Featured
Black Athletes Could Upset March Madness And End Attacks On DEI. By Shaun Harper / Forbes
At No. 1 Seed University of Houston, all but one team member is Black. (Photo by Chris Leduc / ICON SPORTSWIRE VIA GETTY IMAGES
The NCAA women’s and men’s basketball tournaments will generate approximately $900 million, according to ESPN. Most of this will be earned on the backs of Black athletes, many of whom attend universities in states where diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are under legislative attack.
With millions of Americans watching, these talented students could leverage March Madness to protect themselves and other people of color in higher education whom anti-DEI policies are harming. Without the participation of Black players, the two basketball tournaments would be forced to take enormously expensive timeouts. Read more
Related: Black South Carolina lawmakers criticize anti-DEI bill. By AP and The Grio
Related: Alabama DEI law is the latest GOP effort to gloss over America’s past. By Sara Pequeno / USA Today
Political / Social
3 presidents, celebrity performances and protester interruptions at Biden campaign’s $26M fundraiser. By and
The Biden campaign said a sold-out crowd of more than 5,000 supporters at Radio City Music Hall helped raise a record amount for a single event.
During the nearly hourlong moderated conversation, Colbert joked that the moment was historic because “three presidents have come to New York, and not one of them to appear in court,” taking a jab at former President Donald Trump’s criminal indictments and civil trials. Clinton also took a swipe at Trump, the presumptive GOP nominee, arguing that he “had a good couple of years because he stole them from Barack Obama.” Read more
Related: Trump vs. Biden Polls: Joe Has Finally Stopped the Bleeding. By Ed Kilgore / New York Intelligencer
Related: The Overlooked Truths About Biden’s Age. By Frank Bruni / NYT
Donald Trump Stoops to Lowest Low Yet With Violent Post of Biden. By Ruth Murai / Mother Jones
Let’s call it what it is: stochastic terrorism.
Donald Trump’s attacks on President Joe Biden have become familiar, but on Friday they reached a new level of terrifying. The former president posted a video on his Truth Social platform featuring a truck with an image of President Biden hog-tied on the tailgate, as if he’d just been kidnapped. This type of messaging is part of a specific routine for Trump—one that we’ve been reporting on for years. It’s called “stochastic terrorism,” a type of rhetoric from a leader that smears another person or group so that they are more likely to be attacked by the leader’s supporters, while the leader is able to deny any involvement. Read more
Related: Trump’s megalomania is a trap for the GOP. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
How Justice Thomas’s ‘Nearly Adopted Daughter’ Became His Law Clerk. Steve Eder and
“Crystal Clanton’s clerkship for OT ’24 was announced by Scalia Law today!” wrote an assistant to Virginia Thomas, the justice’s wife, who is known as Ginni.
The Thomases and Ms. Clanton, a 29-year-old conservative organizer turned lawyer, have built such a close relationship that the couple informally refer to her as their “nearly adopted daughter.” Ms. Clanton, who was previously accused of sending racist text messages, including one that read “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE,” has lived in the Thomas home, assisted Ms. Thomas in her political consulting business and joined her in a “girls trip” to New York. Read more
Baltimore bridge pushes Gov. Wes Moore into national spotlight. By Jacob Fenston / NPR
In Maryland, a complicated and dangerous cleanup effort is starting after the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday. The tragedy has put the state’s young governor, Wes Moore, in the international spotlight.
