Dedication of the 3-mile loop to Winston Walker comes after a push to make national parks more inclusive
As a nature loving little girl, Jessica Newton never understood why the faces on information boards in the state and national parks she visited looked nothing like her.
“My parents would take me to these places and the platforms would tell you about a trail, or a person, but I’d never see anyone that looks remotely close to my color,” she said.
Continue reading...Retirement from Rainbow PUSH Coalition follows several health problems in recent years
The US civil rights leader Jesse Jackson is to step down down as head of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition he founded.
The organisation announced on Friday that the civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate would be celebrated this weekend at the coalition’s annual convention.
Continue reading...Minority ethnic newborns risk late diagnosis and poorer health as guidance was developed for white European babies in 1952
Tests to assess newborn babies’ health are not effective for non-white children and should be replaced, according to the NHS Race and Health Observatory.
In the UK, neonatal death rates among black and Asian newborns are much higher than for white babies.
Continue reading...Civil rights lawyer laments dismissal of suit which attempted to force city to make recompense for the destruction of Black area
An Oklahoma judge has thrown out a lawsuit seeking reparations for the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, dashing an effort to obtain some measure of legal justice for elderly survivors.
The judge, Caroline Wall, on Friday dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit which attempted to force the city and others to make recompense for the destruction of Greenwood, a once-thriving Black district.
Continue reading...Youssouf Traoré in hospital after being tackled to ground at rally in memory of his brother, as government bans fireworks for Bastille Day
A brutal arrest during a peaceful march against police violence has again put French law and order under the spotlight, as the government, fearing further unrest, banned fireworks outside authorised displays during the Bastille Day holiday weekend.
Amid continuing tensions after rioting sparked by last month’s fatal shooting of a teenager, police faced further accusations of brutality on Sunday when video emerged of the arrest of the brother of a black man who died in custody seven years ago.
Continue reading...Annual rally in memory of Adama Traoré had been moved to Paris after it was banned in Val-d’Oise
The French authorities have banned people from marching in central Paris to honour Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old black man who died in police custody in 2016.
After a court challenge to overrule a ban on the march being held in the Val-d’Oise, north-west of Paris, failed on Friday, organisers announced it would take place instead at Place de la Républic in the capital.
Continue reading...West Lindsey council votes down proposal to relocate dog, named after a racial slur, to Norfolk airbase
Councillors have rejected proposals to exhume and relocate a dog buried at the former base of the Dambusters put forward amid concerns about the suitability of the grave’s location once the site is repurposed as accommodation for asylum seekers.
During an extraordinary planning meeting on Wednesday evening, West Lindsey district councillors unanimously voted down an application by RAF Heritage to relocate the dog to an airbase in Norfolk.
Continue reading...Wrought iron process that drove UK success was appropriated from black metallurgists, records suggest
An innovation that propelled Britain to become the world’s leading iron exporter during the Industrial Revolution was appropriated from an 18th-century Jamaican foundry, historical records suggest.
The Cort process, which allowed wrought iron to be mass-produced from scrap iron for the first time, has long been attributed to the British financier turned ironmaster Henry Cort. It helped launch Britain as an economic superpower and transformed the face of the country with “iron palaces”, including Crystal Palace, Kew Gardens’ Temperate House and the arches at St Pancras train station.
Continue reading...Study by Greater London authority finds mayor has received over 300,000 pieces of racist abuse since being elected
Sadiq Khan has received more than 300,000 pieces of openly racist or racially-oriented abuse on social media since he was elected London mayor, with a recent surge in such messages connected to his plan to expand the city’s clean air zone, research has found.
The study, carried out by the Greater London authority, found that racist abuse against the Labour mayor, which peaked when he was targeted on Twitter by Donald Trump, has started to rise again this year.
Continue reading...In 2021 Emmanuel Macron promised victims of the city’s drug crime he would help. Grieving residents tell how he failed them
Inside, Emmanuel Macron was sharing a typically polished vision of a rejuvenated, safer Marseille. Yet it was outside the spruced-up gym in the impoverished Busserine district - tensions building on the hottest day of the year – where the real story was playing out.
Little more than 12 hours before the police killing of a 17-year-old boy 500 miles north in Nanterre would convulse the country, scores of officers clutching assault rifles and bulletproof riot shields clashed with teenagers of north African descent, trading insults as officers profiled potential troublemakers.
Continue reading...Court turns away case on law implemented over a century ago with explicit goal of preventing Black people from voting
The US supreme court turned away a case on Friday challenging Mississippi’s rules around voting rights for people with felony convictions, leaving intact a policy implemented more than a century ago with the explicit goal of preventing Black people from voting.
