Featured
Slavery Was Closer Than You Think. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
The recent vote at the United Nations to recognize the transatlantic slave trade as one of the gravest crimes against humanity should have sparked widespread reflection in the United States. Instead, the response was muted, revealing once again how reluctant America remains to confront the full weight of its history. Slavery is often treated as though it belongs to a distant and disconnected past. But for many Americans, it is much closer than we imagine—not only in memory, but in its lasting consequences.
Read complete essay: Slavery Was Closer Than You Think
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
Trump Corrupts, and Absolute Trump Corrupts Absolutely. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
To say that President Trump is corrupt is to somehow understate the size, scope and magnitude of his corruption. It is as if you were to describe a modern thermonuclear device as a “bomb.” That is true enough, but it is not quite the truth. It does not capture the nature of the thing in full.
So it goes for Trump’s corruption, which is so vast as to be a new phenomenon in American politics. The president and his family have leveraged his office to the tune of nearly $4 billion. They have received hundreds of millions of dollars from a network of branded cryptocurrency assets. Investors include large corporations, foreign nationals and state actors hoping to curry favor with the administration. Read more
Related: A reckoning is coming for Trump — and it will reshape America. By Robert Reich / AlterNet
Related: Finally, MAGA figured out who the real Donald Trump is. By Max Burns / The Hill
Majority Backs Trump Impeachment—Even One in Five of His Own Voters. By Alex Nguyen / Mother Jones
A majority of American adults say that the US House should vote to impeach President Trump—including one-in-five people who voted for him in 2024.
A new poll by Strength in Numbers, a data-based news website, and the market research platform Verasight found that 55 percent of respondents said they support the US House voting for impeachment. Out of the 1,514 Americans surveyed between April 10 and April 14, 37 percent said they opposed and eight percent reported they were unsure. Read more
Related: Resignation is Trump’s last chance at redemption. By William S. Becker / The Hill
Elon Musk’s near-daily online posts about race are turning off some fans. By Faiz Siddiqui and Jeremy B. Merrill / Wash Post
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, is on the cusp of a record-setting initial public offering that could soon make him a trillionaire. But in recent months he’s been increasingly vocal about something else: rallying White people to stand up for their race.
“Whites are a rapidly dying minority,” Musk wrote in January in a post on his social media site X that has garnered more than 17 million views and 150,000 likes. In a February post liked by more than 365,000 accounts, Musk declared that “there has been unrelenting hate and poisonous propaganda in the West against anyone White, straight or male over the past decade or more,” adding, “No more guilt trips. ENOUGH.” Read more
‘Fight fire with fire’: The Black lawmakers behind Virginia’s vote ‘Yes’ push. By Haniyah P. / The Grio
VA legislators Louise Lucas, Don Scott, and Charniele Herring took on redistricting and helped shape a pivotal political moment.
The campaign for Virginians to vote ‘yes’ on redistricting during yesterday’s special elections was a collective effort among Democrats as politicians like Barack Obama urged the state’s constituents to exercise their voting power to fight a conservative redistricting agenda that could have drastically changed the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections. But beyond the ads and banners, three Black Virginia legislators were working just as hard behind the scenes. In fact, it was Va. Sen. Louise Lucas who understood early on that an aggressive push would be needed to combat the Republican gerrymandering agenda. Read more
Related: Trump agenda goes down in flames in Virginia. By Adam Lynch / MSN
The Trump Administration’s Latest Attack On Civil Rights Groups Is A Call To Action. By Anoa Changa-Peck / Newsone
Attacking civil rights groups like SPLC follows a pattern and practice of the administration’s revisionist terror and political prosecutions. We can’t afford to look away.
Exactly one year after civil rights groups publicly declared their commitment to defending against the Trump administration’s anti-civil rights agenda, the empire struck back with politically motivated charges against the Southern Poverty Law Center. News of the Department of Justice filing charges against SPLC follows a pattern and practice of revisionist terror and political prosecutions. Combined with the increasing abuses of power and attacks on our elections, the administration is ramping up its efforts to restore the dominance of white supremacy. It wants to overpower our collective will and dictate how we live, move, and exist in this country. Read more
Related: Why was the Southern Poverty Law Center indicted on federal fraud charges? By AP / The Guardian
Related: The Justice Department Sides With the Ku Klux Klan. By Matt Ford / TNR
Clarence Thomas’ attack on progressivism should alarm you. By Heather Digby Parton / Salon
In a speech celebrating America’s 250th, the Supreme Court justice gave a dishonest and dangerous read of history
Like a modern-day Paul Revere, Clarence Thomas is sounding the alarm: Progressives are an existential threat, determined to destroy all you hold dear, unless you are willing to sacrifice and fight them with everything you have. Perhaps you think that’s a bit aggressive coming from a Supreme Court justice charged with making dispassionate decisions about the Constitution and the rule of law. But he made his position clear in an April 15 speech before invited faculty and students at the University of Texas at Austin. You have been warned. Read more
Proof Trump’s Plan to Dismantle the Black Middle Class Is Actually Working. By Phenix S. Halley / The Root
Before President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office, he promised sweeping policies that would improve life for Black Americans and the greater working class. But more than a year has passed since the start of his second term, and instead, Black people have been hit hard by many of his controversial policies.
