Featured
Truth and Reconciliation After Jim Crow. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
For most Americans, Jim Crow is remembered as a chapter of history that ended with the Civil Rights Movement. But for those who lived under it, Jim Crow was more than a set of discriminatory laws—it was a daily system of humiliation that shaped lives, relationships, and expectations long after the signs came down. In this personal reflection, I argue that while America dismantled legal segregation, it never fully confronted its psychological, social, and economic legacy. Until we honestly reckon with that past, the work of truth, reconciliation, and national healing will remain unfinished.
Read complete essay. Truth and Reconciliation After Jim Crow. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
Ex-GOP aide: Trump to blame for Black woman being terrified by white supremacists. By Matthew Rozsa / AlterNet
A former adviser to President George W. Bush is accusing the following Republican leader, President Donald Trump, of creating a culture of racism in America — as captured by a single photograph.
Describing a photograph in which members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front stood around a seemingly terrified African American woman on a bus in Washington DC during the 4th of July, former Republican political strategist Steve Schmidt described the image as “chilling.” Read more
Related: Judge Rules Against Trump, Says He Clearly Prefers White People. By Hafiz Rashid / TNR
The July 4 white supremacist march exposes an uncomfortable truth about our country. By Andre Henry / RNS
It should be a contradiction that the Confederate flag was marched alongside the Betsy Ross flag through the streets near the U.S. Capitol on Independence Day.
The rebel banner was brought to the Capitol by hundreds of masked agents associated with Patriot Front, a white supremacist hate group founded after the 2017 showdown over a Confederate monument in Charlottesville, Virginia. It waved in the wind alongside the flag of the 13 colonies and upside-down U.S. flags — a symbol of national distress — seeming to imply they were calling a nation in peril back to, or closer to, the exclusionary democratic vision of its founders. They echoed this in their chants to “reclaim America.” Read more
Justice Jackson’s birthright citizenship opinion includes Black Americans in the story of the nation’s search for equality. By Austin Sarat / The Conversation
On June 30, 2026, in the Trump v. Barbara ruling, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson showed how wrong that view can be when she delivered a monumental concurring opinion in the birthright citizenship case.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, ruling that the 14th Amendment guarantees automatic citizenship to virtually everyone born on U.S. soil.
Jackson, however, used her concurrence to go far beyond that and offer a new understanding of the origins of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of birthright citizenship and its promise of equal treatment. She did so while emphasizing the singular contributions of Black Americans to that endeavor. Read more
Related: MAGA’s Birthright Meltdown Is in Full Effect. By David French / NYT
While Trump Says the Economy is Booming, the Reality Points to a Black Recession. By
The Trump administration’s war on DEI is hitting Black communities hardest, as a recent jobs report shows Black unemployment at over 6%.
From spiking inflation to skyrocketing insurance premiums, there is no doubt that our nation is in the grips of an affordability crisis. The layoffs are coming fast and furious, and even folks bringing home six-figure salaries are being forced to take out loans to pay for their groceries. It’s bad out there, no doubt about it. Read more
Related: After Courting Black Voters, Trump Downplays Black Unemployment. Erica L. Green / NYT
Trump’s EEOC abandons key tool for combating workplace discrimination. By Geoff Bennett, Hackson Hudgins and Andrew Merlis / PBS
For more than 60 years, the federal government has relied on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC,to enforce laws against workplace discrimination.
But the Justice Department is now challenging a legal framework that has underpinned that work for decades, known as disparate impact liability. That’s the idea that policies can be discriminatory if they disproportionately harm certain groups, even if they appear neutral on their face. The Trump administration says it wants to return civil rights enforcement to a colorblind, merit-based approach. Critics argue the shift could weaken longstanding protections against discrimination. Read more
NAACP Launches Historic $20M Campaign to Mobilize Black Voters For Midterms. By
The NAACP’s largest-ever midterm investment aims to boost Black voter turnout in key states through organizing ahead of November’s elections.
The “Get Out The Vote” campaign marks a historic amount of spending for the organization during a non-presidential election year. NAACP leaders say the campaign aims to strengthen voter participation in communities disproportionately impacted by changes to voting laws and congressional maps following court decisions limiting provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Read more
Related: Black Organizers Are Preparing for a New Era of Voting Rights Battles.
Former Jackson Mississippi mayor faces years in prison after pleading guilty to bribery scheme. By Brandon Caldwell / The Grio
Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who previously called the charges against him a form of “political prosecution,” lost his bid to win a third term as mayor of Jackson last November.
