Four years ago, the Coalition Against Police Crimes launched Re-imagining Public Safety as a public education campaign to disclose how much money the City of St. Louis was spending on a failed arrest-and-incarceration model. The workshops that took place all over the city allowed participant…
Voters deserve every opportunity to be heard and have their votes counted. Unflinching Democrats like state Representative Wiley Price (D-St. Louis) led the charge and uplifted our demands around democracy with the passage of SB631, which allows all Missouri voters who are not at high risk …
It has been over 90 days since the coronavirus pandemic began infecting our communities, disproportionately killing our people, exacerbating Black grief and disrupting the traditions of how we collectively mourn. The city is eagerly returning to business as usual as leaders have begun to mov…
On Sunday, June 28, Mark and Patricia McCloskey stood on the lawn of their St. Louis, Missouri mansion, pointing their guns at protesters as they passed down their street. After this incident, the couple released a statement through their attorney indicating that the message “Black Lives Mat…
The seven-hour Board of Aldermen meeting on Monday, June 29 has to be the low of my nearly six years on the board. My heart aches for our city.
In 1991, I was the Brevard County, Florida, champion for ninth-grade boys in the one-mile race.
If, like me, you stand as one of few black people in your field speaking out about race, the “angry black woman or man” label may be used to silence you. If that happens, embrace the “angry” label and channel it to make changes in policies and practices.
Conventional wisdom has always dictated that the path to change in America is through the ballot box. Voting is a sacred and valued right regardless of where you find yourself politically. So, one would think that our election commissions would be diverse institutions. If we are to maximize …
America is obviously having a Man in the Mirror moment on the issue of race as the result of the police murder of George Floyd. In the ensuing three weeks we have seen multiethnic, multiracial mass protests against the system of American policing. These protests have not only touched every c…
In August 1955, during a long-hot Mississippi summer, 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured, brutalized, and murdered by two white men. Their racist motivation was explicit and public knowledge that they infamously bragged about their depravity to their friends and neighbors. They were white …
It was August 9, 2014 when Michael Brown was shot and killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri.
Will Mayor-elect Ella Jones be the change needed to turn Ferguson around?
Right now, we are all in a state of confusion and uncertainty. Some are working to balance new responsibilities, as schools have closed and our kids have become our coworkers. Many are reeling from the unexpected financial strain from furloughs and layoffs.
As I sat in my bed on June 10 recuperating from a surgery that many women, especially black women, experience daily, I received an email from Tod Robberson, editorial page editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As I read the email I was once again reminded of the utter disdain and toxic masc…
First, I’d like to offer my prayers to those who were injured on Monday, June 1, especially the retired officer who was killed and the officers who were shot. My heart also goes out to the small businesses that were damaged while trying to re-open after stay-at-home orders were lifted.
One of the great privileges of being your congressman is the occasion I have to meet and talk with young people. Often, they come to my office in groups or I travel to various campuses and classrooms to hear their views, understand the issues of importance to them, and/or to debate with them…
When you sit in a place that sustained the longest organized protest in modern history, people think you know something. Or at least have some lessons to share about how to deal with spontaneous uprisings. The questions, coming in from organizers in Minneapolis, Atlanta, Oakland, and other c…
I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, a suburb of our nation’s capital, in the early sixties. I am the youngest of six children, the third son in an Irish Catholic family. My mother was a grade school teacher and my father a federal-government civil servant. We lacked for nothing, and only late…
When dealing with the political establishment, always remember that whatever they say it is, it ain’t that. This has never been truer than when discussing policing in America.
Dear Governor Parson,
We are the Mound City Bar Association, the oldest black bar association west of the Mississippi River. We know what we are seeing when we watch a police officer choke the life out of a black man in broad daylight by holding his knee against the man’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, wi…
As I reflect on recent incidents of civil unrest and protests across the country, and indeed across the world, I am angry and heartsick at the realization that time has not “healed all wounds.” Today, we are preparing to send our recent graduates into a world that is facing two pandemics: on…
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers but apparently the showers of April continued to cultivate and fertilize the seedlings and the fruit on the trees infected with the deadly pestilence of white idolatry and so-called supremacy.
On May 26 of this already hellacious year, George Floyd was murdered by a police officer and his accomplices in Minneapolis. I am tired of talking to and explaining basic concepts to white people. They know right from wrong; it’s why they wait until the hoods are ready or the badges are best…
I am always shocked when I hear leaders suggest that the COVID-19 crises somehow brought to the forefront disparities in our region and beyond. Each time there is a crisis, we have conditioned ourselves to use this same language. Let’s be clear: while disparity operates in full sunlight righ…
What shall virtue do to meet brute force?
