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When Things Fall Apart: An African Warning for America. By Ronald J. Sheehy, Editor / On Race in America
One would not expect that a novel rooted in a precolonial African village could offer much instruction for modern America. At first glance, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe seems distant—geographically, culturally, historically. It tells the story of Umuofia, an Igbo society ordered by tradition, ritual, and communal authority. America, by contrast, imagines itself as modern, pluralistic, and forward-looking.
And yet, it is precisely this distance that sharpens the insight. Achebe’s novel is not only about the collapse of a man, Okonkwo, but about what happens when a society confronts change it cannot absorb—and when leadership emerges that mistakes rigidity for strength.
Read the complete essay: When Things Fall Apart: An African Warning for America.
The Week’s Top Stories
Political / Social
Report: Black Women Face Significant Income Disparities Despite Education, Labor Force Strides. By Mitti Hicks / Black Enterprise
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median weekly earnings of Black women working full-time in 2025 were about $942, compared with $1,108 for white women, $889 for Hispanic women, and $1,395 for Asian women.
The findings in the “Economic State of Black Women in the United States” report reveal that while educational attainment and labor force participation are important, they have not been sufficient to close longstanding gaps in economic security. Read more
Chuck Schumer: What the SAVE Act Would Really Do. By Chuck Shumer / NYT
The Republican effort to undermine the 2026 midterm elections is neither theoretical nor exaggerated. A coordinated, multifaceted campaign is underway — including the attempt to pass the SAVE America Act, which narrowly passed the House last month and which the Senate started debating last week. President Trump has not been coy about his motivations: If Republicans pass the SAVE Act, he said, “it’ll guarantee the midterms.”
Republicans like to pretend that the SAVE Act is a voter ID bill. Though on the surface it appears to be one, something far more insidious lies beneath: a system for purging eligible voters from the electorate — voters who are disproportionately likely to vote against Republicans. In the bill, voter ID comes into play only at the very end of a process designed to systematically disenfranchise Americans. Read more
Related: Even Republicans know Trump’s SAVE Act will bite them in the ass. By Daily Kos Staff / Daily Kos
Related: Supreme Court Appears Ready To Make Voting Even Harder. By
The Latino vote is rapidly shifting away from Trump and Republicans. By Gary M. Segura and Matt A. Barreto / Salon
There is no question that over the past three election cycles, Latino voters – Latino men under 40, in particular – have shifted right. That change has benefited GOP candidates, even as the majority of Latinos still voted for Democrats.
However, evidence from general elections in 2025 in places such as New Jersey, New York and Virginia, as well as special elections in 2026, suggest an abrupt correction is underway, with some of the Latino voters who backed Trump now swinging back to the Democrats. Read more
‘No Kings’ Protest Set To Become Largest In US History. By Sammy Approved / Newsone
The “No Kings” protest could become the largest protest in American history. Read and find out more information about the protest inside.
A new wave of nationwide demonstrations is set to take place this weekend, as organizers behind the “No Kings” movement prepare what they say could become the largest protest in American history. Read and find out more information about the protest inside. With thousands of events already planned across the country, No Kings’ mobilization reflects growing public concern over the current political climate and the direction of U.S. democracy. On March 28, the organizers are set to host what might be the largest protest in this country’s history. Read more
Sen. Cory Booker argues for a different path for Democrats. Ali Vitali / MS Now
Amid a culture of deepening political division and vitriol, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., is trying to embrace something very different in the Trump era: Virtue.
Speaking exclusively to MS NOW’s Ali Vitali about his new book, “Stand,” Booker proposed a method of resistance Tuesday night that stands in stark contrast to some of the more combative — and sometimes trollish — tactics that Democrats like California Gov. Gavin Newsom has adopted in response to President Donald Trump. It’s a vision of politics that could double as the foundation for a 2028 presidential bid, and Booker did little to downplay the speculation Tuesday night. Read more
The ugly history behind Trump’s birthright citizenship case in the Supreme Court. By Ian Millhiser / Vox
The peculiar legal argument behind Trump’s attack on citizenship was invented by 19th-century anti-Chinese racists.
The fate of Trump’s anti-citizenship order is now before the Supreme Court, in a case known as Trump v. Barbara, and the legal case against it is about as airtight as these cases get. The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says that “all persons” born in the United States are citizens, with one narrow exception that does not apply in Barbara. And the Supreme Court settled this question nearly 130 years ago in United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). Read more
Trump Has Detained the Parents of More Than 11,000 U.S. Citizen Kids. B
Compared with the Biden administration, Trump officials are detaining many more parents with only minor criminal histories or none at all. Under Trump, more than half of the detained fathers of American citizen kids, and about three quarters of the mothers, had no criminal convictions in the United States except for traffic- or immigration-related offenses.
