When challenged to summarize in a nutshell the core meaning of love, Jesus Christ replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment.

Certain moments define a society and its leaders. And this is one of them. How we treat human life in the face of this unprecedented health crisis, will be the measure of who we really are as a people.

Guardians of the status quo – like Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt, the reactionaries at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and St. Louis Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards – are doing what they always do when their systems of power are called into question: they are resorti…

How is COVID-19 affecting me?

It is disheartening to witness people stating that they will not vote for Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders.

(Snap.) Nope this is not a dream or a drill.  

Many restaurants operate on a first-come, first-served basis. Shoppers in the United States expect this; however, this orderly approach to gaining access to service lost standing in Italy. As COVID-19 spreads throughout the Italian countryside, the demand for respirators and ICUs exceeds the…

St. Louis and St. Louis County have recorded their first deaths in our region that are a result of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. T​he region confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 10​, with the first few cases that followed noted to have been contracted from r…

The 2020 U.S. Census began collecting information on March 12, and it is important that everyone complete their survey. The Census, which only happens every 10 years, counts every adult and child living in our country. It helps our government figure out how much money each state gets for imp…

We write to you with utmost urgency to enact a statewide shelter-in-place order to help slow the spread of COVID-19 across Missouri. While we appreciate the recent actions to limit social gatherings and enact other social and physical distancing protocols, the rapid infection rate and rising…

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, which started in Wuhan, China in December 2019, has marched across the globe and wreaked a path of death and debility that may soon eclipse the great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. COVID-19 is now present in every continent except for Antarctic…

The new coronavirus presents an opportunity for Americans to reconsider what it means to be part of a sick society. The virus’ spread is hastened by systemic poverty, as potentially expensive treatments, no national sick leave guarantee, and school closures disproportionately affect lower-in…

While unemployment numbers are low around the St. Louis area and some see nothing but good times on the horizon, there is another reality that some live with every day – a grinding poverty that eats away at our city and surrounding suburbs.

“One of my colleagues said to me, this is the first time I’ve seen a political billboard without a picture on it. Why isn’t your picture on it?” U.S. Rep. James Clyburn said.

It’s time for a come to Jesus meeting with all North St. Louis County elected officials. It’s time we put it all on the table and walk away with an understanding, strategy and agenda.

While we see a record number of 19 anti-LGBTQ bills in the Missouri Legislature this year, we are also seeing a record number of voices being shut out from testifying on issues that directly impact them. I was one of the parents who was stifled while fighting for my kid.

What is a pandemic? A pandemic is a disease outbreak that is global in nature. Pandemics are well documented in the recorded history of humankind.  A brief review of other pandemics sets the stage for our current challenge with the coronavirus or COVID-19, while providing lessons to inform a…

“If our people are not counted, they literally do not receive the resources necessary,” said Stacy Abrams, founder of Fair Count and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee. “And as a consequence, we have weaker infrastructure, we have terrible hospitals, we have doctor shortages, we have overc…

Who cares for our babies? This question comes in the midst of conversations around school closures.

I have been involved in politics or civil rights since 1963.

I first met Alderman Sam Moore in 2007, when I was a freshman building preservationist tilting at windmills as much to learn how to tilt as to strike the windmills. Moore had just taken office and had pressed the city’s Land Reutilization Authority to demolish some 39 vacant historic buildin…

I admire St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly Gardner’s strategic moves to turn the tables on a cadre of powerful, well connected individuals she believes are complicit in a coordinated, racist conspiracy aimed at forcing her out of office.

According to the Thursday, February 13, edition of the Monitor, East St. Louis Superintendent Arthur Culver said, “We expect our teams to conduct themselves in a manner that will protect the safety of athletes, officials, coaches, and spectators at sporting events. We regret that our cheerle…

Since 1976, every American president has issued a proclamation making February a month of  celebrating the amazing contributions African-American men and women have made to our nation’s landscape. As the first black woman to be appointed district director for the Small Business Administratio…

Throughout my political career, I have believed in second chances. I believe that people can change. I believe that your past shouldn’t get to define you.

