Portside

In an upset victory, San Francisco educators have elected a new union president who promises to empower members, take on standardized testing, and back struggles for affordable housing.

As part of the deep and broad reaction to the killings in Charleston, historian Chad Williams and his colleagues have put together a deeply informative and useful bibliography of essential readings on African American life and history, and on the struggle against racism. We have provided a link to the project, below, followed by a short article on it, published in The Guardian, by Marta Bausells. More links and information are available at the Guardian site.

Bryan Stevenson has spent most of his career challenging bias against minorities and the poor in the criminal justice system. He is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, based in Montgomery, Ala., an advocacy group that opposes mass incarceration and racial injustice. Stevenson is a member of The Marshall Project’s advisory board. He spoke with Corey Johnson. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations to Columbia University student activists in the group, Columbia Prison Divest, who successfully launched a campaign protesting their school's investment in private prisons. Columbia University will sell its roughly 220,000 shares in G4S, the world's largest private security firm, as well as its shares in the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the largest private prison company in the U.S.

The murder of three men and six women at a church in Charleston is a national tragedy, but in America, the killing of black people is an unending spectacle.

The Working Families Party recently concluded their New York State convention. Zephyr Teachout, prominent Fordham law professor announced her challenge to Gov. Coumo three days before, and she received 42% of the weighted vote. Gov. Coumo tried to bully the endorsement - it didn't work. Before writing off the WFP's Cuomo endorsement as yet another capitulation, consider the concessions wrung out of him. Will he keep the promises, what happened, what next...read on.

Kids' books are missing the diversity of modern America. In children's books, it can be easier to find talking pandas than characters of color. Only 6 percent of children's books published in 2012 featured diverse characters.

The environment in Rwanda under the current government is unsafe for anyone or any party perceived to be in opposition to the regime. Defense lawyer Beth S. Lyons reports on what happens when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) rules against Rwanda's current President Paul Kagame.

In the looming second Iran-Iraq War, the US will be de facto allied with Iran against the would-be al-Qaeda affiliate (ISIS was rejected by core al-Qaeda for viciously attacking other militant vigilante Sunni fundamentalists in turf wars in Syria). In fact, since ISIS is allegedly bankrolled by private Salafi businessmen in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Oil Gulf, the US is on the opposite side of all its former allies of the 1980s.

TTIP does away with “barriers” that impede the intercontinental flow of goods. This will make it easier for companies to base their production facilities on “cost” grounds, especially social ones. Workers’ entitlement to be involved will still stop at the border. TTIP will therefore mean a weakening of workers’ rights, despite guarantees under the EU’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.