‘Amir stood for love’ Another Black family grieves and seeks justice after police killing
For cops, it may have been a run of the mill “no knock” warrant in connection to a homicide investigation, but nine seconds after they entered a Minneapolis, Minnesota, apartment building with a key, 22-year-old Amir Locke, who was not involved nor the target of the search, was shot and killed by one of the officers. Like countless other young,...
Lawsuit exposes NFL’s racism, limited chances for Black coaches, executives
On the first day of Black History Month and with the Super Bowl, the most watched U.S. television broadcast approaching, Brian Flores filed a class-action lawsuit against the NFL and the league’s 32 teams alleging discrimination in their hiring process. In the lawsuit, the former head coach of the Miami Dolphins expressly named the New York Giants, the Dolphins...
‘Things seem to be going in the wrong direction’ Police logged increased fatal shootings in 2021
WASHINGTON—An’Twan Gilmore, a 27-year-old Black man, was asleep at the wheel of his idling BMW with his foot on the brake. On the late summer night last year, several District of Columbia police officers approached his car. They noticed he had a gun in his waistband. The officers knocked on the window to wake him up. Suddenly, according to...
‘Trauma in the highest form’ The suffering, the culture of abuse and still harrowing plight of women in prison
Daily life at Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility in Ypsilanti, Michigan, includes overcrowding, mold, improper airflow due to a clogged ventilation system, broken hot water tanks, water shortages, and mistreatment, harassment and degradation, according to activists and advocates. Michigan’s only prison for women is just one out of countless prisons in the United States where Black women suffer rape and...
Weather disasters cost U.S. billions each year as divine punishment continues
Extreme weather events have increased and are increasing. The new year has already seen inclement weather slam parts of the U.S. including parts of the South and Northeast at Final Call presstime. The powerful Winter Storm Izzy dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved across the southeastern U.S....
The Last Days of Dr. King: The drum major for justice was targeted, rejected after he refused to ignore U.S. violence in the world.
An enemy of the state:’ While celebrations of a holiday in his honor focus on a dream, Martin Luther King was condemned, but fearless in his last days August 28, 1963, a man had a dream. By the time he had come to the end of his life, he had been to the mountaintop. But between the dream and the mountaintop, he...
U.S. closer to civil war ‘than we want to believe’
America is unraveling at her very seams as she deals with the aftermath of last year’s violent, mostly White mob descending on her front porch. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam foresaw the division present, saying America is “unraveling right in front of your eyes” and is “cascading downward” in Feb. 2020. Now, a U.S. House Jan....
A Champion of Truth and Justice The life and legacy of Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Desmond Tutu, the champion for human rights and justice worldwide and stalwart of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa has died. The leader often regarded as the “moral compass” and “voice of integrity” in the country that defeated White minority rule was 90 years old. The renowned figure lost his battle with prostate cancer which he was diagnosed with in...
‘Our dollars can be a form of our resistance’: How and why we should redirect Black dollars this holiday season
Black Xmas, #BlackoutTuesday, 100 Days of Buying Black, Up With Jesus Down With Santa. These are just a few of the ongoing efforts Blacks around the country are implementing, supporting, and pushing as strategies in the fight for justice, self-preservation, and economic development. The strategy of “redistributing the pain,” a term coined by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is...
Unyoked from a colonial master, Barbados faces the challenges, opportunities of full governance
The last vestige of British colonialism has been removed from the Caribbean island of Barbados. The former slave colony which initially gained independence in 1966 unyoked itself as a bastion of British imperialism and chose a full and complete freedom. Before Caribbean heads of states, officials, England’s Prince Charles, and the Barbadian people, Barbados became the world’s newest republic. Dame Sandra...