Current and former officials from the Department of Homeland Security said such separations are not necessarily a violation of policy. Instead, guidelines on the way officers should exercise discretion have changed. Among the changes: A document once known as the Parental Interests Directive has been given a new name under Trump — the Detained Parents Directive. And its preamble, which once instructed agents to handle immigrant parents in a way that was “humane,” has been stripped of the word. Read more
Black business leaders speak out on the real impact of corporate DEI rollbacks. By Bolarinwa Oladeji / The Grio
A growing backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies is reshaping conversations across corporate America, with prominent Black business leaders warning that the broader narrative around opportunity and progress is being challenged, according to a recent roundtable conversation convened by Bloomberg Businessweek. Ursula Burns speaks.
The shift follows actions by the Trump administration since taking office for his 2nd term to scale back federal DEI initiatives, a move that has influenced both the private sector and educational institutions. In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s inauguration, several major companies have reduced or reworked their diversity programs, reflecting a wider change in tone around inclusion efforts. Read more
Education
Trump’s efforts to collect race-based college admissions data lead to fears of retaliation. By Lexi Lonas Cochran / The Hill
One court case is what stands between the Trump administration and race-based data from colleges regarding admissions, which could be used to go after schools the federal government perceives as violating a 2023 Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action.
District Judge F. Dennis Saylor this week gave colleges in the states that sued over the demographics demand an extension until April 6 to complete the “Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement” (ACTS) as he weighs the legality of the request for seven years of admissions data broken down by race and other factors. Read more
Where Are All the Campus Protests? By Rose Horowitch / The Atlantic
Two years ago, students occupied buildings and colonized the quad. Now the same places are strangely silent.
The events of the past three months seem almost perfectly engineered to spark campus unrest. In January, mass-deportation operations led to the brazen killing of U.S. citizens at the hands of masked immigration agents. In February, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that it would no longer regulate greenhouse-gas emissions. A few weeks later, the Trump administration joined forces with Israel to launch an attack on Iran without congressional approval. One might expect left-leaning college students to have practically started a revolution. Read more
Why going to an HBCU might be better for Black students’ health. By Adria R. Walker / The Guardian
A study found correlation between the environment and long-term wellness in sample of 1,978 who attended college between 1940-80
Attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU) as a young adult may be linked with better later-life cognitive outcomes for Black Americans, according to a recent study. The authors sampled 1,978 Black American adults who attended college between 1940 and 1980 (35% attended an HBCU), and who attended a high school in a state with an HBCU. The conclusion? There may be a correlation between collegiate environment and long-term wellness. Read more
Economic Affirmative Action Is Working. Richard D. Kahlenberg / The Chronicle of Higher Ed.
Low-income students are the beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s striking down race-conscious admissions.
Once affirmative action for upper-income minority students became unavailable, several highly selective universities announced new programs to enroll more low-income and working-class students, a disproportionate share of whom were likely to be Black and Hispanic. Some institutions eliminated legacy preferences. Many adopted new financial-aid programs. Some began sending more recruiters to low-income high schools. Others set explicit goals for boosting economic diversity. In 2024 Duke University’s dean of admissions said that enhancing economic diversity “was clearly helpful for us this year in terms of racial diversity in enrollment.” Read more
Florida bans sociology from core curriculum at state universities. By Garrett Shanley / Miami Herald
Florida’s public universities will no longer allow a standalone introductory sociology course to count toward general-education requirements after state leaders on Thursday approved a sweeping, systemwide ban that reflects years of Republican criticism of the discipline.
It also marks an escalation in Florida leaders’ efforts to reshape college instruction, particularly on topics such as race, gender and inequality, which conservative officials have increasingly targeted as “woke.” Read more
World
From Iran to Cuba, Trump’s Sanctions Have Hurt People More Than Governments. By
The US says “sanctions” are about regime change, but in practice they are economic warfare against entire populations.
Donald Trump, the self-proclaimed “peace president,” has already attacked two nations since the start of 2026 — engaging in regime change in Venezuela on January 3 and launching an air war on Iran on March 1 — and is now strongly suggesting that Cuba would be next. All three nations have been harmed by U.S.-led economic wars for years in the form of sanctions, which have hurt the countries’ populations en masse. Read more
Related: Cuban Patients Are Dying Because of U.S. Blockade, Doctors Say. Ed Augustin and Jack Nicas / NYT
The First Casualty of Trump’s War in Iran Was the Truth. By David Remnick / The New Yorker
In war, truth is the first casualty.” It’s a line often attributed to Aeschylus, and it has never lost its relevance. Sometimes the culprit is the observer—the propagandizing correspondent, the mythologizing historian. Now, three weeks into a war of choice, the chief offender is the President of the United States.