Chokwe Antar Lumumba, who lost his reelection bid last year by nearly 50 points in the Democratic primary runoff, pled guilty alongside former City Council President Aaron Banks to one count of conspiracy related to a bribery scheme connected to real estate development. Read more
Related: How Jackson’s Former Mayor Went From Progressive Star to Guilty Plea. B / Capital B
Black Women’s Criminalization, Sexual Exploitation, and Dehumanization. By Tracey Johnson / AAIHS
The specific women that Gross studies shirked respectability politics because they knew that most of the time they would not be respected anyway. Gross writes, “How they affirmed their womanhood far exceeded anything that I had ever learned about or considered within traditional definitions of white or Black feminist activism.
In chapter 2, “Their History: Lawlessness and Black Womanhood,” Gross chronicles the laws and legal practices passed during slavery that harmed Black women for centuries and served as the motivating force for their resistive strategies against the measures that shaped their everyday lives. Read more
Education
More Top Black Students Are Choosing HBCUs Over the Ivies. By
As fewer Black students apply to white colleges, our HBCUs are seeing a rise in enrollment driven by the repeal of DEI and Affirmative Action.
For the first time in recent history, Black students around the country are choosing to attend historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in record numbers. Now, as the conversation around HBCUs continues to shift, enrollment numbers suggest many of the nation’s Black colleges are giving some of the country’s most selective institutions of higher learning a run for their money. Read more
Court Delivers Blow to DeSantis’ Higher Ed Agenda in Stop W.O.K.E. Act Ruling. By Jamaal Abdul-Alim / The Eduledger
A federal appeals court has struck down the higher education provisions of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Stop W.O.K.E. Act – a controversial law that critics decried as censorship but which conservative supporters argued was necessary to stop ideological creep into the classroom.
Florida A&M University College of Law professor LeRoy Pernell – an unapologetic proponent of Critical Race Theory who agreed to serve as lead named plaintiff in the case – hailed the 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit as a victory for academic freedom. Read more
Related: Florida’s disregard for academic freedom is alarming. By Linus Owen / Tallahassee Democrat
The AI divide is the new literacy test and HBCUs are leading the solution. By Harry L. Williams / Eduledger
For a long time, the digital divide conversation was about access. First, to the hardware required and later to the internet with adequate speed and reliability. But as we navigate 2026, we are facing a similar but much more substantial chasm. As generative and agentic AI reshape every industry from forensic accounting to the creative arts, the new literacy test for the American workforce isn’t just knowing how to use these tools. It’s having the agency to command them.
Recent data suggests a crisis of confidence: nearly two-thirds of higher education faculty believe graduates are entering the workforce unprepared for an AI-driven economy. While many institutions have reacted with a defensive posture, tightening integrity policies and debating bans, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF), our member schools and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) nationwide are taking a different approach. We are leaning in. For our students, technological fluency is not and has never been a luxury. It is a prerequisite for equity. Read more
World
After 1,000 Days of War, Israelis Are Weary Amid Growing Isolation. By Jill Nelson / Christianity Today
From his home in Nazareth, Saleem Shalash has often heard the loud booms of Israel’s air defense systems intercepting Hezbollah rockets over the Haifa region. Since resuming large-scale attacks in March, Hezbollah has repeatedly attacked Haifa—18 miles from Nazareth—with rockets, missiles, and drones.
Israelis are exhausted, said Shalash, an Arab Israeli who pastors Home of Jesus the King Church. “You need to understand, it’s not over. Israel has been fighting in seven different areas,” he said. “And how long can you suffer and wait for this to end? It never ends.” Read more
Haitians in U.S. fear mass deportations; Haiti fears mass return. By Widlore Mérancourt / Wash Post
Orelien, now 50 and living in Chile, is trying desperately to get his family to Chile, Brazil or the United States, if a legal pathway becomes available. For them, the Supreme Court decision allowing the Trump administration to end temporary humanitarian protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in the U.S. comes at exactly the wrong time.
Fear is spreading through Haitian communities in the United States. Within hours of the court decision, the San Diego-based Haitian Bridge Alliance received more than 250 calls to its hotline, executive director Guerline M. Jozef said. People wanted to know whether they could continue going to work, sending children to school or simply shopping for groceries. Read more
Cuba slowly getting power back after third nationwide blackout in 6 months. By CBS News
Cubans were gradually getting power restored Tuesday after the third nationwide power outage this year, causing mounting despair in the face of an energy collapse precipitated by a U.S. fuel blockade. A woman walks on a street as Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed at midday, leaving around 10 million people without power in Havana on July 6, 2026.
