racial injustice

Dillard Honors 19 Black Lives Returned After 150 Years

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By Curtis Bunn More than 150 years after their heads were severed from their bodies and shipped to Germany for “research,” the craniums of 19 Black people, which were recently returned, will be memorialized Saturday during a sacred ceremony in New Orleans. Dillard University President Monique Guillory said at a news conference Wednesday that the

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Relatives of the Groveland Four, from left, Vivian Shepherd, niece of Sam Shepherd, Gerald Threat, nephew of Walter Irvin; Carol Greenlee, daughter of Charles Greenlee, gather at the just-unveiled monument in front of the Old Lake County courthouse in Tavares, Fla., Friday, Feb. 21, 2020. Saying they were denied fundamental rights, local prosecutor Bill Gladson has filed a motion to clear the names of the four men who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman more than seven decades ago in what is considered one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in Jim Crow-era Florida. Gladson filed a motion on Monday, Oct. 25, 2021 to dismiss the indictments of Ernest Thomas and Samuel Shepherd and to set aside the judgments and sentences of Charles Greenlee and Walter Irvin. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Groveland Four Officially Exonerated After 72 Years

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By Sara Weisfeldt, The families of the “Groveland Four” got some closure Monday after Florida officially cleared four young Black men wrongly accused of raping a 17-year-old White girl in 1949. Circuit Court Judge Heidi Davis in Lake County, Florida, granted the State’s motion to posthumously dismiss the indictments of Ernest Thomas and Samuel Shepherd

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Attorney Ben Crump, second from left, walks with Ron Lacks, left, Alfred Lacks Carter, third from left, both grandsons of Henrietta Lacks, and other descendants of Lacks, whose cells have been used in medical research without her permission, outside the federal courthouse in Baltimore, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. They announced during a news conference that Lacks' estate is filing a lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific for using Lacks' cells, known as HeLa cells. (AP Photo/Steve Ruark)

Henrietta Lacks’ Family Sues Over Profits From HeLa Cells

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By Taylor Romine, The family of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose cells have been used for groundbreaking scientific research for decades, filed a lawsuit Monday against Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. for unjust enrichment from the nonconsensual use and profiting from her tissue sample and cell line. Lacks, a Black woman diagnosed with cervical cancer, had tissue taken

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FILE - In this Jan. 30, 1951 file photo, as temperatures drop below freezing, demonstrators march in front of the White House in Washington, in what they said was an effort to persuade President Harry Truman to halt execution of seven Black men sentenced to death in Virginia on charges of raping a white woman. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam granted posthumous pardons Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2021 to seven Black men who were executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman, in a case that attracted pleas for mercy from around the world and in recent years has been denounced as an example of racial disparity in the use of the death penalty. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs, File)

Virginia Pardons Martinsville Seven 70 Years After Deaths

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By Kristina Sgueglia, A group of young Black men executed after being convicted by all-White juries of allegedly raping a White woman have been pardoned in Virginia 70 years after their deaths. On Tuesday, Gov. Ralph Northam granted posthumous pardons to the”Martinsville Seven.” “While these pardons do not address the guilt of the seven, they

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Black Americans’ Struggle for Equity Persists Despite Gains

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 by Richard J. Reddick More than a year after the pivotal moment where millions of Americans witnessed the murder of George Floyd at the hands of those charged with the responsibility to serve and protect — and about two weeks after the salutary news that his killer would pay with a 22.5 year prison sentence

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