Marc H. Morial
Stories this photo appears in:
Biden puts bans on policing, by Marc H. Morial
“Our criminal justice system must respect the dignity and rights of all persons and adhere to our fundamental obligation to ensure fair and impartial justice for all. This is imperative — not only to live up to our principles as a Nation, but also to build secure, safe, and healthy communities. Protecting public safety requires close partnerships between law enforcement and the communities it serves. Public safety therefore depends on public trust, and public trust in turn requires that our criminal justice system as a whole embodies fair and equal treatment, transparency, and accountability.” President Biden, Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety.
Overcoming NFL’s shameful history, by Marc H. Morial
“More than half the players in the NFL are Black, and most coaches have played the game at some level. That would seem to be the perfect recipe for Black coaches to find success. But most NFL owners have been white men, and they have seldom been willing to let African Americans or Latinos call plays — either on the field or from the sidelines. This is no different from when franchises presumed that Black players weren’t smart enough to play quarterback and lacked leadership skills to command men. The league’s paltry record of hiring minority head coaches comes from the same mindset. And its primary effort to address the problem has been a failure, because a policy can’t compensate for ignorance.”— Jemele Hill
Diversity and the Federal Reserve Board, by Marc H. Morial
“The Federal Reserve is our country’s most powerful economic policy institution. Twelve Fed leaders meet every six weeks to make decisions that include how many people should be unemployed and whether wages should be going up. Most of those leaders are white men who come from Wall Street. We want the leadership of the Fed at all levels to be more diverse so it looks and thinks like the working people it is supposed to represent, not Wall Street.” — The Fed Up Campaign
Mobilize for voting rights, by Marc H. Morial
“After decades of struggle and a year of our leaders choosing the Jim Crow filibuster over our voting rights, our time is now. On this day of action, I call on Congress and the White House to eliminate the filibuster and pass voting rights to protect millions of Black and Brown voters. The arc of the moral universe is long. Join me on January 17 to demand that it bends toward justice.” — Martin Luther King III
Remembering the Montgomery bus boycott, by Marc H. Morial
“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. There comes a time, my friends, when people get tired of being plunged across the abyss of humiliation, where they experience the bleakness of nagging despair. There comes a time when people get tired of being pushed out of the glittering sunlight of life’s July and left standing amid the piercing chill of an alpine November. There comes a time.” — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dec. 5, 1955, address to the first Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting.
MBDA gets permanent status, by Marc H. Morial
“President Biden has made clear his commitment to not just rebuilding to how things were before COVID-19, but to building back better and more equitably. The Minority Business Development Agency is ready to step into this historic moment and build on its success — because we recognize that America’s road to recovery runs through our minority business community. Making MBDA a statutory Agency provides MBDA with the authorities, workforce and resources needed to help level the playing field on behalf of minority businesses and minority entrepreneurs.”—U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo
Senators graded on defending voting rights, by Marc H. Morial
How much do your senators care about voter suppression? How committed are they to our most sacred constitutional right? What have they done, and what are they willing to do, to defend it?
End assault on voting rights now, by Marc H. Morial
“It’s not that the filibuster itself is inherently racist, but it has been the favorite tool of racists. It is the preferred choice of Southern conservatives, in whatever era and whatever party, who are trying to slow down civil rights and trying to deny equal protection for African-Americans.” — Princeton University Historian Kevin M. Kruse
Remedies for years of neglect, by Marc H. Morial
Filibuster. Cloture. Reconciliation. The chatter surrounding President Biden’s landmark infrastructure investment and Build Back Better agenda seems endlessly focused on the legislative process, on political maneuvering, on faceless numbers taken out of context.
Playing politics with students’ health
Across the country, students are embarking on what is certain to be a third consecutive academic year that is compromised or disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The “New Normal’, by Marc H. Morial
Few events have shaped American history and our national perspective on racial inequity as profoundly as the grief, civil unrest and economic devastation brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Black Americans want vaccine
“They’ve read all this stuff rate is half the white rate. Black people who don’t intend online, from different news sources, which is confusing. But then they meet me, as someone who has had the shot, and I can give them some real answers.”— Armando Mateos of Working Partnerships USA, a Silicon Valley-based community organization working to help dispel misinformation about the pandemic and vaccines.
