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What This Cruel War Was Over

Ta-Nehisi Coates The Atlantic
The meaning of the Confederate flag is best discerned in the words of those who bore it. In praising the Klan's terrorism, Confederate veterans and their descendants displayed a remarkable consistency. White domination was the point. Slavery failed. Domination prevailed nonetheless. The Confederate flag should come down because it is embarrassing to all Americans. The fact that it still flies, that one must debate its meaning in 2015, reflects an incredible ignorance.

Tidbits - June 25, 2015 - The Racial Divide; Take Down the Flag; Charleston Massacre; Greek Debt; Israeli Nukes; BDS; and more...

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Reader Comments: The Racial Divide; Take Down the Flag; Call It What It Is, Or Be Complicit; The Charleston Massacre - A Hate Crime; Racial Violence in America; Greek Debt Truth Committee - Debt Cannot and Should Not Be Paid; American Century has Plunged the World into Crisis; Rachel Dolezal; Israeli Nukes; BDS is costing Israel big money; Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson; Announcement - Celebration of Danny Schechter's Life

Byan Stevenson On Charleston and Our Real Problem with Race

Corey Johnson The Marshall Project
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.

James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass

James Earl Jones (introduced by Howard Zinn) reads excerpts from anti-slavery crusader Frederick Douglass' speech, 'The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro' (July 5, 1852).
 

Tidbits - June 11, 2015 - Kalief Browder, Criminality of Prisons; Fight for $15; Edward Snowden: Hero; Ronnie Gilbert; Walmart; Suicide in Young Women; Left Strategy Needed; and more...

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Reader Comments: Kalief Browder and Criminality of Prisons; Fight for $15; Edward Snowden - Hero; Ronnie Gilbert; Walmart Anti-Labor Activity; Suicide in Young Women; The Audacity to Win - Left Strategy Needed; Recommended Books - By non-white authors; Announcements: 62nd Memorial of the Execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; Brooklyn Peace Fair

Jefferson Davis Day in Alabama

Jefferson Davis was the president of the Confederate States of America. How do you proclaim your love for America and then yearn for the days when you weren't part of it?

Killing the Future: The Theft of Black Life

Nicholas Powers Truthout
The stages of grief depend on narrative closure, the shoveling of dirt on the casket, eulogizing the dead. But for African-American parents whose children were slain by law enforcement, the stages of grief grind to a halt. The dead cannot be laid to rest because the cop who murdered them is not held accountable, and his violence is condoned.

What Makes Abraham Lincoln Such a Radical Politician Even Today?

David Bromwich Reuters
We may try to hedge our descriptions, bring Lincoln into perspective, call him a pragmatist and cut him down to a size more comfortably proportioned to our own. The truth is almost too great for us to recognize. He staked the future of the republic on his commitment to put slavery on the course of ultimate extinction.
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