Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 1156 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • The Next Best Thing

    Efforts aimed at recruiting student poll workers, some of whom aren’t yet eligible to vote, increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Monterey County ran registration drives, spoke in classrooms and other student-oriented events, and participated in California’s High School Voter Education Weeks, ultimately recruiting 107 students. The Georgia Youth Poll Worker Project used social media to recruit 1,000 young poll workers across the state. The organization is compiling “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Starting a Poll Worker Project” to help other organizations similarly recruit and train young poll workers.

    Read More

  • A GOP Governor and BLM Activists Agreed on Restoring Voting Rights to Felons. Will It Last?

    More than 3,000 Iowans voted in the 2020 presidential election thanks to an executive order signed by the Republican governor after a protest campaign by activists to erase Iowa's permanent ban on voting by people with felony records. But that number was just a fraction of those newly eligible to vote, due to limitations in the order and a lackluster effort to inform the public. Iowa has a disproportionately high number of disenfranchised Black citizens who could be helped by a more permanent constitutional fix. That fix has now been stalled by the choice to act by executive order.

    Read More

  • With free print newspaper, Indian farmers record their protest

    Because of internet shutdowns, six friends created a bilingual newspaper to document and record the farmer protests in India. Thousands of farmers have been protesting for weeks about the government’s new agricultural laws. Since there are many older farmers and the government has blocked the internet, they give out free print copies of their biweekly “Trolley Times” newspaper with information on speeches, medical aid, and community kitchens. While producing the newspaper has become harder, they are able to print about 5,000 copies for the farmers.

    Read More

  • How grass-roots efforts by Georgia's Latinos helped tip the Senate races

    Black and Latino organizers with the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) knocked on over 300,000 doors in between the general election and Senate runoffs. Canvassing in predominantly Latino neighborhoods, they also reached out to ineligible voters to encourage them to urge their U.S. born family members to vote in their family’s interests. Latino support of Democratic candidates increased in the Senate runoffs adding to narrow Democratic victories. GLAHR also helped elect the first Black sheriff of Gwinnett County, who quickly ended a program that allowed the county jail to collaborate with ICE.

    Read More

  • Minneapolis Is Funding Artists' Community Healing Projects With Police Dollars

    Through its Creative CityMaking program, the city of Minneapolis pays artists to use their skills to promote healing and community-building in projects they design on their own. The program had existed for seven years when the George Floyd case roiled Minneapolis. The city council carved $150,000 out of the police budget to add to its artist-led community healing work. One of the 10 most recent grantees, Rising From the Ashes, produced a series of online gatherings for local queer artists and artists of color, concluding with an online exhibit of art made during the 2020 uprising.

    Read More

  • ‘Make no mistake': Drag queens are leading a racial reckoning in Chicago's famous LGBTQ neighborhood

    The Chicago Black Drag Council launched after a series of protests that called on Chicago’s LGBTQ neighborhood to address racial discrimination and oppression. A handful of businesses quickly agreed to a live-streamed town hall to discuss ways to increase inclusivity. As a result, a prominent host of popular drag shows was ousted for racial discrimination and the business chamber dropped the neighborhood’s nickname, “Boystown,” from marketing materials because it is not inclusive. The Drag Council has also raised tens of thousands of dollars in cash and supplies to support Black- and trans-led initiatives.

    Read More

  • Curing the ‘colonial hangover': how Yukon First Nations became trailblazers of Indigenous governance

    Under the structure of unique treaties called final agreements, Yukon First Nations are able to exercise the powers of self-governance over projects proposed on their land. Implementation of the agreements isn’t always smooth, but 11 of the 14 First Nations have entered into these creative accords with the territorial and federal governments, which aims to foster participation and grant decision-making authority in these Indigenous communities.

    Read More

  • Michigan group helping to keep justice on the state's environmental agenda

    The Michigan Advisory Council on Environmental Justice was created to advise Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on environmental justice issues related to pollution and energy access. In its first year, the 21-member council was influential in moratoriums on water shut-offs and provided input on the state’s latest climate plan. Some members would like the council to have “more teeth” in policy decisions, but other say they are poised to take up more issues, like injustices related to electric utilities, in their second year.

    Read More

  • How reform gave way to ‘Defund the Police' in Seattle

    Seattle spent nearly a decade reforming its police department and branding itself as an example of how to fix a broken system prone to violence and racial bias. Public trust improved and the use of force declined. But the protests of 2020 changed perspectives in Seattle so much that now it is a leader in taking money from the police to fund community-based responses to social problems and low-level crime. The community is divided, largely along racial and ideological lines, over whether to "defund" the police, whether police reform is even possible, and how to reimagine public safety.

    Read More

  • SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

    After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

    Read More