The communist island was already struggling to keep the lights on before President Trump cut off its oil supplies in January, depleting the dwindling supply of fuel for its power plants. Read more
Related: US sanctions are harming the Cuban Catholic Church, the island’s hope. By Jeffrey von Arx / RNS
Ebola Deaths In Congo Top 500 As Health Workers Threaten To Strike. By HuffPost
At least 500 people have died out of over 1,500 confirmed cases in Congo’s Ebola outbreak, authorities said, as frontline workers threatened to go on strike on Monday over unpaid benefits and poor working conditions.
The outbreak has recorded 1,561 cases, including 506 deaths, since it was declared on May 15 as the spread continues to outpace response, Congo’s Ministry of Health said in its latest update on Sunday night. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Ahead of midterms faith leaders seek fair access to the voting booth. By Adelle M. Banks / The Christian Century
Four months before the midterm elections, Minnesota faith leaders who previously have protested against federal immigration agents have unveiled a multistate initiative to ensure fair elections.
“Our churches, our mosques, our synagogues, our places of worship will become democracy hubs,” said JaNaé Bates Imari, co-executive director of the interfaith group ISAIAH Minnesota, as she opened a Tuesday news conference at the Minneapolis State Capitol in Saint Paul backed by dozens of other clergy. “We are doing all that we can to ensure that every single elected official on every level of government understands that they are also to be held accountable.” Read more
A Pro-Trump Christian Group Wants to Put a Cross on the Moon. By Hunter Walker, Kate Riga and Nicole LaFond / TPM
The Christian right has been gaining traction in Washington, D.C. under President Donald Trump. And now, one Trump-aligned religious group has their sights set on the moon.
“Cross on the Moon Coalition” says they are “on a spiritual mission to send a cross to the lunar surface to consecrate the heavens and remind humanity that God is the King of the universe.”
They say they want to do this by 2030 and have created animations and images showing a robotic cross unfolding from a lunar lander. On Wednesday, I published a video showing some of these incredible Moon Cross videos and also detailing the group’s connection to Trump.
ICE arrested a nun on her way to church. Does MAGA care? By Christian Puz / Vox
On June 28, Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, a Catholic nun from Nigeria, stepped out of her home to take the short, one-block stroll to her church in McAllen, Texas. It should have been uneventful: dressed in her white habit and bearing a rosary, Sister Letty was walking to Sunday morning mass at Our Lady of Sorrows.
She didn’t make it — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents stopped, arrested, and handcuffed the 56-year-old. They took her to a detention facility an hour away, reportedly confiscated her rosary, and declined to bring her the medication she takes. She called her diocese for help — and as news spread, both Republican and Democratic members of Congress appealed directly to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin for details. Hours later, she was released — without explanation. Read more
Historical / Cultural
Banquo’s Ghost: The contradictions of the American Revolution. By Gerald Horne / The Nation
Joseph J. Ellis is one of the most celebrated historians in the nation. A winner of the Pulitzer Prize and once the holder of an endowed chair at Mount Holyoke, he was hailed by The Washington Post as the “most widely read scholar of the Revolutionary period and…probably the most influential as well.”
But in his latest book, The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of theAmerican Founding, Ellis reconsiders the essence of his oeuvre and this consensus, which is akin to the pope reconsidering Catholicism. Focusing “on two unquestionably horrific tragedies the founders oversaw”—the “failure to end slavery, and the failure to avoid Indian removal”—Ellis seeks to understand how and why they happened. “Next to the failure to end slavery,” he writes, the “inability to reach a just accommodation with the Native Americans was the greatest failure of the revolutionary generation.” Read more
Five Words That Changed America. By Janelle Bouie / NYT
There is a moment for every American when she first encounters the Declaration of Independence. For most, it comes to her as scripture — the highest and most sacred text in the nation’s civic religion, encapsulated by its moving assertion of human equality: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
This Declaration is a profound statement of values: of a universal aspiration for human freedom. As President Gerald Ford said in a speech marking the nation’s bicentennial, “The Declaration is the Polaris of our political order — the fixed star of freedom. It is impervious to change because it states moral truths that are eternal.” Read more
America 250: How Black Soldiers and Spies Shaped The American Revolution. By Phenix S. Halley / The Root
From double agents to a historic proclamation pulling enslaved people onto the battlefield, here are some little-known stories of Black folks’ contributions during the American Revolution on Independence Day.
