In the News

Thousands of people spilled into the newly re-christened Arthur Ashe Boulevard here on Saturday for a celebration that also marked the unveiling of an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of History & Culture on the struggle for black equality and to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first captive Africans to English North America. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus joined Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and other elected officials on the steps of t... Read more

It’s not about the Confederate statues or the re-emerging debate over reparations for slavery. The struggle for black equality, 400 years after the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, isn’t just about disparity in wealth, education and treatment by the criminal justice system, although those are top priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus in a U.S. House of Representatives that Democrats control for the first time in almost a decade. The solutions come down to elections and the po... Read more

The topic of reparations for slavery is headed to Capitol Hill for its first hearing in more than a decade with writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover set to testify before a House panel. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties is scheduled to hold the hearing next Wednesday, its stated purpose “to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the pa... Read more

Rep. John Lewis and several of his Democratic colleagues broke down in tears during a closed-door meeting Tuesday after a historian described the congressman’s reaction when he saw his great-great-grandfather’s voter registration card for the first time. The House Democratic caucus invited Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Henry Louis Gates Jr., who heads the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, to preview a new film on reconstruction. Gates spoke about Lewis... Read more

What was billed as a town hall for the “State of Black America in Brooklyn” Friday night at Brownsville’s P.S. 156 Waverly, morphed into a panel discussion about criminal justice reform featuring members of the Congressional Black Caucus, local legislators and community activists, including Assemblymember Latrice Walker and Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. Led by Congressmembers Yvette D. Clarke and Stacey Plaskett, lawmakers discussed initiatives they’d put forth to make jail a last re... Read more

Inside the U.S. Capitol, in a historic room where Abraham Lincoln forged friendships with colleagues from both parties, members of the Congressional Black Caucus huddled Wednesday with an unlikely coalition that included an L.A. city councilman, an Atlanta rapper, a New York radio host and a South Los Angeles developer. The discussion veered from public policy to the personal as they talked about the economic state of black America and ways that they could work together to uplift their people a... Read more

On May 15, Florida Congresswoman Frederica Wilson introduced H.R. 1636, the Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys Act of 2019. Wilson’s legislation would mandate the establishment of an advisory body that will study the societal forces that have a disproportionately impacted black males in America. The board will then make recommendations to address them. Rep. Wilson was joined by Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA). She is also j... Read more

There is no barn at Sedrick Rowe’s farm on the outskirts of Albany, only a modest storage shed. Vintage equipment lies idle nearby. Rust, about the color of the soil where Rowe plants his organic peanuts and watermelon seeds, covers each piece of machinery. Weeds, green and persistent, grow up through the blades. The dated equipment isn’t decorative. It tills the soil and gets his seeds in the ground. He paid about $1,000 for the implements, sure he could make them work based on what he learned... Read more

On the day that her “Can We Talk” Mental Health Conference weekend (June 7-9) is set to kick off in Washington, D.C., actress Taraji P. Henson will testify before the newly formed Congressional Black Caucus Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide. Henson, who has proven herself a fierce mental health advocate, will address the group at 9:30 am on Capitol Hill in support of the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation’s (BLHF) mission to eradicate the stigma surrounding mental illness in the African American co... Read more

United States Congresswoman Terri Sewell and two of her colleagues are heard from infuriated advocates for voting rights on Monday. One of the provisions of the 965 Civil Rights Act was that Alabama and eight other states with a history of discrimination, must report to the Department of Justice before making any election law changes. But in a 2013 case brought by Shelby County, the Supreme Court ruled that provision was outdated and threw it out. Since then, some people say Alabama has made vot... Read more