 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas and let people know that the Civil War had ended and the enslaved were free. This news—and the Union soldiers necessary to enforce the law—made it to Galveston two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect. "Juneteenth" became celebrated within black communities…
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Lesbian couples raising children in the suburbs of my city, Washington, DC, got a one-two punch in the last three weeks. First the Maryland Court of Appeals ruled that when only one member of the couple had adopted the child they were both parenting, and then the couple split up, that the child had only…
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Oregon—where I live—held its primary election on May 20. For the first time since I moved here for college in 1972, the primary actually meant something to the presidential contest. Always in the past our primary is so late in the game that the presidential candidates for both parties have already been crowned. This exceedingly…
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As E. J. Graff points out in this New Republic article, last week’s decision in California giving marriage rights to same-sex couples offers a lot to be excited about, and not as much for the Democrats to worry about as some of the hand-wringing pundits might lead you to believe. Graff, whose book What is…
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California, we are so happy to have you join us. It’s hardly a “from sea to shining sea moment” of marriage equality, but now Massachusetts and California have shown the country that equal marriage is fundamental to freedom and liberty. The threats to the marriage equality movement in California will probably continue, just as they…
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David Bacon, author of the forthcoming Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants , sent these pictures from Oakland in the wake of last week’s raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) near schools in Oakland and Berkeley. You can read more about the impact the raids had on school children in Oakland at…
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In 2006, Mexico experienced profound social turmoil. Dramatic political and economic conflicts uprooted and displaced thousands of families, forcing many to consider leaving home. Teachers struck in Oaxaca, and after their demonstrations were tear-gassed, a virtual insurrection paralyzed the state capitol for months.
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We recently posted about Beacon Press author Bill Ayers and his connection to Barack Obama. Stanley Fish posted about the controversy on his blog at the New York Times, and "confesses" his own association with Bill Ayers: Did I conspire with Bill Ayers? Did I help him build bombs? Did I aid and abet his…
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Kai Wright, author of Drifting Toward Love: Black, Brown, Gay, and Coming of Age on the Streets of New York, wrote a piece for the American Prospect online in remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. "Dr. King, Forgotten Radical," is a call to rescue King's legacy from a narrative…
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I was on a semi-vacation last week, so this week’s link roundup is a bit larger than normal. Enjoy! Howard Zinn is adding to his People’s History of the United States with a new graphic novel, A People’s History of the American Empire. Read about it at Tom Dispatch, and check out this Viggo Mortensen-narrated…
