79 Search results for "legislator"

Kathryn Rice, head of the Concerned Citizens for Cityhood of South DeKalb Inc. is leading a movement to turn the area known as “South DeKalb” into its own freestanding city. If successful, Greenhaven would become the second largest city in Georgia, trailing only Atlanta, and it would be 87 percent Black, which dwarfs Atlanta’s percentage […]

Call-out culture has gotten a lot of criticism, but call-outs retain political utility. When policymakers who have many lives entrusted to them, experience quick, broad and furious criticism they sometimes adjust their plans. They sometimes do the right thing. Puerto Rico is a prime example. Puerto Rican government officials said they were given no notice […]

Chubby cheeks and precocious utterances can make the most cynical person smile. After all, even people who believe adults are a lost cause tend to empathize with children. Throughout cultures across the globe, people understand children did not ask to be here. Children need adults to advocate for and support their well-being. Additionally, in the […]

The good news? A $100 million grant in federal funding is on its way to approval to help the residents of Flint, Mich. The bad news? Thousands of residents could lose their homes because they haven’t been paying for the toxic water that’s running through their pipes. 

Recently, California legislators took the first steps towards combatting HIV criminalization by introducing a bill that would downgrade the charge for failing to disclose positive status to sexual partners from a felony to a misdemeanor. The bill would also apply to penalties against non-disclosure to blood banks.

The General Assembly in North Carolina has voted to strip some of the appointing powers of the next governor, Democrat Roy Cooper. Protesters and the NAACP have spoken out against what has been seen as a “power grab” by the Republican legislature and outgoing governor Pat McCrory. These developments are especially disturbing in light of […]

What, exactly, is “illegal protest”? No one truly knows despite all of the government officials who think they do. This is why a Washington state senator’s latest attempt to make his interpretation of “illegal protests” worth a felony is such a major concern. Senator Doug Ericksen plans to propose a bill in the state senate that will work […]

Earlier this year BYP100 released the Agenda to Build Black Futures, followed by A Vision For Black Lives policy platform that they signed on to this summer, both of which spread wide in the digital space. Last week BYP100 and the National Black Justice Coalition joined each other in Washington, D.C. to take both platforms […]

Last week, federal courts declared North Carolina, Kansas, and Wisconsin state voting laws to be  unconstitutional and guilty of contributing to the disenfranchisement of low income and black voters. The North Carolina law, particularly, was found to to violate racial discrimination in voting, as Republican state legislators enacted the laws specifically after receiving data on […]

In an era of greater public scrutiny of police forces, more states, including Texas and Wisconsin, are turning to “Blue Lives Matter” Bills in order to, they say, protect policemen and women from hate crimes levied against them for their profession. While it is true that police officers have a dangerous job, it is not necessary to qualify crimes against […]

North Carolina is working diligently to join Texas and Florida as states that have massive “You’re Not Welcome” signs hanging on their borders. If the controversial bathroom bill or testing welfare applicants for drug use wasn’t enough, state legislators are now working to pass a bill that will completely remove access to police body cameras. 

A recent debate generated on Twitter has many Black women assessing the role of colorism in Black feminism, particularly regarding the “faces” of the movement. From Beyoncé to bell hooks and even young Amandla Stenberg, the gravitation towards lighter faces prompts concern over the exclusion of the nuanced experiences of darker-hued women. But as prevalent […]