Black middle and working class Americans continue to be rocked by attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, economic stress and political backlash, and it’s time we talk about it. He once claimed to be the best president for Black folks since Abraham Lincoln, but Trump’s recent track record tells a totally different story. Just take a look. Read more
Related: Black Law Workforce Hits Decade Low Under Trump Anti-DEI Shifts. By Mahalia Otshudy / The Root
A Sudden Resignation Leaves Florida’s Blackest Congressional District in Limbo. By Brandley Tensley / Capital One
Constituents of Florida’s heavily Black 20th Congressional District must now navigate a volatile political moment, as U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat who represented the district since 2022, resigned on Tuesday.
The surprise announcement came just ahead of a hearing when the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to formally recommend disciplinary action over an investigation into her conduct. The bipartisan panel found in March that she had violated House rules. This followed an indictment last November over allegations that she stole $5 million in disaster relief funds to bankroll her 2021 special election campaign. Cherfilus-McCormick continuously maintained that she had done nothing wrong. Read more
US Rep. David Scott of Georgia dies at 80 amid campaign for re-election. By Gerren Keith Gaynor / The Grio
Scott’s age and reports of health issues had overshadowed his political career in recent years.
U.S. Rep. David Scott, who represents Georgia’s 13th Congressional District, is dead at the age of 80, CBS News reports. Scott’s death came as he was running a campaign for re-election in Georgia’s primary election on May 19. Scott has served in the United States Congress since 2003. David Scott, born in 1945 in Aynor, South Carolina, began his political career in 1974 when he successfully ran for the Georgia House of Representatives. He served in the House for more than a decade before he was elected to the state Senate in 1982. In 2003, Scott was elected to represent Georgia’s newly created 13th District. Read more
Education
Black Teachers Face Uncertainty as DEI Backlash Grows Nationwide. By Fisher Jack / Eurweb
Across the country, Black teachers are facing new uncertainty inside their classrooms. Ongoing political attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have reshaped school policies at every level. Many educators now question what they are allowed to teach.
A February 2026 report from Word In Black highlights the deep concern spreading nationwide. State bans, federal directives, and public backlash have created confusion for teachers. For many, the issue feels both professional and deeply personal. Read more
Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired? By Michela Moscufo / The Guardian
The school’s $100m project to examine its slave ownership in Antigua is mired in controversy as academics allege obstruction
In its 2022 report, the university had broadly delineated its historical ties to the Caribbean islands of Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica, among others, mainly by tracing the actions of key alumni who were merchants and planters. What Newman was suggesting, though, was that the university look to the present and consider its current-day responsibilities to nations such as Antigua and Barbuda. Three Harvard-affiliated academics stepped down from their posts with the Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery Initiative, alleging the university was getting in the way of their work. Read more
Amazingly, now even universities aren’t as left-wing as Democrats. By Gregory Conti and Aaron Sibarium / Wash Post
A Yale University report confirms a trend toward viewpoint diversity in academia.
Many schools have conceded the conservative critiques leveled against them for the past decade, engaging in public displays of self-flagellation that, at least rhetorically, have pushed academia to the right of the Democratic Party. The latest mea culpa was a 58-page report from Yale University about “declining trust in higher education.” Yale, it bears recalling, is where a 2015 email discussing Halloween costumes sparked mass protests and made the campus Exhibit A for woke activism. Released on April 10 to much attention, the report describes the decline of trust as a self-inflicted wound, arguing that “political bias,” “cancel culture” and “holistic admissions” have taken a tremendous toll on the university’s standing. Read more
Jackson State University names Denise Jones Gregory as first alumna president to lead the institution in permanent role. By Bobby Pen / The Grio
After years of leadership turnover, the HBCU appoints a homegrown scholar and longtime academic to restore stability and rebuild trust.
Gregory is not only a seasoned academic leader but also a Jackson State alumnus. She earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry there before earning her doctorate from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Before stepping into the interim presidency, she served as provost and vice president of academic affairs, giving her a deep understanding of the university’s internal workings. Read more
World
Iran War Live Updates: Reported Ship Seizures Add to Anxiety in Oil Markets. By Luke Broadwater and Eric Schmitt / NYT
President Trump’s latest threats came after the Pentagon said the U.S. military had boarded a second tanker carrying oil from Iran. Both sides are trying to exert authority over shipping amid uncertainty over the status of peace talks.