Evictions will deepen U.S. economic crisis, by Marc H. Morial
“The issue of inability to pay, poverty and unemployment – that existed pre-COVID-19. The difference between now and then is that the pandemic has shifted the line of poverty. There are more people at risk than before.”— Attorney Raphael Ramos of Wisconsin’s Eviction Defense Project.
Restore the Voting Rights Act, by Marc H. Morial
“Although the court did not deny that voter discrimination still exists, it gutted the most powerful tool this nation has ever had to stop discriminatory voting practices from becoming law. Those justices were never beaten or jailed for trying to register to vote. They have no friends who gave their lives for the right to vote. I want to say to them, ‘Come and walk in my shoes.’” — Congressman John Lewis reacting to the U.S Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder deci- sion in 2013.
Opportunity in crisis by Marc H. Morial
“Far too many African-Americans still struggle to lead healthy and economically secure lives. This is due to the long-standing effects of racism, which touches all African- Americans regardless of socioeconomic status. These effects can be reversed, but it will take real commitment and systemic change. It shouldn’t have taken an international pandemic to prove to America’s leaders what civil rights activists have known all along: A system in which people can’t afford to seek medical care and are forced to go to work sick is a recipe for national disaster." — Jamila Taylor, director of health care reform and senior fellow of The Century Foundation
Election security is paramount by Marc H. Morial
“Since at least 2014, known and unknown individuals, operating as part of a broader Russian effort known as ‘Project Lakhta,’ have engaged in political and electoral interference operations targeting populations within the Russian Federation and in various other countries, including, but not limited to, the United States, members of the European Union, and Ukraine. Since at least May 2014, Project Lakhta’s stated goal in the United States was to spread distrust towards candidates for political office and the political system in general.” – U.S. Criminal Complaint against Elena Alekseevna Khusyaynova, accused chief accountant of “Project Lakhta,” a Russian effort targeting foreign audiences in the United States, members of the European Union and Ukraine, among others.
#ReclaimingYourVote by Marc H. Morial
“Voter suppression isn’t guns and hoses and bully clubs and Bull Connor. It’s administrative burdens that interfere with your right to vote. In the South, they try to stop you from getting on the rolls ... and to stay on the rolls ... and have your ballot be counted. We need our democracy to work, we need poverty to end, we need disenfranchisement to be a thing of the past, because when people are suppressed or oppressed it rages. It may be silent for some time but eventually it will come out.” – Stacey Abrams, former Georgia lawmaker and gubernatorial candidate
Remembering gun violence survivors by Marc H. Morial
On Jan. 8, 2011, I was performing my favorite duty as a congresswoman — meeting with my constituents — when it happened. In a matter of seconds, a gunman shot and killed six people, injured 12 others and shot me in the head outside a Safeway in Tucson, Ariz. I keep the memories of those we lost that day — 9-year- old Christina- Taylor Green, Dorothy Morris, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, Gabe Zimmerman and Judge John Roll — close to my heart. And I will be forever bonded to my fellow survivors who will spend the rest of their lives dealing with injuries and trauma. — Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords
Prison gerrymandering hurts black poliical power by Marc H. Morial
“When districts with prisons receive enhanced representation, every other district in the state without a prison sees its votes diluted. And this vote dilution is even larger in the districts with the highest incarceration rates. Thus, the communities that bear the most direct costs of crime are therefore the communities that are the biggest victims of prison-based gerrymandering. The Census Bureau’s decision to count incarcerated people in the wrong place interferes with equal representation in virtually every state.” — Prison Policy Initiative, The Prison Gerrymandering Project
Resist efforts to divide people by Marc H. Morial
A report that hate crimes surged in America’s five largest cities last year has broken just as we honor the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the nation’s best known victim of a hate crime.
Remembering trailblazer Richard G. Hatcher
Columnists
“I thought it was the greatest thing in the world that he was going to be our mayor. He was someone who looked like us and fought for the things we believed in and needed.