Moore, a Democrat, made history last year when he was inaugurated as Maryland’s first Black governor. “Baltimore is being tested right now, but Baltimore has been tested before. And every time we stand up on two feet, we dust ourselves off, and we keep moving forward,” Moore said during one of many press conferences this week. The bodies of two construction workers who were on the bridge have been recovered. Four others are missing and presumed dead. Read more
Related: Baltimore Mayor Taunts Right-Wing Trolls With Brutally Honest New ‘DEI’ Definition. By
Tennessee overrides Memphis police rules prompted by Tyre Nichols’s killing. By Justine McDaniel / Wash Post
Tyre Nichols’s stepfather, Rodney Wells, and mother, RowVaughn Wells, attend a session of the Tennessee House in Nashville on March 4, before the legislature passed a bill upending Memphis’s changes to police policies.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a bill into law this week that nullified ordinances enacted by Memphis leaders following the 2023 police killing of Tyre Nichols, enabling the Republican-led legislature to undo the work of the Democratic-leaning city. The law, passed by the legislature this month, prohibits local governments from enacting policies that limit police agencies’ activity when carrying out their lawful duties. That will undo Memphis’s ordinance banning traffic stops for certain minor traffic violations, which was passed last year in response to the fatal beating of Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, after police stopped him for an alleged traffic violation. Read more
Voting rights are under attack nationwide. By Dana Taylor / USA Today Podcast
At the State of the Union, President Biden called on Congress to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. This bill would update the Voting Rights Act of 1965, strengthening legal protections against discriminatory voting policies and practices.
The act has since been hampered by Supreme Court cases that removed pre-clearance provisions and made it harder to sue to stop discriminatory practices. Marc Elias, an attorney with Elias Law Group and an outspoken advocate of voter protection and fair elections, joins The Excerpt to talk about the challenges voters across the country are facing and describe his efforts to guarantee equal access to the ballot. Read more and listen here
Spelman Gets Application Surge, Bucking College Enrollment Trend. By Janet Lorin and Steve Matthews / Bloomberg
Giles Hall building at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. Photographer: Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg
Applications to Spelman College, the historically Black women’s college in Atlanta, surged by almost a third between 2020 and 2024, bucking the national trend of declining enrollments that’s forced some small colleges to close. Read more
World News
Haiti’s transitional council issues its first statement, signaling its creation is nearly complete. By Ap and NBC News
The members said that as soon as the council is officially installed, they will help “put Haiti back on the path of democratic legitimacy, stability and dignity.”
Members of a transitional presidential council who will be responsible for selecting a new prime minister issued their first official statement on Wednesday, pledging to restore “public and democratic order” in Haiti. The statement, although signed by eight members of what is supposed to be a nine-member council, is still considered a sign that a contentious and drawn-out nomination process is ending and that the council might soon assume its official duties. Read more
South Africa’s strong relationship with the U.S. can withstand disagreements. By Cyril Ramaphosa / Wash Post
Cyril Ramaphosa is president of South Africa.
As the U.S. House debates a bill on the bilateral relationship between the United States and South Africa, it is important to understand the history and the value of the economic, political and social ties that bind our two countries. We might differ on some issues roiling the world today, but a strong partnership such as ours can withstand principled disagreements. Read more
“A blueprint for a Trump autocracy”: Authoritarianism expert on which global dictators Trump models. By Chauncey Devega / Salon
Will a second Trump term bring a Putin-like dictatorship or the more subtle example of Hungray’s Viktor Orbán?
Jacob Heilbrunn is the editor of the National Interest and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is the author of the new book “America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators.” His previous books include “They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons.” In this wide-ranging conversation, Heilbrunn reflects on how the mainstream news media is failing to properly explain how the rise of Trumpism and American neofascism is part of a global antidemocracy movement. He also highlights how Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s open admiration of such authoritarians and political thugs as Vladimir Putin is a continuation of much older patterns of behavior by the American right and “conservatives.” Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Was Jesus a man of color? Why this question matters more than ever. By John Blake / CNN
Trump’s Bible grift is going to backfire. By Eugene Robinson / Wash Post
Donald Trump could be making a big mistake hawking the “God Bless the USA” Bible to his MAGA supporters. Some of them might actually read it.
My challenge as a Christian psychologist: Help evangelicals see Trump for who he really is. By Chris Thurman / Salon
Trump-supporting evangelicals are among the most blind Christians to ever engage in politics
In 2015, I was a Republican. However, I became increasingly alarmed by the political rise of Donald Trump and the evangelical support he garnered. It was clear to me at the time that Trump was intellectually, psychologically, and morally unfit for office and that it was delusional for anyone, especially evangelicals, to think otherwise. Read more
Related: White Evangelical Racism | Anthea Butler | University of North Carolina Press.
