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North Carolina Names Highway for Groundbreaking Black Historian and Civil Rights Advocate
A stretch of Interstate 85 in Durham, N.C., has been named for the trailblazing black historian John H. Franklin, who directly confronted America’s racist history and helped shaped the discourse around America’s legacy of slavery. The stretch of road was dedicated to the influential scholar Monday afternoon at the Hayti Heritage Center. As the Raleigh…
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The New York Times Whitesplains Its Awful Neo-Nazi Profile
The New York Times responded to its readers Sunday after a “puff piece” about a neo-Nazi that ran over the weekend garnered a swift and ferocious backlash. The piece, titled “A Voice of Hate in America’s Heartland” and written by the Times’ Richard Fausset, strives to paint Nazi sympathizer Tony Hovater and his wife, Maria,…
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Trump’s Top Pick to Head Census Is Pro-Gerrymandering Professor Who Thinks Black People Are Overcounted
Voting and immigration-rights advocates are alarmed over Donald Trump’s leading pick to head the U.S. Census Bureau: a conservative college professor with no government experience who literally wrote a book expounding on the dangers of competitive elections. According to Politico, Trump wants to tap Thomas Brunell, a political science professor at the University of Texas…
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Justice Department Threatens to Sue Harvard Over Race-Based Admissions Practices
The Trump administration is squaring up for its first major legal challenge over affirmative action, as documents obtained by CNN indicate. The news network, which shared copies of the documents on its site, confirms that the Department of Justice is actively investigating Harvard’s use of race in its admissions decisions. The letters, which come from…
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Bank Better Have My Money: Armed 86-Year-Old Woman Demands That Tellers Pay Her What They Owe Her
Do not play with Grandmama’s money. A Philadelphia senior, armed with a .38-caliber revolver and pushing a walker, went into a TD Bank on Tuesday afternoon to demand the cash she thought she had been shorted the day before. WTXF Fox 29 reports that the 86-year-old woman had made a withdrawal Monday, only to come…
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Tennessee Judge Who Offered Freedom in Exchange for Sterilization Receives Mild Reprimand
A Tennessee judge who drew widespread condemnation this past summer for offering vasectomies in exchange for lighter jail sentences has been formally reprimanded. Judge Sam Benningfield of White County told repeat drug offenders in his court that he would cut their sentences by 30 days if they would sign up for sterilization. For male inmates,…
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I Tried It: A Night at the Opera
If I had to guess about my first real introduction to opera, it was back in the Napster days. I was in high school, and like many other kids who knew how to use the internet at that time, I was frequently solicited with musical requests once my parents got wind that there was a…
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Boston-Area College Will Name School After Trailblazing Journalist Gwen Ifill
For decades, journalist Gwen Ifill served as a role model for reporting with integrity, clarity and fierce intelligence. Now students at one Boston-area college will be able to study in a school that bears her name. According to the Boston Herald, Simmons College announced the Gwen Ifill College of Media, Arts and Humanities on Tuesday…
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Good Samaritan Killed While Trying to Help Distressed Motorist as Twin Sister Looks On
Twin sisters Marcasia and Markwonda Crenshaw were returning home to South Florida Sunday night when they saw a van parked on the inside lane of Interstate 95. Concerned, they pulled over to make sure the driver of the van was OK. It would be a fateful decision. Marcasia, 25, was struck and killed by a…
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Come Drink at Britt McHenry’s Fountain of White Tears Over Colin Kaepernick’s Citizen of the Year Recognition
We told you Monday that many a wypipo was big mad over Colin Kaepernick’s selection as GQ’s Citizen of the Year for 2017, but arguably no one was saltier than ex-ESPN reporter and tow truck victims’ advocate Britt McHenry. Perhaps because she’s got a lot more time on her hands now, McHenry hosed Twitter with…