AIDS and the black community by Marc H. Morial
Columnists
“The fact that there’s a conversation that occurs on an annual basis on World AIDS Day is significant. The fact that the president of the United States, on an annual basis, now, comments and discusses AIDS, keeps it on the agenda. I think a very, very concrete outcome of that discussion is that President Bush put forward billions of dollars toward the AIDS prevention and education effort for the United Nations. I don’t think that would’ve happened had it not been for World AIDS Day ...” — Jim Block, co-founder of World AIDS Day
A.I. and African-American workers by Marc H. Morial
“Black America’s collective response to emerging technology will determine whether it is an opportunity or an existential threat.” – George H. Lambert Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Greater Washington Urban League
Deaths reaffirm importance of CBC, by Marc H. Morial
In recent days, America lost two influential African-Americans who served as high-ranking members of the Congressional Black Caucus — Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland and former Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. Their loss has served to reaffirm the importance of the CBC and the election of dedicated public servants.
Tribute to Rep. Elijah E. Cummings
by Marc H. Morial
It’s hard to express how great a loss the death of Congressman Elijah E. Cummings represents for the civil rights community.
Congress is duty-bound to investigate Trump
Columnists
“Any attempt by a President to use the office of the presidency of the United States for personal political gain — rather than the national interest — fundamentally undermines our sovereignty, democracy and the Constitution ... Misuse of the office of the presidency for such a corrupt purpose would thus represent a clear breach of the trust placed in the President to faithfully ex-ecute the laws of the United States and to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” – U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, chair of the Committee on Oversight and Reform; and U.S. Rep. Eliot L. Engel, chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Recovering from Ferguson
“The city’s personal-responsibility refrain ... reflects many of the same racial stereotypes found in the emails between police and court supervisors. This evidence of bias and stereotyping, together with evidence that Ferguson has long recognized but failed to correct the consistent racial disparities caused by its police and court practices, demonstrates that the discriminatory effects of Ferguson’s conduct are driven at least in part by discriminatory intent in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” – U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division, Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, March 2015
Get serious about white extremists and domestic terrorism
Columnists
Just over a decade ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI produced a report titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”
A tribute to Toni Morrison
Columnists
“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is obscuring state language or the faux-language of mindless media; whether it is the proud but calcified language of the academy or the commodity driven language of science; whether it is the malign language of law-without-ethics, or language designed for the estrangement of minorities, hiding its racist plunder in its literary cheek –it must be rejected, altered and exposed. It is the language that drinks blood, laps vulnerabilities, tucks its fascist boots under crinolines of respectability and patriotism as it moves relentlessly toward the bottom line and the bottomed-out mind.” — Toni Morrison, Nobel Lecture, 1993
Righting old wrongs
Columnists
“The U.S. ‘war on drugs’ — a decades-long policy of racial and class suppression hidden behind cannabis criminality — has resulted in the arrest, interdiction and incarceration of a high percentage of Americans of color. The legal cannabis industry represents a great opportunity to help balance the detrimental effects of the war on drugs by creating an equal playing field for all people to benefit from the changing legal landscape.” — Minority Cannabis Business Association
No justice for Eric Garner
Columnists
Eric Garner died pleading for his life on a New York City sidewalk. The chokehold that triggered his fatal asthma attack was illegal.
Michelle Obama still a role model
As First Lady, Mrs. Obama earned a singular place in American history as the first black woman to hold the title. But it was her dignity and grace, her compassion and her commitment to uplifting the American people that truly defined her era in the East Wing of the White House.
Citizenship question contrived
Columnists
Civil rights groups and advocates for a fair census breathed a sigh of relief last week when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration’s “contrived” justification for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
National Urban League and ‘State of Black America’
Columnists
The U.S. intelligence community announced it was “confident” that it happened. A Senate Intelligence Committee report confirmed it. And now the Mueller Report has documented its scope in breathtaking detail.
Help end gun violence
H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, is the most significant gun safety bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in more than two decades. The legislation requires background checks on all firearm sales in the country.
Smollett and real hate crimes
Last week, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced that the number of hate groups in the United States continued to rise for the fourth consecutive year in 2018.
Blackface: An insulting mask of privilege
As a black student in overwhelmingly white schools in Louisiana, I faced my share of racial insults and slights. But one of the more memorable incidents was not even a deliberate slight directed at me. The offenders probably didn’t even think of me. But when a group of my classmates contemptuously affected exaggerated accents mocking black people as part of a school production, I walked out.