The ‘Grand Alliance’ between Black and Jewish leaders faces an uncertain future. By Devan Schwartz / NPR
Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama alongside Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel. William Lovelace/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Close your eyes and you might be able to conjure the iconic image of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, with a white bushy beard, as he marches alongside Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It’s 1965 and they’re at the front of the delegation from Selma to Mongtomery, Alabama. Berlinerblau has long studied the relationship between these two communities. He co-authored the book Blacks and Jews: an Invitation to Dialogue with Terrence Johnson, Professor of African American Religious Studies at Harvard Divinity School. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South. Doreen St. Félix / The New Yorker
“The Caring Hand,” by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber, is one of more than fifty sculptures at the new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. Photographs by Kris Graves for The New Yorker
The civil-rights attorney has created a museum, a memorial, and, now, a sculpture park, indicting the city of Montgomery—a former capital of the domestic slave trade and the cradle of the Confederacy. The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is more of a period piece. Like the Legacy Museum, it thwarts our tendency to see slavery from the vantage of the freed. It sticks narrowly to enslavement, concluding with the aftermath of the Civil War. Read more
Related: The Harmfulness of Black Codes in the State of Alabama. By Daphne Calhoun / AAIHS
Ghosts of Segregation: American Racism, Hidden in Plain Sight. By Richard Frishman
From award-winning photojournalist Richard Frishman comes a collection of photographs documenting America’s history of segregation, slavery, and institutional racism hidden in plain sight, accompanied by hard-hitting personal essays from University of Virginia professor of sociology and Black culture B. Brian Foster and with a foreword by National Book Award winner Imani Perry. Read more
Related: A Visual History of Racism in America Articulates What Words Cannot. By Daily Beast Podcast
The Divine Nine and the Formation of Black Studies. By James R. Morgan, III / AAIHS
As early as 1907, Howard University became a central hub for Black Greek History and the location of the “Alpha” chapter of five of the nine Greek Lettered organizations that comprise the National Pan-Hellenic Council, colloquially known as the “Divine Nine.”
As scholar André McKenzie has explained in his research on HBCUs, the National Pan-Hellenic Council consists of five fraternities and four sororities with interlaced histories and service objectives to form a network which has sustained African American middle-class and upwardly mobile sensibilities for more than a century. Read more
Louis Gossett Jr. dead: Roots, An Officer and a Gentleman star was 87. By jay Stahl / USA Today
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win an Oscar for best supporting actor, has died at 87.
Gossett’s nephew told The Associated Press that the Emmy Award-winning actor died Thursday in Santa Monica, California. In 1982, Gossett Jr. starred as Marine Gunnery Sgt. Emil Foley in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” for which he scored an Academy Award for best supporting actor and became the first Black man to win in the category. The Brooklyn-born actor, who attended New York University, became one of the most famous Black actors of his time with decades of commercial and critical acclaim. In addition to his groundbreaking Oscar, the pioneering talent won an Emmy for his role in the TV miniseries “Roots” based on Alex Haley’s book of the same name. Read more
Billie Holiday’s gowns and gardenias were an assertion of dignity. By Paul Alexander / Wash Post
The jazz legend’s signature style was a rebuke to both the prejudices of the day and the negative press generated by her arrests
On Oct. 5, 1958, Billie Holiday took the stage at the inaugural Monterey Jazz Festival. Then America’s preeminent jazz singer, she closed the event with an effortlessly sophisticated 11-song set that mirrored the image she had carefully crafted for herself over the years: makeup perfectly applied, ebony hair pulled back into her trademark ponytail. Her shimmering strapless evening gown was patterned with stars and complemented by dangling earrings and a mink stole. She was the picture of stylish elegance. Read more
Beyoncé fans hope her new album brings more visibility to Black country artists. By Daysia Tolentino / NBC News
The Beyhive is busting out its cowboy hats and breaking out in line dances.
