My first story for ContrabandCamp, Bloody Sunday, RIP D’Wayne Wiggins
Here's what caught my eye this week.
What I’m Reading
Check out my first story for Michael Harriot ‘s media outlet ContrabandCamp! A school district in the suburbs of Pittsburgh rejected a Black author's book about the Tulsa race massacre for its curriculum. I talked to Alabama-based YA author Randi Pink about what happened next.
60 years after Bloody Sunday, activists remember the Black women behind the curtain, 19th News
This weekend marks the 60th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” and the Selma March to Montgomery. The 19th News spoke to activists who remember the Black women who fed, protected and housed those who traveled to Selma in 1965 to march for voting rights.
Related: The Institute for Common Power will belive-streaming from the 60th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March starting on March 7…
A Black Studies Curriculum Is (Defiantly) Rolling Out in New York City, The New York Times
President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning diversity and equity programming in government and schools. However, many K-12 educators are still moving forward with their plans for a Black Studies curriculum.
What’s In The News
Across America
Alabama: Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted the death sentence of Robin “Rocky” Myers to life in prison without parole…
District of Columbia: After a years-long fight, the full version of the African American Civil War Memorial Museum is set to open…
Georgia: Rep. Lucy McBath has taken her first step toward a bid for governor of Georgia in 2026. The U.S. has never had a Black woman governor before…
Illinois: Skyway Lanes, the last Black-owned bowling alley in Chicago, is making a last-ditch effort to stay open…
Michigan: Sam Robinson of Detroit one million reports Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist is expected to announce he’s running for Michigan governor next Tuesday…
North Carolina: High Point University will remove “equality,” “gender,” “black & latinx,” “white” & “white supremacy” and more from all “documents, events & presentations”...
New York: The New York Amsterdam News, one of the oldest Black newspapers in the country, is converting most of its Harlem building into a museum and community space…
Virginia: The remains of hundreds of Black tenant farmers are being moved from a former tobacco plantation to make way for an industrial park…
What’s Happening
Rep. Al Green of Texas was censured for disrupting Trump’s speech this week…Oakland’s Lateefah Simon offered a “prebuttal”…Civil rights advocates and public figures held a State of the People in protest…
The New York Times: “Black churches across the country recently were awarded more than $8 million in grants, part of an effort to preserve buildings that played significant roles in Black history”…
A building in Montgomery that houses the historic Freedom Riders Museum seems to be part of a DOGE-ordered sell-off of federal properties…
The Virginia Military Institute board voted against extending the contract of its first Black superintendent, who led diversity efforts at the college…
The District of Columbia plans to paint over the yellow “Black Lives Matter” mural near the White House…
From Aaron Foley : “On weekends, Stanford University professor Adam Banks flies from the California campus to Cleveland, on a mission to teach a college-level African American studies class to the Black community — for free”...
After a study found carcinogens in synthetic braiding hair, DeMicia Inman reached out to experts to better understand the report and assuage fears…
The New York Times: “In the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, a group of Black women created restaurants that changed New York dining”...
For the Chronicle, Jasper Smith spoke to Howard University faculty concerned that Ibram Kendi is using the HBCU's brand to fix his image…
Bank of America has dropped some of its diversity initiatives…A prominent Atlanta megachurch pastor called on his community to boycott Target for 40 days…
$75 million was awarded to plant trees in neighborhoods that badly need them but can’t afford them. Thanks to the anti-DEI attack, that initiative has been terminated…
Members of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity at Southern University reportedly lied to authorities about where Caleb Wilson’s death occurred…
A Black neighborhood in this Michigan suburb was once targeted for demolition. Now it’s home to $1 million condos…
Mother Jones’ incredible “40 Acres and a Lie” project won an Investigative Reporters & Editors award…
Entertainment News
UPDATE: Tony! Toni! Toné! founding member D’Wayne Wiggins died Friday morning, according to family. He was 64…
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Maya Cade recommends five films by Black women filmmakers to urgently watch…
Duane "Keffe D" Davis gave ABC News his first interview since being arrested and charged in the murder of Tupac…
Vulture: “Toni Morrison’s only staged play ran for four weeks to mixed reviews and Morrison later asked for copies of the play not to circulate. Why did the novelist’s only staged drama disappear for so long?”...
For the New Yorker, Doreen St. Felix wrote about the "deeply satisfying" series, "Paradise"...
“Wicked's” Paul Tazewell made history by becoming the first Black man to win an Oscar for best costume design…
Read an excerpt from Lisa Gail Collins’ book, “Stitching Love and Loss: A Gee’s Bend Quilt,” which explores how quilting preserves memory in a Black farming community in Alabama…
The San Francisco Symphony has “paused” the Emerging Black Composers Project in the wake of Trump’s attack on DEI initiatives…
NASCAR has countersued Michael Jordan’s team, Front Row Motorsports, claiming it to be a part of an “illegal cartel”...
Obituaries
Dr. Hazel Nell Dukes, civil rights activist and president of the NAACP New York State Conference, has died. She was 92…
Sylvester Turner, a newly elected Texas congressman and former mayor of Houston, has died. He was 70…
Angie Stone, a soul and R&B singer known for hits like “No More Rain (In This Cloud),” has died. She was 63…
Roy Ayers, the iconic vibraphonist, composer and producer behind “Everyone Loves the Sunshine,” has died. He was 84…
Luther Keith, a groundbreaking Detroit journalist and musician, has died. He was 74…
Michael Gonzales remembers his friend, the late Barry Michael Cooper, and the time when Harlem was Harlem...
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 47 seconds!...
ICYMI: My podcast with Jewel Rodgers explained how she became Nebraska’s first Black state poet and she gave us a taste of her poetry at the end…
If you need a laugh, this story about a flexible uncle from Facebook was absolutely hilarious…
Jemele Hill explores why Howard University is the only HBCU with a swim team and how public pools were once a hotbed for racism in America…
BlackStack has put out an open call for contributing writers…
Jelani Cobb , dean of The Columbia University School of Journalism, will deliver the 2025 Reuters Memorial Lecture at the University of Oxford on March 10th. Those of us in the U.S. can catch it on Zoom…
If you’re in the DC area, the Washington Association of Black Journalists has teamed up with the Washington Informer and the Afro for Black Press Sunday on March 16 at Metropolitan AME Church, starting at 10 am. We will be commemorating the 198th anniversary of the Black press…
Photographers: The Black Women Photographers x Nikon Inc. Grants are accepting applications for 2025! Apply by March 28…
Wow! Thank you so much for the shoutout!