A “Remember and Rise” concert organized by the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission was abruptly canceled. Oklahoma’s governor was ousted from the commission for pushing limits on how racism is taught in schools. And some residents are planning to boycott the opening of Greenwood Rising, a new museum that construction workers are racing to finish in the heart of Black Wall Street. Read more here.
6 Comments
It has been called the first genocide of the 20th century, the “forgotten genocide’’ and the genocide that was the precursor of the Holocaust. Tens of thousands of Africans were killed between 1904 and 1908 by German soldiers in what is now Namibia, a vast, arid country northwest of South Africa. Read more here.
High expectations greeted Mark Washington when he accepted the job last year as Grand Rapids’ top city government official. Based on MLive interviews with city commissioners and residents who closely follow city government happenings, Washington is meeting those expectations. Read more here.
Groups including NAACP, Austin Justice Coalition, and Black Voters Matter are protesting what they call voter suppression while the GOP maintains it's a way to make sure Texas elections are secure. Watch the protest here.
Since 2015, Stanford University's Open Policing project has attempted to track the total number of traffic stops conducted by state and local police across the country. ValuePenguin analyzed the figures provided by Stanford to track the chance that a typical driver will be stopped and the effects on insurance that such stops bring. Read the report's results here.
Texas isn’t following its own law on racial profiling; Police don’t analyze who they pull over4/10/2021 A KXAN investigation found TCOLE, the state’s central repository, failed to mandate and collect the data analysis and opted not to use its enforcement authority. In hundreds of instances, racial profiling data is missing from its database. Read more here.
On Monday, state Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, joined Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe, Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder, and members of the campus community to denounce UT's decision to keep the tune as its alma mater after last month's Eyes of Texas History Committee report on the song's origins. Read more here.
Cash bond, the dominant bail system in Texas, allows an individual to secure release by merely posting the full cash amount with the court clerk or by paying a fee to a bondsman, who acts as a surety on the bail amount and guarantees the person's appearance in court.
In Texas, a wealthy, high-risk individual charged with a violent offense can almost immediately post a high dollar cash bail, while a poor, low-risk person accused of a non- violent crime can spend years in pre-trial detention waiting for their case to be heard. It is intellectually dishonest to argue that such a system does not violate the accused's constitutional rights and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Read more here. The Austin City Council voted Thursday to formally apologize for the city's involvement in segregation and systemic racism and initiate a process for creating a Black Embassy to assist Black-led businesses and organizations. Read more here.
The upcoming May 1 special election provides Austinites with an opportunity to fundamentally change the structure of city government. To some, these changes are revolutionary advances toward a more robust local democracy; to others, they threaten to cause a catastrophic collapse of Austin's current progressive consensus. Read more here.
|
For frequent updates, visit the Facebook page of Austin NAACP President Nelson Linder!
Archives
May 2024
|