Those convicted of any one of 23 specific felonies in Mississippi permanently lose the right to vote. The list is rooted in the state’s 1890 constitutional convention, where delegates chose disenfranchising crimes that they believed Black people were more likely to commit. “We came here to exclude the negro. Nothing short of this will answer,” the president of the convention said at the time. The crimes, which include bribery, theft, carjacking, bigamy and timber larceny, have remained largely the same since then; Mississippi voters amended it remove burglary in 1950 and added murder and rape in 1968.
Continue reading...Government struggles to contain continuing unrest after police shooting of teenager in Paris suburb
• French riots – latest updates
Emmanuel Macron has urged parents to keep teenagers at home as France’s government said it was reviewing “all options” to contain escalating violence after three nights of rioting sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager at a traffic stop.
Promising additional security forces would be deployed on Friday night, Macron, who left an EU summit in Brussels early to attend a crisis cabinet meeting, appealed to “the responsibility of mothers and fathers” and said it was not the job of the French republic to take their place.
Continue reading...Nationwide ban on bus and tram services follows violence triggered by the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old on Tuesday. This blog is now closed
An ambulance driver was filmed berating police after Nahel’s death. In the video, which has circulated widely online, he shouted at officers:
He’s 17, you see he has a baby face. For a driving licence offence. For a driving licence offence, brother. I know the lad, I watched him grow up. His mother brought him up all alone, his dad left. She’s going to bury her son. For a driving licence offence.
You’re going to see how it goes tonight. Everyone’s sleeping right now – you’re going to see how Nanterre awakens.
Continue reading...The 1,100-page document details examples of discrimination and recommends how to address the harms of chattel slavery
California’s first-in-the-nation reparations taskforce released its final report with recommendations for how the state should atone for its history of racial violence and discrimination against Black residents on Thursday.
This document, which could serve as a national model for how governments can attempt to right the wrongs of the past, marks the end of a nearly three-year effort that began in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing reckoning around systemic racism and anti-Blackness in the US.
Continue reading...Police fire teargas at rioters as 6,000 march through Nanterre to protest against shooting of 17-year-old
Violence has erupted for a third consecutive night in France as Emmanuel Macron struggles to contain mounting anger after the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old boy of north African descent during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb.
The officer concerned was charged with voluntary homicide on Thursday and placed in provisional detention in the capital as an estimated 6,000 people marched through the streets of Nanterre in memory of the teenager, identified as Nahel M.
Continue reading...President says he will ask education department to look into ways to maintain student diversity as race-conscious admissions ends
Joe Biden slammed the US supreme court on Thursday as “not a normal court” after it ruled to end race-conscious admissions at universities across the country, and he announced he will ask the Department of Education to look into ways to maintain student diversity in higher education.
“The court has effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions and I strongly, strongly disagree with the court’s decision,” the US president said in a short speech at the White House scheduled specifically for him to react to the decision.
Continue reading...Killing of 17-year-old in Nanterre has triggered nights of clashes and politicians fear unrest will spread
Amid the twisted and smouldering carcasses of burned-out cars, the stench of melted tarmac and smoke-blackened buildings, French housing estates were braced for more nights of rioting and soul-searching on fractured race relations and deep distrust of the police.
“There’s so much anger,” said Chakir, a 21-year-old youth worker, who had been awake until 5am on the streets of his housing estate in Roubaix, northern France, where more than 100 young people had lit firework rockets with cigarette lighters and thrown them at lines of riot police. They were protesting after the death of a 17-year-old boy, Nahel, of Algerian background, who was shot dead at close range by police at a traffic stop in Nanterre, west of Paris, on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Star of The Wire and Luther says playing 007 would be the pinnacle of an actor’s career, but the discussion became ‘off-putting’
Idris Elba has said that the racist backlash to the prospect of him being cast as James Bond “made the whole thing disgusting and off-putting”.
Elba was speaking on the SmartLess podcast about the continued speculation linking him to the role, saying: “I was super complimented for a long time about this. We’re all actors and we understand that role is one of those coveted [roles] … Being asked to be James Bond [would be] like: ‘OK, you’ve sort of reached the pinnacle’. That’s one of those things the whole world has a vote in.”
Continue reading...Exclusive: Unknown artwork was barred from leaving the UK after surfacing at an auction in 2021
A painting has been saved for the UK in recognition of its “outstanding significance” for the study of race and gender in 17th-century Britain, it will be announced on Friday.
The anonymous artist’s portrait of two women – one black and one white, depicted as companions and equals with similar dress, hair and jewellery – has been bought by Compton Verney, an award-winning gallery in Warwickshire.
Continue reading...Julie Inman Grant says platform has ‘dropped the ball’ on tackling ‘peddlers of outrage’
Australia’s eSafety commissioner says Twitter has “dropped the ball” on tackling online hate and has issued a legal notice to the social media giant demanding an explanation about what it is doing about the scourge.
The commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, said there have been more complaints about online hate on Twitter in the past year than any other platform, and complaints have spiked since Elon Musk’s takeover of the company in October.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Continue reading...