President Trump said on Thursday that he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” that is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, as the Pentagon announced that U.S. forces had boarded another sanctioned tanker that was carrying oil from Iran. A day earlier, Iranian forces claimed to have seized two cargo ships near the strait, a vital conduit for oil and gas. The United States and Iran are each trying to exert authority over shipping during a cease-fire, with little public indication that either is intent on restarting peace talks. Read more
Related: The moral asymmetry in the war on Iran. By Anna Piela / RNS
Cuba’s collapse: From Obama’s historic opening to Trump’s crippling embargo. By Kate Linthicum / LA Times
A decade ago this spring, President Obama stepped off Air Force One at José Martí International Airport — the first time a U.S. leader had touched ground in Cuba since Fidel Castro’s communist revolution.
More than half a century of Cold War hostilities were thawing. The U.S. had relaxed travel restrictions to the island, and Cuba had partially opened its economy to the private sector. Tourists were flocking in as a new class of Cuban entrepreneurs renovated crumbling buildings into restaurants, art galleries and hotels. When President Trump took office in 2017, he reinstated the travel ban, upped sanctions and closed the U.S. Embassy in Havana that Obama had opened. Read more
Related: Cuba Is Not a Prize. It Is a Warning. By Carlos Manuel Alvarez / Time
Pete Buttigieg Boils Down America’s New Global Standing Under Trump To 1 Bleak Word. By Lee Moran / HuffPost
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday that the United States’ role on the global stage has been “diminished” under President Donald Trump. And he warned it could take a long, long time to restore.
Appearing on “The Late Show,” Buttigieg reflected on how America’s standing in the world has changed since his student days. “I mean, when I was a student, it was just understood that the U.S. was the leading nation in the world — not just the biggest, not just the richest, not just the most powerful, but the country that people looked to because of our values as well as because of our strength,” he continued. But under Trump, he argued, there “are now, by some measures, more people around the world who trust China to do the right thing than the United States.” Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
WATCH: Pope Leo’s historic and poignant trip to Africa. By ABC News
The first American Pope called for peace and unity in front of a crowd of 100,000 worshippers, advocating for social justice as he wrapped the first week of his landmark Papal trip to Africa. Watch here
Related: The journey that reveals the pontificate. By Andrea Tornielli / Vatican News
Church leaders break silence: Trump represents threat to faith. By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II / MSN
The following remarks were delivered during an emergency press conference in New Haven, Connecticut on Tuesday, April 14, 2026 in response to recent comments and actions by President Donald J. Trump.
There are times that compel people of faith to speak, servants of Jesus to speak, proclaimers of the gospel to speak and engage in truth-telling and forms public exorcism rooted in deep radical love with the hope of repentance and a commitment to faithful witness—without fear of what any man or woman administration can do to us. Two weeks ago the Moral Monday movement held Moral Monday gatherings in Washington, DC, 16 states, and Canada to denounce this war and the President’s declaration that if another country didn’t do what he said, he would “reign” down Hell on them and wipe out their entire civilization. Read more
Orbán’s defeat is a defeat for Christian nationalism. By Mark Silk / RNS
Like the journalist Lincoln Steffens, who, after visiting the Soviet Union in 1919, wrote, “I have seen the future, and it works,” America’s Christian nationalists saw the future working in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.
Of particular appeal to conservative culture warriors in America were laws passed preventing gay couples from adopting and requiring government IDs to identify a person’s gender as the one assigned at birth. Meanwhile, think tanks established to promote Orbanist ideas made Hungary into a kind of Right Wing International. In a 2022 interview, Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts declared, “Modern Hungary is not just a model for conservative statecraft, but the model.” Read more
Historical / Cultural
Celebrating the 500th Anniversary of the First Successful Slave Revolt in America. By William Spivey / Levelman
Revisiting the 1526 uprising that predates Jamestown, St. Augustine, and every textbook timeline.
In 1526, five hundred years ago, Spain attempted to establish its first permanent settlement in Florida. The fleet’s flagship struck a sandbar and sank off the coast of South Carolina. The court interpreter and other Indians brought along as guides deserted the fleet and escaped into the woods. The crew and enslaved people built a replacement ship and moved about 200 miles south. Upon landing, they quickly built houses and a church. On September 29, 1526, the settlement was christened San Miguel de Gualdape. The enslaved people used the disarray among the Spaniards to make their escape and live with the local Native Americans. Their escape is considered the first slave rebellion in mainland North America. In July 1527, the remaining 150 Spaniards left San Miguel de Gualdape, not to return. Read more
Black Girls, Hair, and the Cost of Beauty. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
In recent years, the conversation about Black girls hair has shifted from style and identity to something far more urgent: health and self-worth.
