Recently, I’ve had the honor and the pleasure of being in the lives of 90-ish year-old Black women. We’re all related by blood. Three of the women are biologically related; the others share the ancient blood of an African people running through our veins. What I’m learning about their lives …
Peniel Joseph calls it the Third Reconstruction. His latest book of the same name chronicles the cyclical and violent white backlash to Black progress in this country. You can see the highly coordinated, racist strategy being carried out across the country now—just as it has been in previous…
Nearly 25 years ago when the Coalition Against Police Crimes & Repression formed, one of its three demands was that police officers must be recruited from the communities they served.
The Honorable David C. Mason made the wise decision last month to allow Lamar Johnson’s hearing to be livestreamed.
For most suburban communities in the U.S., the goal is to live quietly--under the radar. This doesn’t mean that all is well or that all are happy.
When Congresswoman Cori Bush was recently arrested following an abortion rights protest at the U.S. Supreme Court Building conservative critics called her out.
These are a few words that former St. Louis Alderman John Collins-Muhammad allegedly said to ‘John Doe’ in a pay-to-play scheme that is rocking the city. Doe was being assured that he was going to get a big “hook-up” once he made a big payoff.
The United States has hit a dreadful milestone in the pandemic. More than one million COVID deaths. One. Million. Lives.
Proposition R passed with nearly 70% of approval by St. Louis voters. Proposition B received 61% of county voters. Both reform measures could be heard as screams of voters being sick and tired of being sick and tired; sick and tired of the indifference, incompetence, and alleged corruption o…
The state of Wisconsin is the latest to smack down voting rights, the effort fueled by its GOP. A recent decision by the conservative controlled U.S. Supreme Court to block Wisconsin’s redistricting map is another bad omen for voting rights.
I have been intrigued at the interest and concern that Black people around me are expressing towards Ukraine. Not movement folks, the usual suspects. I’m talking about people waiting in the grocery line, at the gas pump, on class alumni calls. Intrigued, not because I think we don't care abo…
In some ways, 2020 toughened us up for this year but also sucked up a lot of our energy, resilience, and optimism. With the challenges we faced, it feels like you’ve aged years since COVID-19 struck.
The Mississippi case now before the U.S. Supreme Court challenges Roe v. Wade in the harshest terms ever and before a conservative court with justices hostile to the current law of the land.
It's been six weeks now. The ceremonies marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks have come and gone. There were memorials. The names of the nearly 3,000 victims killed in the attacks were read and memorialized— again. American flags waved. Twenty years later, we still don’t know the …
No matter how one tries to clean it up, spin it, suppress it or lie about it, the facts are irrefutable and compelling.
Children are dying because of COVID-19. More specifically, they are most likely being infected and dying because of adults around them.
The images of the US military’s withdrawal from Afghanistan are both heartbreaking and infuriating.
“Who really cares, to save a world in despair…little children today are really going to suffer tomorrow.”
Professor Derrick Bell has probably been turning in his grave.
June is Pride Month. The 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York was a flashpoint when gay folks in this country got sick and tired of being harassed, humiliated and assaulted because of their sexual orientation and gender identities. The successful resistance was celebrated the following year a…
Mayor Tishaura Jones has asked citizens to help decide how best to use $500 million in federal stimulus funds. This is a variation of “participatory budgeting.” St. Louis could very well be placing a huge amount of money into the hands of city residents – and they will make some the most imp…
May 13 and May 31 are the respective anniversaries of two of the most horrific events and their aftermath in American history.
Tennessee state Rep. Justin Lafferty recently extolled the goodness of the so-called “Three-Fifths Compromise” on the House floor, saying it was an honest effort to end slavery.
Days before the verdict of Derek Chauvin, I saw a meme on social media that basically said nothing had changed since the beating of Rodney King except the quality of the video. The poignant reference was about the flood of videos that have publicized the brutal assaults and cold-blooded murd…
The Organization for Black Struggle worked the polls in the 22nd Ward on Election Day. An elderly voter approached the polling place entrance, taking slow and cautious steps with her walker. She was greeted by an enthusiastic OBS member who understood the obvious hardship it was for the sen…
The Oprah Winfrey interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was a bombshell for many. The way biracial Meghan was being treated by The Royals was no surprise to most of us. And some of us knew that sistah-girl was not likely to put up with it for long. A few thought out loud that Meghan …
The threat is real. The vote is under attack. Two narratives are duking it out: voter fraud vs. voter protection. What’s becoming a tit for tat in a high stakes match must end in a resounding victory for voting rights. It should be more permanent than the Voting Rights of 1964.