Lifting workers with wages
Nowhere in the country can a full-time worker earning the federal or state minimum wage afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent. One in nine U.S. workers are paid wages that can leave them in poverty, even when working full time.
Spike Lee and Oscar
“People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world … I do not think there is going to be any substantial movement until people of color get into those gatekeeper positions of people who have a green-light vote. That is what it comes down to. We do not have a vote, and we are not at that table when it is decided what gets made and what does not get made.” — Spike Lee
The new voter suppression
“Georgia elections officials deployed a known strategy of voter suppression: closing and relocating polling places. Despite projections of record turnout, elections officials closed or moved approximately 305 locations, many in neighborhoods with numerous voters of color.
Dismantling Jim Crow
The Urban League Movement congratulates two states in the Deep South that took a step out of the dark Jim Crow past by passing major criminal justice reforms on Election Day.
Criminalizing poverty
Kalief Browder, a teenager who spent three harrowing years in a New York City jail on charges that eventually were dropped, took his own life as a result of the trauma he suffered.
Russia’s sabotage of U.S. elections
We don’t yet know — and perhaps may never fully know — to what extent Russian efforts to sabotage American elections succeeded. What we do know is that, in addition to waging a massive disinformation campaign on social media, Kremlin-backed hackers:
Why Senate should hold up Supreme Court nomination
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” – James Madison, Federalist 47, 1788
Jobs and Justice Act new urban Marshall Plan
The Main Street Marshall Plan, the National Urban League’s comprehensive blueprint for addressing lack of opportunity and economic inequality in America’s urban communities, has been introduced as federal legislation by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Black tech consumers, but not employees
A nationwide assessment of the digital economy has found that black Americans are overrepresented as tech consumers, but drastically underrepresented as tech employees, according to the 2018 State of Black America.
Honor victims with action
“From 1986 to 1996, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored high-quality, peer-reviewed research into the underlying causes of gun violence. People who kept guns in their homes did not — despite their hopes — gain protection … Instead, residents in homes with a gun faced a 2.7-fold greater risk of homicide and a 4.8-fold
Economic justice and fair housing
“The housing problem is particularly acute in the minority ghettos. Nearly two-thirds of all non-white families living in the central cities today live in neighborhoods marked with substandard housing and general urban blight. Two major factors are responsible. First: Many ghetto residents simply cannot pay the rent necessary to support decent housing. In Detroit, for example, over 40 percent of the non-white occupied units in 1960 required rent of over 35 percent of the tenants’ income. Second: Discrimination prevents access to many non-slum areas, particularly the suburbs, where good housing exists. In addition, by creating a ‘back pressure’ in the racial ghettos, it makes it possible for landlords to break up apartments for denser occupancy, and keeps prices and rents of deteriorated ghetto housing higher than they would be in a truly free market.” – Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (the Kerner Commission), 1968 Former Vice President Walter Mondale, who co-sponsored the Fair Housing Act along with U.S. Sen. Edward Brooke, the first popularly elected African-American in the U.S. Senate, was interviewed recently on the occasion of the Fair Housing Act’s 50th anniversary.
Razor thin Pa. victory underscores importance of voting
“Eight days after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson spoke to a joint session of the Congress and made one of the most meaningful speeches any American president had made in modern time on the whole question of voting rights and introduced the Voting Rights Act. And at one point in the speech, before President Johnson concluded the
Black immigrants’ lives matter, too
We are long overdue for a discussion about immigration as it relates to black immigrants, particularly at this moment as the current presidential administration clamors to end legal protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA recipients. Congressional leaders lurch from one proposed bipartisan solution to another in search of a permanent legislative fix.
Courage, political will and gun control
“This is our first task, caring for our children. It’s our first job. If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right. That’s how, as a society, we will be judged. And by that measure, can we truly say, as a nation, that we’re meeting our obligations? Can we honestly say that we’re doing enough to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?” — Former President Obama, during 2012 prayer vigil for victims of Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn.