The 250th anniversary of America arrives as historians continue to confront the full, complicated truth of the American Revolution and the Black soldiers, spies and petitioners whose stories have often been pushed to the margins. While Crispus Attucks is often remembered as a symbol of resistance after his death in the Boston Massacre, the war itself was shaped by many more Black lives in motion–fighting, escaping, gathering intelligence and demanding recognition in a nation still defining its meaning of freedom. Read more
How a slavery exhibit in the Confederate capital celebrates American history. By Gregory S. Schneider / Wash Post
The recently opened Shockoe Institute in Richmond highlights the history of slavery in a way to tell a story of America becoming exceptional.
Related: Why America at 250 Still Cannot Face Slavery. By Reveal / Mother Jones
The History at the Smithsonian That the White House Finds Unpatriotic. Jennifer Schuessler / NYT
The administration’s report criticizing the National Museum of American History echoes themes of President Trump’s push to reshape the American story.
The 162-page report, credited to the White House Domestic Policy Council, was the latest salvo in the Trump administration’s long-running campaign to gain influence over the broader Smithsonian, which includes 21 museums plus the National Zoo. And it quickly drew strong criticism from historians. Read more
‘A counter-narrative of history’: Schomburg Center’s 100 years of celebrating Black culture. By Melissa Hellmann / The Guardian
Growing up in Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, Arturo Alfonso Schomburg was told by his teacher that Black people had no significant history or accomplishments. He spent his life disproving the narrative by collecting art, books and artefacts that showed the opposite.
“Schomburg always sought to collect the global Black experience,” said Barrye Brown, curator of manuscripts, archives and rare books at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. “When you look at what he was collecting, you see his vision of what the African diaspora is like … it is all around the world, it’s multilingual; there’s so many different experiences represented.” Read more
Over 70 Years After Being Falsely Accused, The Groveland Four Families Finally Get Justice. By Phenix S Halley / The Root
More than 75 years after their wrongful convictions, Florida approves $4 million for the families of four Black men.
More than seven decades after four Black men were falsely accused of raping a white woman in one of Florida’s most notorious racial cases, their families are finally receiving financial recognition for the harm that forever changed their lives. A $4 million payout approved in Florida’s 2026 state budget will compensate the descendants of the men known as the Groveland Four, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The case marks a milestone in the state’s effort to address one of the darkest chapters of the Jim Crow era. Read more
Does Matt Damon Look Greek? No. So Stop Complaining About Lupita Nyong’o.
Helen of Troy is starting wars again. But this time the legendarily beautiful, semi-divine queen of myth, whose adulterous elopement with the Trojan prince Paris brought on the 10-year-long Trojan War, has launched a thousand tweets.
In the buildup to the release of Christopher Nolan’s $250 million, all-IMAX retelling of Homer’s “Odyssey,” the director revealed that he had chosen the Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen. A firestorm of controversy followed, fueled largely by self-appointed guardians of the Homeric epics who consider the casting of a Black woman as Helen to be a grotesque violation — a “woke” gesture designed to “destroy Western civilization and everything that helped create it,” as one voice on X put it. (Some white folk are loosing their minds over this) Read more
Sports
Republicans ask WNBA to protect Caitlin Clark from possible ‘racially motivated’ attacks. By The Guardian
Eleven Republican politicians have written to the WNBA asking the league to protect Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark from “multiple attacks” on court.
Clark has been on the receiving end of hard fouls since she entered the league in 2024 after a stellar college career with Iowa. Recently, the Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas hit Clark in the throat during a game. Thomas was not called for a foul at the time but the WNBA later suspended her for one game. Thomas and her family received racist abuse and death threats after the incident. Read more
Morehouse’s Boxing Club offers a supportive space for members to train their bodies and combat stress. By Joshua Bass / Andscape
In September 2021, Morehouse College sophomore Jacobey Bell, searching for supportive fellowship on campus, invited a handful of students to an impromptu sparring session via group chat. Six people attended the first night. By the next evening, more than 200 spectators packed Purdue Hall.
Five years later, that spontaneous gathering has evolved into the Morehouse College Boxing Club. Since its founding, the program has become the first team from a historically Black college or university to compete in the U.S. Intercollegiate Boxing Association National Tournament, produced two national champions, and inspired an Emmy-winning documentary. Read more
Remember these names: Here are 6 Black women on the rise in sports with résumés worth your attention. By Mia Berry /Andscape
National Black Women in Sports Day, observed annually on July 7, recognizes the achievements and influence of Black women across every level of sports, from athletes and coaches to executives, journalists and trailblazers shaping the industry’s future.
The observance also provides an opportunity to spotlight the next wave of stars. While household names such as A’ja Wilson and Coco Gauff continue to inspire millions, a new generation of Black female athletes and sports professionals is quietly building résumés worthy of national attention. Whether shining on the professional stage or rising through the college ranks, here are six Black women in sports to add to your watch list. Read more
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