It’s election time. Some people equate elections with political power. I see elections as just one way political power shows up. The struggle for Black political power is not only about who we elect. It has also been about creating the conditions that guide people to stand up to social, econ…
When I first saw the images of three gaping openings at the City Justice Center, I saw them as possible escape routes. If I was one of the detainees who knocked out the windows on Feb. 6 in protest of conditions, I think I would’ve jumped for safety and supported the demands from an unknown…
This past year has been a year to remember. The country endured the most openly corrupt and divisive administration in modern times. Our resilience and sanity was tested with the worst pandemic in 100 years. We discovered that our planet is deteriorating at a much faster rate than previously…
The response to news of Circuit Judge Thomas Clark II’s ruling was swift. Social media was a-blaze. The ruling to disqualify St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner from prosecuting the case of the gun-waving McCloskeys smacks of racism, white privilege and sexism.
I can hardly believe this country refuses to take the pandemic seriously. The coronavirus is raging across this country with no slow-down in sight. With more than 14 million cases, and deaths barreling past the 300,000 mark, there’s still no national coordinated plan to contain the virus.
The November election was a reset button for a country in racist free fall. When the curtain finally goes down on the presidential race, white supremacy can take its bow as second runner up. The gap between the Democratic and Republican tickets should’ve been a gulf instead of a sliver. Blac…
We’ve been busy organizing and strategizing for a regime change in the White House. We’ve been ducking and dodging COVID-19 in the face of no national, coordinated plan. It must’ve seen like a good opportunity for the three cops involved in the murder of Breonna Taylor and the traumatization…
Nothing has been more gut wrenching for fair-minded voters to witness than to see the implementation of Florida’s Amendment 4 stopped cold in its tracks. It is a trend that is sweeping across the country and Missouri has had its own experiences on the Republican-led legislatures totally disr…
When St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell recently announced that there would be no indictment of former Ferguson cop Darren Wilson, it ignited a range of emotions from outrage to disappointment. For many, the historic election of Bell as the county’s first African-American prosecutor wou…
The man in the White House masquerading as a president flaunted his blatant disrespect of the law when he pardoned another one of his felon friends. At the same time, people like Lamar Johnson have been rotting for 25 years in a Missouri cage for a crime he didn’t commit. That’s why folks ar…
The era of Big Brother government is here, and only informed citizens can stop it.
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
The world was first made aware of a coronavirus case in China last December. The U.S. was hit with its first confirmed COVID-19 case on January 20. Still, there is no comprehensive, coordinated national plan to stop the deadly virus, which I put squarely at the feet a president who is dismis…
The situation with COVID-19 is worth watching for several reasons. The coronavirus has infected nearly 110,000 people and killed 3,800 people in 100 countries. Just recently, a case popped up in St. Louis County, so now our region is part of the growing global statistics.
In 1998, the women’s unit of the Organization for Black Struggle read a piece by feminist bell hooks as part of our political education session. It totally changed our outlook about being black women. Inspired, we named ourselves Sistahs Talkin’ Back. I’ve been thinking about hook’s “Talking…
A new year is supposed to usher in hope and new possibilities. Sadly, there is little in the St. Louis region’s history that exudes the promise of change. I am the eternal optimist only because I put my faith in everyday people, not the corrupt and incompetent people who thrive off power and…
All holidays in the U.S. are highly commercialized. Christmas is the most commercialized to the tune of $475 billion, according to National Retail Federation estimates. Lost in those billions is a big portion of the $1 trillion-plus spending power of black folks. Our consumerism rarely comes…
The fate of Coach Trey Porter has finally been determined. Some would say the determination had little to do with his violation of the social media policy. Others would say the decision had nothing to do with enriching the lives of the students at Roosevelt High School. I side with the latte…
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