Jimmy Carter’s Legacy With Black Women in U.S. Leadership
By Donna M. Owens When Alexis M. Herman first met Jimmy Carter back in the 1970s, she never imagined how their fates would intertwine, nor the heights to which their careers would rise. “He was governor of Georgia then, and I was just a few years out of college,” Herman said. Herman, an Alabama native and Xavier University alumna, was a volunteer on civil rights leader Andrew Young’s congressional campaign when “Andy introduced me to Jimmy Carter and told him of the work I was doing.” At the time, Herman was involved in an experimental project to create a minority women’s employment program
Protecting Black Students in Trump’s Second Presidency
By Shaun Harper One day after Donald Trump was re-elected president of the United States, Black students across the country received racist text messages. This same thing happened within 10 days following the 2016 presidential election: Black freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania received messages via GroupMe with threats of being lynched; I was a professor there at the time. That it happened again—this time on a larger national scale—is one indicator of what is likely to ensue on college and university campuses over the next four years. As I insisted at Penn eight years ago, I maintain now that Black students
Spelman Unveils Amanda Williams’ Exhibit on Black Identity
Courtesy of Spelman University Spelman College Museum of Fine Art presents We Say What Black This Is, an exhibition showcasing mixed media and watercolor paintings by MacArthur award-winning artist Amanda Williams. The new exhibit opens February 7, 2025, and will be on view through May 24, 2025. We Say What Black This Is challenges reductive definitions of Blackness, instead celebrating its diversity, resilience and depth. The exhibition features works from Williams’ series What Black is this, You Say?, created in response to the ‘Blackout Tuesday’ social media moment in 2020. The exhibit will include a new abstract painting by Williams and student-written didactic labels.
Kamala Harris and the 2028 Democratic Primary Shake-Up
Kamala Harris is weighing whether to run for president again, and some Democrats seem open to the idea. But she’s hardly likely to clear the field next time. Potential rivals on Democrats’ deep bench were already beginning to maneuver for 2028 during her short-lived second candidacy. And it’s widely expected that the earliest stages of the party’s next primary will start to pick up not long after Donald Trump’s inauguration next month. With 2024 drawing to a close, we pulled together five of our plugged-in politics reporters to talk about Harris’ political future, how the rest of the party’s most ambitious
Biden Sets Record for Black Federal Judge Appointments
By Char Adams President Joe Biden has appointed more federal judges of color than any president before him, and overtaking Donald Trump’s record for overall federal judge appointments in the process. On Friday the Senate confirmed Biden’s judicial nominee for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California Benjamin Cheeks. With Cheeks’ confirmation, Biden has appointed 63 Black federal judges, the most of a presidency of any length, according to the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Earlier this month, the Senate confirmed Tiffany Johnson, Biden’s judicial nominee for the Northern District of Georgia, making her the 40th Black
Senate Passes Social Security Boost for Public Workers
By Anthony Adragna The Senate broadly approved a measure expanding Social Security payments to millions of certain public sector workers, sending the measure to President Joe Biden for his signature. The vote on the Social Security Fairness Act was 76-20. It previously passed the House in an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 327-75 in November after rank-and-file lawmakers used a procedural measure, known as a discharge petition, to force a floor vote without House GOP leaders’ blessing. “We will vote on taking up the Social Security Fairness Act to repeal flawed policies that eat away at the benefits of those who’ve
Trump Picks Herschel Walker as Ambassador to Bahamas
By Candace McDuffie On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump once again shocked the country with another one of his appointments. He officially named former NFL star Herschel Walker as the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas. Walker ran for a Georgia Senate seat in 2022 and lost to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Trump announced the news on his social media platform Truth Social. “I am pleased to nominate Herschel Walker as United States Ambassador to the Commonwealth of the Bahamas. Herschel has spent decades serving as an Ambassador to our Nation’s youth, our men and women in the Military, and athletes at home
Senate Passes Spending Bill, Avoids Holiday Shutdown
By Scott Wong, Sahil Kapur, Ali Vitali, Julie Tsirkin, Kyle Stewart and Kate Santaliz The Senate gave final passage to a bill early Saturday morning to keep the government open for three more months, sending it to President Joe Biden’s desk to end the threat of a government shutdown during the holidays. The vote was 85-11. The Republican-controlled House passed the bill hours earlier. Although the final vote technically went past the midnight deadline to avert a shutdown, the White House said that Biden would sign the bill Saturday and avoid forcing U.S. troops, Border Patrol agents, air traffic controllers and millions of other federal workers to work without
Hospital Price Transparency Faces Uncertain Future
By Julie Appleby It seems simple: Require hospitals and insurers to post their negotiated prices for most health care services and — bingo — competition follows, yielding lower costs for consumers. But nearly four years after the first Trump administration’s regulations forced hospitals to post massive amounts of pricing information online, the effect on patients’ costs is unclear. And while President Joe Biden added requirements to make pricing information more user-friendly, Donald Trump’s imminent return to the White House has raised questions about what’s next, even though posting prices is an area of rare bipartisan agreement. The uncertainty of what
