By Russ McQuaid When Leon Bates’ grandfather would travel Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Kentucky as an International Representative of the United Auto Workers union in the forties, fifties and sixties, he always carried extra white shirts so he could look fresh
By John Blake and Suzanne Malveaux We lost civil rights icons. They lost friends. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, Xernona Clayton and Andrew Young are some of the last remaining members of a generation of civil rights activists who reshaped the US and challenged their country to become a genuine multiracial democracy. But they are also
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By Tim Stanley TULSA, Oklahoma (Tulsa World) — The Tulsa World recently talked to 10 Tulsans who, each in their own way, have committed to telling the story of Greenwood and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre while helping raise awareness of its too-long-ignored history. 50 years ago, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre was a taboo
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By Faith Karimi On February 25, 1964, four African American icons met in a Miami hotel room for a night of revelry, bonding, arguments and ice cream. One of them, the brash and flamboyant Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali) had just won the world heavyweight boxing championship in an upset
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Opinion by Dean Obeidallah On April 4, 1968, a White gunman shot and killed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. More than 50 years later, the fight he waged to ensure Black Americans had equal access to vote is still very much alive. We are now
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By Leah Asmelash, CNN A bust of the enslaved explorer who accompanied Lewis and Clark was mysteriously put in a Portland, Oregon, park last month. Weeks later, the artist still hasn’t formally come forward — but the work has sparked a citywide reflection on the people of color who helped shape the city’s history. In
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By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN Debra Barnes Wilson was 8 on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama. She and her grandmother, Julia Barnes, joined the voting rights marchers, filing in at the back of the column, but turned back because the elder, an asthmatic, grew short of breath. The girl’s grandmother, who raised her, lived in
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