What I’m Reading
Democrats delivered a generational spanking to Donald Trump and the Republican Party on Election Day, with frustrated voters across the country making their voices heard at the ballot box.
The South, in particular, had something to say as Republican gerrymandering actually appeared to have led to massive Black voter turnout, stifling some of the steep losses that were projected.
Here were some of the midterm stories I followed:
Keisha Lance Bottoms will become Georgia’s first Black governor and the country’s first Black woman governor, and her victory moved Andrew Young to tears. Related: Black women had major victories across Georgia more broadly.
Democrat Scott Colom for U.S. Senate is in a tight Senate race in Mississippi, and as of today, the race still hasn’t been called. He even flipped a county named for a founder of the KKK. I reported that the NAACP has sent staff to the state to ensure all ballots are being counted. Here’s background on how he got here.
Before Tuesday, only three Black governors had ever been elected. Now, five Black governors will serve at the same time.
Shomari Figures won another term in Congress despite Alabama Republicans reshaping his district.
Angie Nixon may have lost her Senate race in Florida, but she left the door open to another run in 2028.
Virginia voters toppled its Jim Crow-Era lifetime ban on voting.
Juliana Stratton will become the sixth Black woman to serve in the U.S. Senate, joining Senator Angela Alsobrooks and Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester.
Donovan McKinney has restored Detroit’s Black representation in Congress.
Democrat Jamie Davis may have lost his Senate race in Louisiana, but his performance has energized Dems as they look toward next year’s gubernatorial contest.
Black Democratic lawmakers see an opening right now, Calen Razor reports for POLITICO. They are pushing the party to place resources into traditionally red Southern states ahead of 2028. “All roads to the White House will come through the South. We demonstrated that,” Rep. Troy Carter said.
Related: The “Blue Wave” is really a Black tsunami, Brittany Packnett Cunningham writes for The Cut.
Yolanda Renee King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s granddaughter, voted for the first time: ‘This is for my grandparents.”
Anoa J. Changa couldn’t help but be reminded that Stacey Abrams helped open the door that led to Black women’s big wins in Georgia.
In the latest edition of The Color Line Diaries documentary, Asha Stuart takes viewers to Georgia’s Sapelo Island, home to one of the last remaining Gullah Geechee communities in the country.
Residents are fighting to preserve their ancestral land and way of life as rising property taxes and other financial pressures threaten to push families off the island.
What happened to Nolan Wells? His family still wants to know, NY Mag
Four months after Nolan Wells’s unexplained death sparked a national conversation, the residents of Ocean Springs, the Mississippi town where he grew up, want to move on. But his family and friends refuse. “We’re stuck in grief. We’re stuck in questions,” his mother Christine Wells-Wonsley said.
What’s In The News
Across America
California: Nithya Raman will become the next mayor of Los Angeles. Here’s what she says she’ll do for Black Angelenos…
District of Columbia: A Howard University student has created a database for missing and murdered Black women in D.C…
Georgia: Lana Foster said the Echols County school district demoted, mistreated and fired her because she is Black. The Supreme Court is deciding if it will hear the case…
New York: New York Amsterdam News, one of the oldest Black newspapers in the country, is reimagining its headquarters...
Mississippi: Authorities have arrested a suspect in an arson at the police department in Senatobia, the small town where an officer shot and killed 1-year-old Kohen Wiley…
Ohio: Prosecutors have dropped charges against a man they believed to be one of the mass shooters at a Toledo festival, court filings show…
Texas: Turkey Leg Hut co-founder Lynn Price has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for orchestrating an arson attack on a rival business…
Virginia: Cerina Fairfax’s sister is calling for divorce law reform six months after the former lieutenant governor of Virginia killed her…
What’s Happening
Scalawag Magazine explored how enslaved Gullah Geechee people “built a covert spiritual apprenticeship out of dreams, isolation, and African memory, and why the ground it was practiced on is still being fought for today”…
HBCU homecomings shouldn’t pay the price for violence they didn’t cause, Shaun White writes in an op-ed for the Philadelphia Tribune…
LISTEN: Brea Baker spoke with The Nation on reparations as a climate solution...
Evan Moore for the Charlotte Observer: Black women shaped Southern cooking. What does their legacy look like today?...
After 61 years, the historic Forest Theater, a Black cultural landmark in Dallas, makes a grand return…
After two decades of renovations, the Carter G. Woodson Home in Northwest D.C. will reopen to the public on Nov. 7…
Entertainment News
The trailer for “FreeLance,” a comedy television series about a crew of broke, ambitious creatives navigating friendship and life, is out. Watch above.
Michael Wilbon announced he is taking a leave of absence because of what he described as “multiple health issues”...
De La Soul’s Pos shares his honest playlist picks with The Guardian…
2 Chainz has apologized after his debate with Keith Lee over celebrity privilege went viral…
Charles D. King, the founder of Macro, a multi-platform media company dedicated to elevating diverse stories, is the Adcolor | ADWEEK 2027 Beacon Award winner…
NPR Music culture critic Rodney Carmichael asks: Is Jay-Z’s Super Bowl self-selection a crowning achievement or a final affront?...
Lil Baby spoke with The New York Times about taking on new challenges…
The hit Black soap opera “Beyond The Gates” has won four daytime Emmys in its first year of eligibility…
The latest PUMA collaboration spotlights multiple sororities and fraternities in the Divine Nine…
Cosmopolitan: The beauty industry wants us to fear aging, but Black women didn’t get the memo…
Cynthia Erivo has been cast as Tupac’s mother in the Snoop Dogg biopic...
Obituaries
Marcia Ann Gillespie, the visionary magazine editor who led ESSENCE and Ms. magazines, has died. She was 82…
Juan Atkins, a trailblazing Detroit producer who co-founded techno music, has died. He was 64…
Taurian Fontenett, the Houston basketball legend who made a name for himself in the AND1 streetball circuit as “Air Up There,” has died. He was 43…
Carolyn Bailey Lewis, the first Black woman to lead a public television station in the continental U.S., has died. She was 78…
James Freddy Allen, a key leader who helped Morris Brown College regain accreditation after a 20-year hiatus, has died...
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 12 seconds…
This weekend, the Auburn Avenue Research Library is hosting Afrofuturist creators, scholars, and technologists for a dynamic discussion on the power and cultural impact of Black speculative arts. The conference is virtual and in-person in Georgia…
Marc Lamont Hill is headed to Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee and Books to discuss his latest book, “Schooling Against the Prison,” on Nov. 16…