‘Black Panther’ claws away racism
“The film serves as a breath of fresh intellectual air, especially amid today’s sociopolitical climate.
A year of historic anniversaries
“It is not an overstatement to say that the destiny of the entire human race depends on what is going on in America today. This is a staggering reality to the rest of the world; they must feel like passengers in a supersonic jetliner who are forced to watch helplessly while a passel of drunks, hypes,
Observing World AIDS Day
“Let us also continue to ensure that our nation responds aggressively and humanely to the needs of people living with HIV and AIDS. Throughout this epidemic, community organizations have taken the lead in the struggle against the disease and in efforts to provide compassionate care to those in need. Across this country and around the globe, generous people perform miracles every day — holding a hand, cooling a fever, listening and understanding. Let us further support their efforts to build a better world by strengthening the partnership between communities and government in the work to stop AIDS.” – President Clinton in 1995 in recognition of World AIDS Day
Thanksgiving: A bipartisan celebration
“This history (of Thanksgiving) teaches us that the American instinct has never been to seek isolation in opposite corners; it is to find strength in our common creed and forge unity from our great
Fannie Lou Hamer remembered
“You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” – Fannie Lou Hamer
NFL must address racial justice
“We want to make sure we are understanding what the players are talking about, and that is complex.” — National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell
Fake math fuels Trump’s lopsided, lousy tax reform
“Rightful taxation is the price of social order. In other words, it is that portion of the citizen’s property which he yields up to the government in order to provide for the protection of all the rest. It is not to be wantonly levied on the citizen, nor levied at all except in return for benefits conferred.” — Journal of the Senate of the State of Ohio, December 6, 1847
A grave mistake
“I have been particularly struck by the many comments and reactions from children for whom Harriet Tubman is not just a historical figure, but a role model for leadership and participation in our democracy. You shared your thoughts about her life and her works and how they changed our nation and represented our most cherished values … Her incredible story of courage and commitment to equality embodies the ideals of democracy that our nation celebrates, and we will continue to value her legacy by honoring her on our currency.” — Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew
Action in the face of abuse
After 12 historic years leading the North Carolina NAACP, the Rev. William J. Barber II is stepping down from his post and stepping up to the challenge posed by the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nearly five decades ago to unite the
Protecting the right to vote
Voting is not a privilege. It is a fundamental, constitutionally ratified right afforded to all eligible citizens. The right to elect your federal, state and local representatives and weigh in on proposed local policies via ballot is the very definition of democracy — rule by the people.
Price of incarceration
Hip-hop legend Jay Z celebrated Father’s Day this year by allowing incarcerated fathers to spend the day with their families. Pick any day of the week in America and an estimated 700,000 people are populating our nation’s local city and county jails. Of those behind bars, 60 percent — nearly half a million people, many of whom are African-American and Hispanic — will remain in jail, not because they have been convicted of any crime, but because they are guilty of the unpardonable crime of poverty and cannot afford the court-stipulated price tag placed on their freedom.
A return to heavy-handed criminal justice
Dear Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the 20th century called. It wants its failed, heavy-handed criminal justice policies back. In a throwback to President George W. Bush’s administration, Mr. Sessions is widely expected to formally order all federal prosecutors to impose the harshest sentences for all drug offenses and offenders, including the return of the widely unpopular and discredited mandatory minimums.
A U.S. Marshall Plan
Earlier this month, voters in Kansas City, Mo., handily approved three ballot questions that will allow the city to borrow and invest $800 million over 20 years to improve roads, bridges, sidewalks and
Urban League says ‘no’ to Gorsuch
“Overall, we conclude that there is an inadequate record to determine if Judge Gorsuch has a commitment to protecting and safeguarding civil rights and, therefore, we do not believe he satisfies the second prong of our requirement for endorsement. Based upon our review of Judge Gorsuch’s record, we have concerns that he has a narrow view of rights that are protected by the Constitution, as well as a skeptical view about the importance of protecting those rights in the courtroom. In short, Judge Gorsuch’s record does not allow us to support his nomination for the Supreme Court at this time.”
Assault on liberty and justice
During a presidential campaign rally in Dimondale, Mich., Republican nominee Donald Trump made an impassioned, six-word overture to African-Americans, who had shown little enthusiasm for his campaign: “What do you have to lose?”