As Missouri’s legislative session opens, this is a great time to discuss closing the pay gap, a public policy issue deserving urgent attention. Also known as Equal Pay for Equal Work, it addresses the fact that men, particularly non-Latino white men, make more money than women doing the same…

The recent acquittal of President Trump by the U.S. Senate has paved the way for an expansion of his anti-immigrant policy agenda. 

This open letter was submitted by the undersigned 31 residents of St. Louis County. 

 When I was accepted to medical school coming out of Tennessee State University I knew very little about the long, arduous process ahead of me. Much like the community of HBCU collegiate faculty, family members, friends, and folks from my church home who were invaluable cheerleaders along my…

There are two questions for me to answer as a juror in the impeachment trial of President Donald J. Trump: whether President Trump is guilty of abusing his power as president for his own political gain and whether he obstructed Congress in their investigation of him.

A city divided. Tear gas. Flamethrowers. Angry faces screaming from crowds. Hate-filled, pain-filled marches. Suffering. All accumulating into one, unforgettable summer of hate.

This was not an exoneration, it was a spineless perpetuation of a dangerous cover-up. Republicans in the U.S. Senate turned a blind eye to the facts, refused to allow witnesses and documents that would have uncovered the whole truth, and surrendered congressional oversight to an amoral presi…

In the last election, voters in every state senate district approved Amendment 1 – also known as Clean Missouri – to increase fairness, accountability, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. Thanks to Clean Missouri, our state constitution now includes nonpartisan redistricting ref…

I must have been 14 years old when I was arrested for shoplifting in the St. Louis Galleria Mall. I was a young boy from North St. Louis, we were poor and I wanted to have what other kids had. The encounter with police was terrifying, but what I remember most clearly are the judge’s words: “…

We have a short-sided view of funding important functions provided by our state. It has been my lifelong experience that no one likes to pay taxes and more often than not feel that they are over-paying and that others pay too little. I have tried to listen to as many points of view as possib…

Nearly 52 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched with striking sanitation workers in Memphis, who were demanding higher pay, safe working conditions and the right to a union. “It’s a crime in a rich nation for people to receive starvation wages,” he said. Those were Dr. King’s final d…

With the recent news of the release of the Close the Workhouse campaign’s 2.0 report, City Resolution 205, and growing public official support, I wanted to voice why this needs to happen and share my first-hand account.

In the early 1970s Detroit elected Coleman Young, its first black mayor. In an effort to diversify the disproportionately white Detroit Police Department, Mayor Young passed a residency requirement. A residency requirement makes it so those applying to work in the city must reside in the cit…

The resolution of issues like school closings typically starts with some type of branding campaign complete with, slogans, comforting language which conveys compassion and leadership, as well as the closures being labeled as the soundest financial decision. With respect to Saint Louis Public…

In the last election, voters in every state senate district approved Amendment 1 – also known as Clean Missouri – to increase fairness, accountability, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. Thanks to Clean Missouri, our state constitution now includes nonpartisan redistricting ref…

As a body of men and women of color employed as criminal justice practitioners, the members and Board of Directors of the National Association of Black Law Enforcement Officers have, since their inception, consistently taken an active stance against police brutality, racially discriminatory …

In 2006, George Alvarez was charged with assaulting a prison guard while awaiting trial on public intoxication. He knew he didn’t do it — the guards actually jumped him — but the 10-year mandatory minimum sentence at trial scared him so much that he pled guilty. Little did he know that the g…

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy,” said Martin Luther King Jr. “Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. T…

The 2020 census is this year’s most empowering and democratic event for the United States.

I recently moved to St. Louis (in June 2019) after graduating from Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. I was shocked at how prevalent the disparities in the region were. Many of my peers had a hard time believing what I was being exposed to. So I created a video as a way to display the …

On August 19, 1979, I woke up at my home across the street from Homer G. Phillips Hospital to helicopters flying overhead. To my surprise, the St. Louis Police Department had surrounded the hospital. The streets of The Ville neighborhood were barricaded for four blocks in every direction. Ph…

“When the United States uses military force, the American people and members of the United States Armed Forces deserve a credible explanation regarding such use of military force. The War Powers Resolution requires the President to consult with Congress ‘’in every possible instance’’ before …

Spoken on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in support of H.Con.Res 83, a War Powers Resolution he co-cosponsored, limiting the president’s military actions regarding Iran.