After the singer debuted two country singles, “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “16 Carriages,” on Sunday during the Super Bowl, some country enthusiasts hoped that Beyoncé’s star power would help bring more recognition for Black artists within the genre. Many people also pointed out country’s roots in the African diaspora and believed Beyoncé’s venture into country would be an act of reclaiming the music, which has often been perceived as a genre for white men. Read more
Related: Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ spotlights Linda Martell, Black country music pioneer. By and
Lost tracks recorded by Marvin Gaye uncovered in Belgium: ‘As good as Sexual Healing.’ By
Four decades after the death of Marvin Gaye, new music from the late artist could be on the horizon.
The surprise news comes thanks to a Belgian musician named Charles Dumolin, who hosted the R&B legend at his Ostend home for a time. Dumolin has revealed a never-before-seen collection of costumes, letters, notebooks and dozens of recordings that had been stowed away for decades. “We can open a time capsule here and share the music of Marvin with the world,” Alex Trappeniers, a Belgian lawyer and a business partner of Dumolin’s family, told the BBC. “It’s very clear. He’s very present.” Read more
Diddy’s dreamy American gloss in ruins. By Robin Givhan / Wash Post
Law enforcement agents and vehicles outside Sean “Diddy” Combs’s Beverly Hills estate. (Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images)
It was stunning to see: law enforcement rolling up to the Los Angeles and Miami homes of Sean “Diddy” Combs in tactical vehicles, wearing olive drab military gear and wielding very large guns. In Los Angeles, officers from Homeland Security situated themselves on a stretch of street surrounded by expensive landscaping and stately houses. In Miami, men in chinos and baseball caps did their investigative work under the shade of towering palm trees. This contrast between the verdant and the villainous could stir all sorts of emotions: shock, anger, satisfaction over a possibly righteous comeuppance. Those feelings are all rooted on shifting ground. Combs has been accused of sex trafficking, sexual assault and physical abuse. He has denied those accusations and has not been arrested. But the sad drama has played out as publicly as Combs has lived his professional life. Read more
Sports
Iowa and LSU handle business, setting up an epic rematch in the Elite Eight. By Kareem Copeland / Wash Post
Was there ever any doubt?
The most anticipated matchup of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament is officially set after both Iowa and LSU took care of business Saturday, setting up a rematch of last year’s national championship game in the Albany Region 2 final. Iowa was never in danger during a 89-68 landslide over Colorado at MVP Arena, which came after LSU weathered a second-half rally by UCLA to earn a 78-69 victory. The teams will tip off at 7 p.m. Monday. Read more
Related: The LSU women are a basketball team — and a lot more than that. By Candace Buckner / Wash Post
How Bowser played the long game to keep Capitals, Wizards in D.C. By Michael Brice-Saddler, Meagan Flynn and Jonathan O’Connell / Wash Post
The deal the mayor and Leonsis signed is more comprehensive and favorable to Leonsis compared with the $500 million offer put forth in December, as he was already preparing to make his announcement with Youngkin. It’s expected to allow Leonsis to expand Monumental Sports & Entertainment’s footprint at neighboring Gallery Place by 200,000 square feet, offering a significant boost to the city’s downtown business landscape in the process. And among other perks it beefs up security around the arena, requiring 17 police officers patrolling two hours before and after games. Read more
Men’s NCAA tournament Sweet 16 an opportunity for coaches of color. By Jamal Murphy / Andscape
North Carolina State coach Kevin Keatts (left) talks with North Carolina head coach Hubert Davis before their game at PNC Arena on Feb. 19, 2023, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Lance King/Getty Images
There are four Black coaches in this year’s Sweet 16. UNC’s Hubert Davis, NC State’s Kevin Keatts, Marquette’s Shaka Smart, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson have unique stories en route to the big dance. All four are highly respected and have won at a high level throughout their careers. For all of them, however, this season was particularly special and timely for different reasons. Read more
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