35 Search results for "freedom fighters"

When I first read the code of conduct administered at Pretoria High School for Girls in South Africa, I was mortified. As a mother, with a daughter whose hair at 3 years old would be classified by some as “nappy”, all I could think was “How would I do her hair if this came home […]

Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring the US Midterms & Family/Parenting issues, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. How has our political system been working for and against us? What dynamics are different today? How should we prepare for midterm elections vs presidential ones, and local […]

White supremacy is a series of unending violences. As a massive system designed to privilege and preserve whiteness above all else, it requires these violences to keep itself alive, and whiteness must define itself against Blackness to achieve this. Black folks respond to, subvert, and resist this in a myriad of creative, warm-hearted, affirming, ingenious, […]

by Chelsea Neason In 1964, Malcolm X made history with “The Ballot or the Bullet”. With this speech, he proclaimed a bone-shaking truth: Black people born in America are not Americans. In Detroit, MI during one of the most impactful decades of visible Black resistance in the United States, Malcolm declared: “We are Africans, and […]

South Africa’s parliament recently moved for a controversial land redistribution plan. The plan would empower the government to seize lands from white farmers without offering them payment (a move that in the United States would likely elicit due process violation rebuttals) and give them to Black South African people. The plan’s purpose is largely recompense […]

HBO has reportedly given a green light to the creators of Game of Thrones to produce a series about a fictional world where the Confederacy won the Civil War and slavery is still legal south of the Mason-Dixie line. The reactions to this idea have been strong, yet polarizing. HBO's official announcement for new series CONFEDERATE […]

By Lamont Lilly Poetry has long sustained Black people. And, its role in the revolutionary work of freedom fighters cnnot be denied. These poems are meant to be angry. They are also reminders to keep pushing, keep fighting and keep supporting each other, as we all seek the liberation and justice we so deserve. The last […]

Many of our Black history idols have been immortalized for their work against racism carried out by whites, from the federal government on down. They have been applauded for their magical strengths and abilities to overcome insurmountable odds. Their legacies are contextualized through brief chapters in k-12 history classes, where examples of racism are narrowed down to physical […]

Barack Obama has already commuted more prison sentences than any other U.S. President. However, he’s not finished doing so with only a few days left in his term. President Obama has commuted the prison sentences of Chelsea Manning and Oscar López Rivera, among more than 200 others. 

In less than a month, the first Black president of the United States will complete his final term. Undoubtedly, these past eight years under President Barack Obama provided a very powerful sense of representation to Black people who have survived over four centuries of violent dispossession largely in society’s shadows. With Obama occupying the highest […]

Victor Mlotshwa didn’t think that anyone would believe him when he told them his traumatic tale of being forced into a coffin by two white men who also threatened to put him on fire. The incident occurred over three months ago. Fortunately, video footage of the altercation, taken by one of the two white assailants, […]

By Lamont Lilly   Mainstream media would have most of us believe that the current struggle at Standing Rock, North Dakota is all about clean water – that its only focus is stopping the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) from running through Indigenous reservation land. And yes, it is about these things. But while such a […]