Social Movements & the Law

A project about American history, Black life, and the resilience of memory

Colgate, Cream of Wheat and Mrs. Butterworth are the latest brands reckoning with racially charged logos...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Long a symbol of pride to some and hatred to others, the Confederate battle flag is losing its place of official prominence 155 years after rebellious Southern states lost a war to perpetuate slavery...

Officers’ groups say 84-year-old Sundiata Acoli, convicted of murder of New Jersey state trooper, poses no threat to public safety

UArizona historian Tyina Steptoe discusses the history of the holiday that recognizes emancipation, and why more people than ever may celebrate it this year and in the future.

For decades, when it was discussed at all, the killing of hundreds of people in a prosperous black business district nearly a century ago was referred to as the Tulsa race riot.

Asian Americans Out Loud, our project highlighting people who are leading the way forward in the face of trauma and fear in Asian communities across America.

NEW YORK (AP) — Following a year of professional milestones born of her work on America’s history of slavery, Pulitzer Prize-winning Black journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones said she is clear-eyed about her mission to force a reckoning around the nation’s self-image.

”Enough is enough, we are done dying,” organizer Dawn Chavous told the crowd at City Hall. “That could be us. That could be any one of us.”

Killings took place two weeks apart but neither received national coverage, prompting questions about whose stories are told

The Trump administration wants to deploy the DHS officers to different cities around the country.

Cooper argues that we miss the intersection of race and gender when it comes to Black women

Sandra Bland. Her name, her story, and her 2015 death in a Texas jail cell catapulted one Black woman’s experience of racial profiling, police violence, bail, and jailhouse neglect into the national consciousness.

Young men make up the majority of black people killed by police in the US. That’s fed a perception that black women are somehow shielded from the threat of police violence. They aren’t.

"We don't need someone in the Senate or House to try to build their political career off of this moment."

Reports of agents provocateurs, outside agitators and police infiltration of protests are appearing throughout the country and involving law-enforcement agents and rightwing nationalists. The most public role of such a disruptor was detailed in Minneapolis at the time of Trump’s provocative tweets and involved someone who has come to be known as the "Umbrella Man."

Mass protest arrests led to long detentions, with families and lawyers unable to find people locked up for days at a time without being charged.

In stark contrast to rightwing claims, 93% of demonstrations have involved no serious harm to people or property

NEW YORK (AP) — Spurred by broad public support for the Black Lives Matter movement, thousands of Black activists from across the U...

The federal government deliberately targeted Black Lives Matter protesters via heavy-handed criminal prosecutions in an attempt to disrupt and discourage the global movement that swept the nation last summer in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, according to a new report released Wednesday by The Movement for Black Lives.

Tensions also continue in some areas as officers confront crowds with flash-bang grenades and pepper spray

In seven years, BLM has gone from hashtag to global rallying cry. So why has the co-founder stepped away from the movement she helped create?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers are setting up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves, as the nation struggles again with civil rights and unrest following the latest shooting of a Black man by police...

Central to the idea of the American Dream lies an assumption that we all have an equal opportunity to generate the kind of wealth that brings meaning to the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” boldly penned in the Declaration of Independence. The American Dream portends that with hard work, a person can own a home, start a business, and grow a nest egg for generations to draw upon. This belief, however, has been defied repeatedly by the United States government’s own decrees that denied wealth-building opportunities to Black Americans. Today, the average white family has roughly 10 times the amount of wealth as the average Black family. White college graduates have over seven times more wealth than Black college graduates. Making the American Dream an equitable reality demands the same U.S. government that denied wealth to Blacks restore that deferred wealth through reparations to their descendants in the form of individual cash payments in the amount that will close the Black-white racial wealth divide. Additionally, reparations should come in the form of wealth-building opportunities that address racial disparities in education, housing, and business ownership

The death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers — and the anger, rioting and violence that it continues to trigger — has turned a political hot potato into an open wound and a pressing need.

House panel backs legislation to examine slavery and discrimination since 1619, and recommend education and remedies

A House Judiciary subcommittee will host a hearing Wednesday to discuss the creation of a commission that would explore reparations for Black Americans, an idea long floated in Congress that has ga…

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — For Brown University students, the Ivy League college's next step in its yearslong quest to atone for its legacy of slavery is clear: Pay up. Nearly two decades after the Providence, Rhode Island, institution launched its much-lauded reckoning, undergraduate students this spring voted overwhelmingly for the university to identify the descendants of slaves that worked on campus and begin paying them reparations.

Decades ago, in the Chicago suburb of Evanston, Cordelia Clark ran a restaurant out of her kitchen and parked cabs for her taxi company in her backyard because Black residents were effectively barred from owning or renting storefronts in town.