What was once framed as personal choice is now being reexamined in light of new evidence about toxic exposure and long-term medical risk. Yet beneath these concerns lies an older, more troubling truth — that the pressure to alter Black hair has never been merely aesthetic. It has been shaped by a history of comparison, exclusion, and the quiet erosion of self-esteem.
Read complete essay: Black Girls, Hair and the Cost of Beauty
Controversies and Production Issues Around ‘Michael,’ the Jackson Biopic, Explained. By Brooks Barnes / NYT
Reshoots, reluctant studios and family holdouts: the production faced many issues. But now the box office is expected to be huge.
Reviews have been brutal. (“Can’t be taken seriously.” “Disconnected from reality.” “Frustratingly shallow.”) Yet box office expectations are stratospheric. The film, which arrives in theaters on Thursday night, comes from the producer behind “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the Queen biopic that collected $911 million worldwide in 2018, or roughly $1.2 billion after adjusting for inflation. Here’s what you need to know. Read more
The Temptations’ Otis Williams: ‘Our Motown contracts were like slavery.’ Bu Mick Brown / The Telegraph
The last surviving original member reflects on performing to segregated audiences, losing bandmate David Ruffin and the 1960s music industry
“I love Motown,” he goes on, “but I’ve got to tell it the way it is. Business can be cold-blooded sometimes. And Abe Somer said, ‘We’re going to fix it so you get a better royalty rate, front money, a whole lot of other things we should be getting’ – because we’d been getting hit records. That’s part of the reason Eddie Kendricks and myself would get into it. We all got paid the same money. But he’d be cussing and carrying on, and I’d say, ‘Eddie, we have to wait until we’re in a much better position.’” Read more
Sports
Major League Baseball Is Sanitizing Jackie Robinson’s Radical Legacy. By Peter Dreier / TPM
Major League Baseball (MLB) likes to congratulate itself for being a civil rights trailblazer. Jackie Robinson Day celebrations are held at every ballpark on April 15, the date Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Though Robinson was a fierce competitor and an outstanding athlete, the aspect of his legacy that often gets glossed over on Jackie Robinson Day is that he was also a radical.
The celebrations of Jackie Robinson Day downplay his activism during and after his playing career. They don’t delve into the forces arrayed against Robinson — the players, fans, reporters, politicians and baseball executives who scorned his presence in a major league uniform and outspoken views on racial segregation. (In 1946, at least 14 of the 16 major league owners opposed ending baseball’s apartheid). Read more
Doc Rivers: ‘It was 100 percent my decision’ to step away from Milwaukee Bucks. By Marc J. Spears / Andscape
The Bucks announced Rivers’ departure in an April 13 statement. Milwaukee will pay Rivers his eight-figure salary for the 2026-27 season, sources told ESPN. The recently named Naismith Hall of Fame coach told Andscape it was “100 percent my decision” to leave.
Rivers had a 97-103 record during his two-plus seasons with Milwaukee, leading to two first-round playoff exits and missing the postseason this season. The Bucks won the 2024 NBA Cup under Rivers, but they had a 32-50 record this season, with All-Star forward Giannis Antetokounmpo playing just 36 games. Read more
Deion Sanders Opens up on Cancer Battle; 1-Year After Diagnosis. By
How Ryan Clark Went From NFL Star to Media Mogul. By Richard Grove / The Root
Ryan Clark doesn’t just occupy space in sports media; he’s a game-changer in the landscape. The Emmy-winning host has made the seamless transition from star player on the field to one of the most respected NFL analysts.
Whether he’s dissecting coverage on “NFL Live” and “Inside the NFL” or moderating thought-provoking conversations on his “The Pivot Podcast,” Clark knows how to keep his audience engaged. As he prepares to lead ESPN’s coverage of the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh, The Root spoke with Clark about the top prospects, how “The Pivot” became the go-to space for Black men, and how he stays true to himself. Read more
Site Information
On Race in America is published every Saturday. Some articles may be AI-assisted. Articles appearing in On Race in America are archived on our home page. A collection of Books, Podcasts, and Video Favorites can also be found there.
On each page you can register your email to receive notifications of new editions of On Race in America.
Click here for earlier Editions
The site is fully searchable by name or topic—see the Search option at the top of the page. At the bottom of the page, you’ll find custom share buttons that let you email the edition or post it directly to your Facebook, LinkedIn, or X (formerly Twitter) accounts.