Writers strike ends, Dallas mayor switches to GOP, prayers for Krayzie Bone
Writers strike ends, Dallas mayor switches to GOP, prayers for Krayzie Bone
Friday, September 29, 2023.
What I’m Reading
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Army sprayed a potential carcinogen into the air of a Black St. Louis housing project. The government contends it was harmless. A group of residents today are leading the charge seeking compensation and health studies. They say the secretive testing contributed to various illnesses and premature deaths.
Government should pay compensation for secretive Cold War-era testing, St. Louis victims say, The Associated Press
Bonnie Erwin, a disabled Black inmate who has served 39 years, was sentenced a few years too early to qualify for “compassionate release.” His former lawyer became a Republican congressman who ended up voting against it. He is 81 years old, and partially paralyzed on his right side from a stroke.
Incarcerated for Life, an Inmate Is Left Behind by Prison Reforms, The New York Times
For Vanity Fair, Morgan Jenkins explored a topic she’s been wanting to delve into for some time. She investigated Italian-American screen icons and “their half-century-long Black American fandom through the fallacy of the American Dream, the spectrum of whiteness, and masculinity.”
The Outsiders: Why Black Audiences Love Italian American Screen Icons, Vanity Fair
What’s In The News
Across America
Alabama: The Supreme Court handed a defeat to Alabama Republicans for the second time in three months, rejecting their latest attempt to use a congressional map that includes only one majority-Black district…
Arkansas: Five of the eight surviving Little Rock Nine members, who desegregated Central High School in Arkansas more than 65 years ago, are speaking out about efforts to limit history education across the United States…
California: “Decades of redlining continue to perpetuate racial and socioeconomic inequality in the San Francisco Bay Area and across the country,” according to research from UC Berkeley School of Public Health…
Florida: A Florida representative is calling on Jacksonville to increase resources in the city’s Black communities a month after the mass shooting at a Dollar General…
Illinois: Twenty years ago, Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama sponsored a bill to combat racial profiling by police by compiling and reporting traffic stop data. Today, however, Black drivers are being stopped more than ever…
Kentucky: An open records request shows Kentucky's GOP attorney general barely communicated with senior staff in a year and a half. His office won't say why…
Maryland: A man wrongly convicted of two separate violent crimes will be compensated by the state after spending years behind bars, including over a year after he had been proven innocent…
Massachusetts: Boston announced that it’s looking for partners to put together research on the city’s ties and role in slavery, as its Reparations Task Force moves forward with understanding and addressing the legacy of the slave trade…
Michigan: Black teens from Detroit are following in the footsteps of the Tuskegee Airmen through a free program that teaches young people how to fly, while exposing them to careers in the aviation industry…
Mississippi: The Brookhaven police department, which recently caused a mistrial in a case that drew national attention, has “competency issues” in its investigations unit that impede the department’s effectiveness, an independent investigator found…
North Carolina: North Carolina recently passed a bill that “could give the GOP legislature the ability to overturn results and cut early voting in Democratic areas”...
Oklahoma: The Southern Baptist Convention expelled a rural Oklahoma church from its membership after pictures and video show its pastor impersonating Ray Charles in blackface at a talent show…
Oregon: A Black mother and daughter have been receiving death threats and racist abuse from a tenant for months after moving into an apartment in Portland…
Rhode Island: Washington Trust Company, the oldest community bank in the nation, has agreed to pay $9 million to resolve allegations it engaged in lending discrimination by redlining majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in the state…
South Carolina: Residents of Atlantic Beach in South Carolina are suing to stop the development of a 21-story oceanfront hotel and condo project in the historically Black town…
Tennessee: A Coffee County judge denied a man’s request that he be allowed to publicly share unredacted footage of a misdemeanor traffic stop that led to all five of his young children being sent to foster care…
Texas: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced that he is switching to the Republican Party…
Features
From Kaylah McMillan for USA Today: I survived the foster care system. Dismantling it is the only path forward…
Leaders at HBCUs and admissions experts are anticipating a big jump in applications following this summer's Supreme Court decision outlawing race-based affirmative action policies…
From Lynsey Paschal-Bennett for HuffPost: I became a vet because I love animals. I didn’t realize the color of my skin would matter…
The New York Times: In Georgia, Texas and Washington, D.C., three Black women are working to preserve desecrated African American burial grounds and the stories they hold…
Kelsey Russell is a 23-year-old who created a TikTok series that aims to get Gen Z hooked on newspapers and print media…
“Bel-Air’s” aesthetic of Black excellence “makes visible a mode of self-fashioning that is on trend with celebrating neoliberal markers of merit and prestige,” Brandy Monk-Payton writes for Public Books…
The famously private Kerry Washington is opening up in her memoir, “Thicker Than Water,” where she revealed a family secret that was kept from her for over four decades…
What’s Happening
ProPublica: “Clarence Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court”…
Just a month after speaking out about violence against Black women, a Chicago mother was found dead after her boyfriend strangled her…
Nashawn Breedlove, who battle-rapped against Eminem in the movie "8 Mile" as Lotto, has died. He was 46…
Travis King, the U.S. Army private who intentionally ran across the border into North Korea, is in U.S. custody, officials said…
Hollis Watkins, who started challenging segregation and racial oppression in his native Mississippi when he was a teenager and was jailed multiple times for doing so, has died. He was 82…
Two Black ex-TikTok employees have accused its parent company of terminating them because they complained about racial discrimination…
The Jackson City Council denounced CBS News’ portrayal of Mississippi’s capital city in a resolution that accused the network of depicting “the most hideous scenes” in a “60 Minutes” episode…
Texas Southern University has cleared $2.3 million in debt for over 2,000 students…
The governing body for gymnastics in Ireland has apologized after a video resurfaced showing a judge skipping over the only Black girl at a medal ceremony. Simone Biles even made her thoughts known…
Robert "Bob" Kirk, the first Black professor to teach at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, has died. He was 92…
Black Americans have little faith that news organizations will do a good job of covering their communities fairly and that’s not likely to change anytime soon, according to a new study…
Entertainment
After a months-long strike, Hollywood studio and streaming executives have reached a deal with the Writers Guild. But Erika D. Smith asks if all this solidarity will last for Black folks in the entertainment industry…
Krayzie Bone of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is in the hospital…
Colin Kaepernick wrote a letter to the New York Jets asking to join their practice squad…
It’s about time: Usher is set to headline the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show. He’s also reportedly going on tour afterward…
Actors Daveed Diggs and Emmy Raver-Lampman are expecting!...
In a recently released documentary, Kirk Franklin shares the story of how he found his father as he was working on his upcoming album…
Anthony Nesty was picked to lead the U.S. men’s swimming team in Paris, where he will become the first Black head coach for the team at the Olympics…
Jade Cargill, the former champion of All Elite Wrestling, has signed with WWE…
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 51 seconds!...
Starting this week, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests delivered directly to their home…
A new documentary, "Invisible Beauty," explores fashion trailblazer Bethann Hardison’s commitment to fighting for diversity in the industry since the 1960s…
Registration is now open for the Democracy Summit 2023 hosted by the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University…
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit is hosting a new exhibit featuring legendary costume designer Ruth Carter’s original designs from iconic films such as “Black Panther,” “Malcolm X,” and more. It opens on October 10…
The Associated Press is hiring a Black Church Reporter…
The Washington Post is seeking students for its 2024 newsroom internship program. Deadline is October 4…
that oregon apartment story, wow, that person needs to be committed to mental health facility, for awhile, these issues need to be called what they are, insanity