Black History Month or Thanking The Slaves for Making America Great?

by Contributing Author
https://www.facebook.com/events/525025368378190/

By Bilal Mafundi Ali

For many people, especially Black people, the month of February signifies the annual celebration of Black History Month/African-American Heritage Month.  February is designated as a time to recognize African American achievements and contributions to America. One notable consequence is the hero worship of a handful of prominent figures.  What’s more, this celebration of Black achievement particularly tends to be sanitized, and this selective representation is often at the expense of erasing a rich legacy of individuals,

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New Study Demonstrates the Enduring Legacy of U.S. Slavery

by Contributing Author

by Neil K. R. Sehgal and Ashwini Sehgal

Legislators who are descendants of slaveholders are significantly wealthier than members of Congress without slaveholder ancestry, new research has found.

The legacy of slavery in America remains a divisive issue, with sharp political divides.

Some argue that slavery still contributes to modern economic inequalities. Others believe that its effects have largely faded.

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“Oppenheimer” and the Story Behind Those Who Lost Their Land to the Lab

by Contributing Author
The town of Los Alamos, New Mexico with Fuller Lodge and the "Big House" dormitories is seen in an undated photograph. Department of Energy/Handout via REUTERS. THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. - RC29C2A06ME3

by Andrew Hay, Reuters/International Network of Street Papers

In the movie Oppenheimer the eponymous character played by Cillian Murphy says the proposed site for a secret atomic weapons lab in northern New Mexico has only a boys’ school and Indians performing burial rites.

But there were homesteaders living on that land.

In 1942, the US Army gave 32 Hispano families on the Pajarito Plateau 48 hours to leave their homes and land,

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Juneteenth: ‘Bout Time We Recognize

by Contributing Author

by Jazzie O. Gray

Juneteenth—also known as Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day and Juneteenth National Independence Day—is the annual commemoration on June 19 of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States. President Biden first officially recognized the federal holiday in 2021, but Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1865. So why did it take so long to acknowledge the freedom of all African Americans in this country nationally?

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Juneteenth: ‘Bout Time We Recognize

by Jazzie O. Gray

Juneteenth—also known as Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Black Independence Day, Emancipation Day and Juneteenth National Independence Day—is the annual commemoration on June 19 of the emancipation of enslaved African Americans in the United States. President Biden first officially recognized the federal holiday in 2021, but Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1865. So why did it take so long to acknowledge the freedom of all African Americans in this country nationally? Let’s look at its 150-year history and illuminate its importance today.

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Kidnapping the Tenderloin through Redistricting

by Geoffria Morris

Every 10 years, the U.S. Constitution requires all residents to be counted through the Census. The Census occurs every decade, and once it concludes, the redistricting process begins. Redistricting is the redrawing of boundaries to ensure that U.S. citizens in a given state or city have a relatively proportionate number of constituents to serve in legislative offices. The redrawing of district lines is done at every level of legislative government: city, county, state and federal.

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My Mother’s San Francisco

by Lisa Willis

I was born in 1969 in the San Fernando Valley, and grew up in Pasadena, so what the hell do I know about San Francisco? I moved here last September, it’s the most beautiful city in the world! But the ugliness of inequality and poverty can be seen everywhere, and it’s heartbreaking! Just this morning, one homeless person died, and three were injured in an encampment fire. It was freezing last night! I was in my safe,

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Food Not Bombs Celebrates 40 years of Direct Action on Sunday, May 24, 2020 

by Quiver Watts

by Keith McHenry

“This cause is a great cause and we’re tired of being treated like dirt. We’re not, we’re human beings. We bleed just like you and we’re good people. We need a safe place and this is a safe place right here.” – Deseire Quintero

Volunteers with Santa Cruz Food Not Bombs wait outside what had been a large homeless camp that welcomed visitors for over one half year.

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I Ain’t Your Unicorn

by Tanea Lynx

“You know what we call you guys, right?”

I knew immediately that this was heading in a direction that I wanted no parts of. Before I could decide if I wanted to play dead in the backseat, he answered to amuse himself.

“Unicorns.”

I was in an uber. I had spent hours at my friend’s house in Lake View, a small community in San Francisco,

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Interfaith Groups Memorialize Homeless Dead

by Vlad K.

It was a varied group of about 100 people with flickering candles who gathered in front of City Hall on December 21, the first night of winter. Several Catholic monks, rabbis, Buddhist teachers, Protestant ministers and Sufi murshids formed a semicircle. Others were social workers, health professionals, spiritual guides, and friends from the streets, with close personal or professional relationships with those who had passed away. United by belief in the sacredness of human life,

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