Now, as war has engulfed both the region and the global economy, Trump and his sycophantic advisers have taken to improvising on the fly, floating conflicting justifications for war and predictions about its duration. Read more
Related: When a Narcissist Goes to War. By Jamelle Bouie / NYT
Related: Donald Trump Is Breaking Up with Europe. By Susan Glasser / The New Yorker
The Iran War Disproportionately Impacts Black Americans, And Here’s How. By Maya Boddie / Blavity
Black communities have experienced war—from World War II, the Korean War, to the Vietnam War—as something that often demands significant sacrifice with little to no benefits as a result.
As the war escalates, and as U.S. service members face injury and death, Black Americans are rightfully looking at history and urgently asking who actually pays the price when the U.S. goes to war? Here are three ways a war with Iran could disproportionately impact Black Americans. Read more
Ethics / Morality / Religion
Survey: Support for Trump’s immigration agenda craters with all faith groups, especially mainline Protestants. By Jack Jenkins / RNS
Support for President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration has dropped across all religious groups over the past year, with approval plummeting among white nonevangelicals or mainline Protestants, according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute.
Conducted in February and released on Thursday (March 26), the PRRI survey of 5,479 adults found majority support for Trump’s signature immigration policies is now limited to only two religious groups — white evangelicals and white Catholics. Even there, support has eroded since March 2025: White evangelical support fell from 78% to 69%, and white Catholic support sunk from 63% to 53%. Read more
Iranian Duke scholar: War will increase religious fundamentalism around the world. By Yonat Shimron / RNS
A research professor of Islamic studies at Duke University, he has been living in exile from his native Iran for 18 years. A staunch critic of the regime in Tehran and an advocate for democratic reforms, Kadivar now believes the United States is undergoing a similar descent into authoritarian rule.
He said he’s appalled by the war with Iran — the lack of any immediate threat to the U.S. , the rush to war without congressional authorization. He believes the war will only strengthen religious fundamentalism around the world and that it has already weakened democratic forces within Iran. Read more
Reembracing Black Spirituality; MAGA White Church Betrayal. By Julie Nichols / Patheos
Even as a former Republican switched Democrat myself in 2019, the betrayal of white Christians supporting Donald Trump unconditionally has been the toughest for me to endure.
I’ve also felt a great sense of guilt for not understanding the harmful alliance white Christians have had with the Republican party sooner. The Black Church understood it well-before the Trump era. Now, my faith in God/Jesus is recovering thanks to ministers and other Christians who openly support justice and openly reject Trumpism/MAGA. Trumpism/MAGA ideology is not only supporting the person of Trump but a harmful white Christian Nationalist ideology which is antithetical to the Gospel. Read more
Related: The unreligious religiosity of Christian identity politics. By Matthew Schmitz / Wash Post
Historical / Cultural
UN votes to recognize enslavement of Africans as ‘gravest crime against humanity.’ By Wedaeli Chibelushi and Thomas Naadi / BBC
The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.
The resolution – proposed by Ghana – called for this designation, while also urging UN member states to consider apologising for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. It does not mention a specific amount of money. The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against – the United States, Israel and Argentina. Read more
Related: Trump’s America Refuses to Recognize Slavery as Crime Against Humanity. By Malcolm Ferguson / TNR
Gomillion v. Lightfoot Reverberates in the Fight for Justice Today. By Lisa Bratton and Jonathan D. Becker / The Eduledger
Dr. Charles Gomillion’s leadership at Tuskegee Institute and refusal to accept disenfranchisement sparked a legal battle that redefined the constitutional protection of the right to vote.
Gomillion pitted a Tuskegee Institute (now University) sociology professor and administrator, Dr. Charles Gomillion, and members of the Tuskegee Civic Association (TCA), of which Gomillion was president, and many Tuskegee Institute faculty and staff were members, against the white politicians who controlled the city government of Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama, and the entire state government. The TCA, founded in 1941, focused on voting because, as Gomillion put it, “the ballot is the citizen’s best self-help tool.” The TCA managed to slowly register voters, in spite of a myriad of impediments to voter registration. Read more
How a Black Woman’s fight for respect changed courtrooms across America. By Haniyah P. / The Grio
In 1963, Miss Mary Hamilton was held in contempt when officials failed to call her Miss. In 1964, the US Supreme Court ruled in her favor
Like many activists, she was arrested multiple times throughout her life. But it was a court appearance in Gadsden, Alabama, in June 1963 that would cement her legacy. Hamilton had been called to testify at a hearing challenging the legitimacy of mass arrests made during civil rights protests in Gadsden. When Etowah County Solicitor William Rayburn addressed her simply as “Mary,” after extending the courtesy of “Miss” to every white witness before her, Hamilton refused to respond. Knowing that the switch was not incidental, the activist did not flinch. Read more
100 Years After Black Family Is Run Out of White California Town, Their Descendants Claim What’s Rightfully Theirs. By Phenix S. Halley / The Root
Over 100 years ago, the first Black family to live in an affluent California neighborhood was chased out of town, citing threats of racist mob violence. Now, the descendants of Sidney Dearing are claiming what’s rightfully theirs in the form of a lawsuit. However, to truly understand what’s at stake for the Dearing family, you must start at the very beginning.