Know your HIV status
I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished together over the past eight years. Here and around the world, over 18 million people are receiving the treatment and care they need — millions of infections have been prevented. What once seemed like an impossible dream, the dream of an AIDS-free generation, is within our grasp. But we know that there’s work to do to banish stigma, save lives and empower everyone to reach their potential…Today we remember those we’ve lost, and reflect on the extraordinary progress we’ve won. We give thanks to the heroes on the front lines of this fight and tomorrow we get back out there, because together, we can do this.” — President Obama’s video message for World AIDS Day on Dec. 1 On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control published its weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report. The report, which described five cases of previously healthy, young gay men in Los Angeles infected with a rare lung infection, eventually would become recognized as the first official report on HIV/AIDS in the United States.
What about the children?
“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust ...We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.” — U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall As far back as June 2015, the National Urban League called upon all presidential candidates to refrain from using racially divisive and disparaging language in their campaigns.
A plan for urban recovery
As the general election season begins in earnest, the National Urban League has a message for the next president: Invest in America. When Europe found itself in physical and economic ruin after World War II, the United States invested $13 billion — $130 billion in today’s dollars — through the European Recovery Program, more commonly known as the Marshall Plan, after Secretary of State George Marshall.
Williams a rising activist
“The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander. That’s not our job, alright, stop with all that. If you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression. If you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do. Sit down.” — Jesse Williams
Raise the minimum wage
Day in and day out, men and women all over our country work hard at their jobs but hardly have anything to show for it. As the debate over income inequality and narrowing the ever-widening wealth gap continues to dominate our national and political conversations, private corporations and states are taking matters into their own hands, bridging the dueling divides of income and opportunity by increasing the minimum wage.
Fair Housing Act 48 years later
“Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal. This deepening racial division is not inevitable. The movement apart can be reversed. Choice is still possible. Our principal task is to define that choice and to press for a national resolution … [It] will require a commitment to national action —compassionate, massive and sustained, backed by the resources of the most powerful and the richest nation on this earth. From every American it will require new attitudes, new understanding, and, above all, new will.” — Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Report), 1967
Obamacare: Six years later
Today, after almost a century of trying; today, after over a year of debate; today, after all the votes have been tallied, health insurance reform becomes law in the United States of America. Today. It is fitting that Congress passed this historic legislation this week. For as we mark the turning of spring, we also mark a new season in America. In a few moments, when I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.” — President Obama at signing of Health Insurance Reform Bill, March 2010
AIDS: Getting to zero
“Three decades into this crisis, let us set our sights on achieving the “three zeros” — zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. On this World AIDS Day, let us pledge to work together to realize this vision for all of the world’s people.” — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, United Nations, World AIDS Day 2010
Racial bias in jury selection
Illegal and unconstitutional jury selection procedures cast doubt on the integrity of the whole judicial process. They create the appearance of bias in the decision of individual cases, and they increase the risk of actual bias as well. – U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Peters v. Kiff (1972)
A message of mercy
The recent visit of Pope Francis to the United States has rekindled our national conversation on how we will protect and care for our marginalized, provide access to our disenfranchised communities and promote justice for all.
‘Equity and Excellence’ needed
All across the country, people are gathering to observe an annual academic rite of passage — graduation. In a scene that will be played out countless times during this season of celebration, family and friends will dutifully take their seats in auditoriums and at sports fields around the nation and proudly look on as their loved ones walk across stages to receive their diplomas or degrees and, finally, turn the tassel on their graduation caps.
Police reform needed now
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” – Charles de Montesquieu, “The Spirit of the Laws,” 1748 A tragic déjà vu is playing out in communities all across America, particularly in the growingly skeptical streets of black and brown neighborhoods.
The evolution of Malcolm X
“You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it.” ~ Malcolm X, Letter from Mecca, April 1964 Perhaps no American civil rights leader has generated as many divergent opinions as Malcolm X. As we near the 50th anniversary of his assassination on Feb. 21, 1965, our nation will scrutinize his life, his work and his lasting impact on our country and our continuous struggle to address racial inequality and its heinous consequences.