As you are aware, there has been a national response to the murder of African Americans by police officers over the prior weeks. We are all terribly saddened by the most recent tragic deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and the St. Louis Regional Chamber stands as an a…
The right to vote is not up for debate, nor is it conditional. Voting serves as the cornerstone of our democracy, and we must stop at nothing to protect it. One of the most valuable pathways to cultivating structural solutions that shape our reality is through our electoral system.
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers but apparently the showers of April continued to cultivate and fertilize the seedlings and the fruit on the trees infected with the deadly pestilence of white idolatry and so-called supremacy.
Minneapolis Burning did not begin with Police Officer Derek Chauvin placing an NFL-style knee on the neck of George Floyd—it started with Trump’s whisper.
The Ethical Society of Police is absolutely disgusted and angry over the senseless murder of Mr. George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department.
As a sportsman, I have learned to view and treat all people the same regardless of their race, place of origin, gender, sexual orientation, or social class. My sports career has been characterized by over three decades of active participation in running. My love for exercising and the traini…
Stark truths often come most into focus in a crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic has once more laid bare the stark reality of being members of a minority community without the resources so many others take for granted. As a reverend, I’ve officiated at and attended the funerals of too many struck …
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed shameful corruption while most of us are fighting to defend ourselves from the deadly virus and maintain our households. We are seeing untold corporate and government power-grabbing. The theft of our tax dollars under the guise of support for working familie…
In 2007, the voters of St. Louis bestowed upon me the honor of being their representative in the Missouri General Assembly. For the past 13 years, in both the Missouri House and Senate, I’ve stood alongside parents and teachers to work for better schools and safer streets. I’ve brought milli…
The racial disparities in COVID-19 cases and fatalities are devastating, but not surprising. The explanations put forward include the usual suspects, such as poor access to care, lack of quality healthcare, poor housing conditions, poverty. Even worse, leaders often point to the higher rates…
Three criminal bills filed during the current Missouri legislative session warrant attention in the City of St. Louis. Senate Bills 602 and 889 and House Bill 1900 would take away the power of voters in the City of St. Louis to elect their own prosecutor with the same discretionary prosecuto…
As the old adage goes, “when White America sneezes, Black America gets the flu.”
St. Louis needs to coordinate a fair and efficient way to keep families housed during the post-pandemic economic fallout. Fortunately, we know what to do – a robust homelessness prevention system stabilized thousands of St. Louis families during the Great Recession. We must quickly move to e…
Why are black people dying at such a disproportionate and alarming rate from COVID-19? Because of its devastation, this pandemic of can be known as the Black Death of the 21st Century, and I put emphasis on black.
There’s usually a bit of grimacing and wincing when the media puts out bad information about African Americans. This time it’s about the disproportionate number of blacks falling prey to COVID-19. In these moments, you kind of wish for a bit of code-switching.
I have seen some clever memes on social media about the instant home-schooling situation created by the COVID-19 crises. A few of them got a good chuckle out of me. I could tell a number of the memes were concocted or circulated by educators who wondered out loud, “Now you see I wasn’t lying…
I do not have the new coronavirus. But I am running for Missouri’s 5th Senate District alongside it. Like all of us, I never expected to be living – or campaigning – under these conditions. Even though we were not prepared for this pandemic, we’re fighting back. We’re going to beat it, and I…
I’m aware of the Trump administration’s inept management of the COVID-19 national strategy, as well as the general lack of testing within the African-American community. These things, undoubtedly, put the black community at a higher risk for contracting the virus, exacerbated by underlying h…
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought extreme changes to our daily lives. Suddenly, an unprecedented number of neighbors are confronted with unimaginable circumstances stemming from job and wage loss to lack of access to food, shelter, childcare and healthcare. Though new challenges for many, th…
For many of us, watching both the unwavering cult-like support of Donald Trump and the passivity of some of the news media is confusing and frustrating. How do people not recognize Trump as dangerous, despotic, and maybe even demented? How could 93% of Republicans and 43% of Americans still …
The IRS has asked us at the National Association of Black Accountants to get the word out to the community (particularly those who do not usually file a tax return) so they know that $1,200 is waiting for them as part of the Economic Impact Payment (Stimulus program).
“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." – G. K. Chesterton
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