How should Juneteenth be understood, be celebrated, be remembered, given this moment of deep anti-democratic machinations and authoritarian/fascistic ambitions cultivated at the “highest” offices within this land? The tension between the sense of renewed freedom that Juneteenth engenders and the profound unfreedom that this country perpetuates is not lost on me. Indeed, as the 250th anniversary of…
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A three-judge panel on Tuesday morning blocked Alabama from using a 2023 congressional map the panel ruled racially discriminatory and ordered the state to use a remedial map aimed at giving Black Alabamians a chance to elect their preferred leaders. The order comes almost a month after the U.S. Supreme Court substantially weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a case known as…
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The girl smiled and pointed at the “I Voted!” sticker on her forehead. Her father took a selfie with her outside the voting center. Hours later, New Yorkers danced and honked car horns to celebrate the election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. The street parties reminded me of when Barack Obama won the presidency after eight years of Geoge W. Bush, or Joe Biden against Donald Trump.
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There are moments when history moves so fast that distraction becomes dangerous. Last week was one of those moments. While much of Memphis and Shelby County were pulled into the familiar rhythms of election analysis, political frustration, and personality-driven debate, something far more consequential was unfolding in Nashville. Tennessee’s recent congressional redistricting effort…
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The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate Louisiana’s congressional map creating two Black-majority districts continues to remind us of how much the U.S. has backpedaled away from the so-called racial “reckoning” of the summer of 2020. The Supreme Court ruling in Louisiana v. Callais undermines another key plank of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, passed more than 60 years ago with the intent of…
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On Wednesday, Tennessee state Republican lawmakers proposed a new congressional map that would lessen the already small Democratic representation in the state and eliminate Black political power within the delegation sent to Washington. The move comes after the federal Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that enforcement mechanisms from lower courts for the Voting Rights Act (VRA)…
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