Federal Court Strikes Major Blow to Black Voting Rights
Capital B
by Brandon Tensley
12h ago
A federal district court’s order on Thursday allowing South Carolina to use a racially discriminatory congressional map for the 2024 election cycle is a gut punch to Black voters. “For over a century, the NAACP has worked fervently to protect Black Americans’ access to the ballot box. Make no mistake — these discriminatory maps are a direct attempt to suppress Black voices ahead of a consequential election,” Brenda Murphy, the president of the South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. Without a fair map, it would be enormously difficult for Bl ..read more
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Everything’s Political, Including History
Capital B
by Brandon Tensley
21h ago
Welcome back to Everything’s Political, Capital B’s news, culture, and politics newsletter! Every Thursday, I’ll take a look at recent stories that seem particularly noteworthy. Here’s what I’ve got for you this week. When the Anti-DEI Movement and Memory Politics Collide DEI advocates suffered a one-two punch over the past week. Punch one: Alabama Republican Gov. Kay Ivey signed into law a bill banning DEI programs at public schools and universities in the Yellowhammer State. Punch two: The U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion, created in 2020 to build a more representative workforce ..read more
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Will the Electric Vehicle Push Bring Black Americans Along on the Ride?
Capital B
by Adam Mahoney
21h ago
Americans love their cars more than practically anyone — only New Zealand has more cars per capita. So, when President Joe Biden announced in 2021 that he wanted to speed up the transition from gas-guzzling vehicles to electric ones, the push drove debate among state leaders, city planners, and everyday people alike. Over the past two weeks, the debate has reached a peak that has serious implications for the upcoming election and the future of American transportation.  On March 16, touting unsubstantiated claims, former President Donald Trump threatened violence and a “bloodbath” if he w ..read more
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The Port of Baltimore Tore This Community Apart Long Before the Key Bridge Collapse
Capital B
by Adam Mahoney
2d ago
Around 10 p.m., Eric Johnson left his church service in Turner Station and drove across the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore County. He didn’t know it’d be his last trip across the 47-year-old bridge that had defined much of his adult life, but he was certainly glad it was.  Just over three hours later, in the early morning of March 26, homes across his neighborhood began shaking violently. A few miles away, a massive cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore had just lost power and delivered a deadly blow to the bridge’s support beams. Almost instantly, most of the bridge collapsed ..read more
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The Legacy of Black Cowgirls
Capital B
by Aallyah Wright
2d ago
Carolyn Carter proudly rides on her horse as she presents the American flag and Black American flag on opening day of one of the Black rodeos. It’s the 1980s, and the 20-something-year-old is at home in a sense. She’s steer decorating (steer wrestling for women) and barrel racing. The Oklahoma native fell in love with the rodeo after her sisters dragged her to one in Washington, D.C., in 1981. They threw her on a horse. She rode, held on, and ended up winning $900. She became hooked and kept attending rodeos. This led her to the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, where she worked and competed f ..read more
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The GOP’s Long-Shot Bid for Black Voters
Capital B
by Brandon Tensley and Chauncey Alcorn
3d ago
When Kermit Williams hears a new pro-Donald Trump radio spot that’s supposed to draw in Black voters, his mind sprints in the opposite direction: He thinks about the former president’s history of aggression toward marginalized communities. “I can’t unsee the Central Park Five and what Trump did to try to get a group of innocent Black and brown teenagers [in New York City] lynched,” Williams told Capital B. The executive director of the Michigan-based grassroots organization Oakland Forward was nodding to Trump’s 1989 ad urging New York to “bring back the death penalty” and execute the kids fo ..read more
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Black Crossword: March 22, 2024
Capital B
by Capital B Staff and Black Crossword
6d ago
The post Black Crossword: March 22, 2024 appeared first on Capital B News ..read more
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Daring to Be Bold: Examining Shirley Chisholm’s Everlasting Impact
Capital B
by Brandon Tensley
6d ago
When Kimberly Peeler-Allen was in the fourth grade, she had to pick someone to research for Women’s History Month. Her mother had a thought: Why not Shirley Chisholm? For Peeler-Allen, 47, the link was personal. Like Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and the first Black candidate to seek a major political party’s presidential nomination, Peeler-Allen has ties to the Caribbean: Her mother is Jamaican, while Chisholm’s mother was Barbadian and her father Guyanese. Peeler-Allen, a visiting practitioner at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), explained that learnin ..read more
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The Fight to Protect One of America’s Last Historic Black Communities
Capital B
by Aallyah Wright
1w ago
ROYAL, Florida —  The calmness of the wind reverberated across the burial ground as Beverly Steele motioned to her mother’s grave in Oak Hill Cemetery. Three months ago, they buried her here, just 12 days shy of her 102nd birthday.  It’s not uncommon for residents in the majority-Black, unincorporated community of Royal, Florida, to live past 100 years old. The Rev. Matthew Beard, the oldest resident in the community’s history, lived to be 115.  On a recent February afternoon, Steele, dressed in her Sunday best, peered out at the acres and acres of land surrounding Oak Hill Cem ..read more
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A Florida Community Faces Erasure. Residents Are Honoring Its History.
Capital B
by Aallyah Wright
1w ago
If you ask any native, they all know the history of Royal, Florida, mostly because they are living descendants of it.  As 67-year-old minister Janice Rivers put it: “There was not one corner that you could go to where the individuals didn’t know each other’s names or their history. You could talk to the elders and learn more about your lineage.” Following the Civil War, freedmen founded the unincorporated community of Royal, formerly known as Picketsville to signify the white picket fences around the 40-acre homesteads. The first Black families owned land in 1870, despite oral history re ..read more
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