The year is 1924. While in the midst of the economic boom known as the Roaring ’20s, Dearing, the owner of a popular jazz club in Oakland called The Creole Cafe, and his wife boldly made the decision to move to Piedmont, Calif., as reported by SF Gate. The predominantly white “sundown town” is located just outside of Oakland. But as the Dearings began to make a life for themselves, trouble soon rose in the form of racist residents and police. Read more
Bill Cosby ordered to pay $19m over sex abuse claim. MSN
A woman who said she was drugged and sexually assaulted by veteran US entertainer Bill Cosby was awarded more than $19 million on Monday after a civil hearing in California.
Donna Motsinger said she was working as a waitress more than 50 years ago when the performer began to target her. The hearing in Santa Monica was told how the comedian had initially come into the restaurant where the now-84-year-old Motsinger worked. One day when he picked her up in his limousine, Cosby gave her a glass of wine and what she thought was an aspirin. She began slipping in and out of consciousness and the next thing she knew she was waking up at home, wearing only her underwear. “She knew she had been drugged and raped by Bill Cosby,” the suit said. Read more
Afroman prevails in cops’ music video defamation suit after a brief but viral trial. By Rachel Treisman / NPR
Afroman was just trying to turn lemons into “Lemon Pound Cake” when he started making music videos and social media posts mocking the law enforcement officers who conducted a heavy-handed raid on his Ohio home.
Home surveillance video of the August 2022 raid shows half a dozen gun-wielding law-enforcement officers from the Adams County Sheriff’s Office deputies kicking down his door, combing through his CD collection, going through his suit pockets, flipping through a wad of cash and, in one case, briefly getting distracted by a cake dish on the kitchen counter. Read more and watch here
Sports
Florida targets NFL’s ‘Rooney Rule’ promoting minority coaches. By Andrew Atterbury / Politico
Florida is preparing to throw a challenge flag at the NFL’s longstanding “Rooney Rule” — meant to bolster the number of minority coaches and top executives in the league — as part of the state’s opposition to diversity hiring practices.
State Attorney General James Uthmeier warned NFL officials Wednesday that the Rooney Rule and other similar hiring policies are “illegal” under Florida’s civil rights laws. In a letter to Commissioner Roger Goodell, Uthmeier pressed the NFL to confirm by May 1 it would no longer enforce its policies requiring teams to interview minority candidates, including women, or else the state could take “civil rights enforcement action.” Read more
Tiger Woods stepping back into competitive golf as Masters loom. By Ryan Gaydos / Fox News
Tiger Woods is set to make his dramatic return to competitive golf on Tuesday night as rumors have swirled over whether he will be healthy enough to compete at the Masters in a few weeks.
Woods will compete in The Golf League finals for Jupiter Links, he told ESPN. The legendary golfer is set to compete in Match 2 of the best-of-three series against Los Angeles. Jupiter lost Match 1 against Los Angeles, which makes Woods the club’s last hope to stay alive. Read more
Related: Tiger Woods charged with DUI after crash in Florida, authorities say. By Melissa Gaffney / CBS News
The nerdy, authentic Oklahoma City Thunder are a breath of fresh air. By Owen Lewis / The Guardian
The relatable, endearing authenticity of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending NBA champions is a wonder to behold
Winter is over, though perhaps most NBA fans feel as if it’s just beginning. After a midseason slump, the Oklahoma City Thunder have won 12 of their last 13 games They’re clinging to a slim but steady three-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs atop the otherwise chaotic Western Conference. he Thunder’s flirtation with vulnerability was fun, but the defending champions look as invincible now as they did during their 24-1 run to begin the season. So, now as then, with nothing to criticize in the Thunder’s basketball, we are compelled to discuss their character and vibes. Read more
Related: LeBron James Is Making His Last Great Adjustment. By Louisa Thomas / The New Yorker
Jordan Chiles Makes History In UCLA’s Big Ten Title Sweep – ‘We’re Coming For Y’all.’ By Caroline Price / Forbes
It’s time for Jordan Chiles to clear more space in her trophy case.
The UCLA senior gymnast led the No. 5-ranked Bruins to their second-straight Big Ten Championship on Saturday, topping the second-place Michigan State Spartans by a sizable margin. The Bruins posted a staggering 198.100 to clinch the title over No. 11 Michigan State in second, No. 13 Minnesota in third, and No. 10 Michigan in fourth. Read more
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