Category Archives: Race

Alabama city disbands police force after racist text messages revealed

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City council in small community of Vincent votes to terminate police chief, assistant and then whole department

The small city of Vincent in Alabama has voted to disband its police force after the revelation of racist text messages exchanged between two of its officers.

In the exchange, which recently surfaced on social media, one user named “752” asked: “What do y’all call a pregnant slave?” To this, one person who is not identifiable through the text, responded with question marks.

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Ivy League university set to rebury skulls of Black people kept for centuries

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University of Pennsylvania houses remains at Penn Museum, where they form collection once used to justify white supremacy

The University of Pennsylvania is moving ahead with the reburial of the cranial remains of at least 13 Black Philadelphians whose skulls have been kept for almost two centuries in a notorious anthropological collection used to justify white supremacy in the run-up to the US civil war.

The Ivy League university is petitioning the Philadelphia orphans’ court for permission to rebury the skulls in the city’s historic African American Eden cemetery. Should the ceremony go ahead, it would amount to one of the most significant restorative processes for Black remains in America in the wake of the racial reckoning following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests.

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Bristol bus boycott campaigner Roy Hackett dies at 93

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Civil rights activist led 1963 protests paving the way for passing of UK Race Relations Act

The civil rights activist Roy Hackett, who was one of the lead organisers of the Bristol bus boycott, has died at the age of 93.

The 1963 campaign, which lasted four months, mobilised people across the city to stop using Bristol Omnibus Company buses because of its refusal to hire black and Asian people. At the time, a “colour bar” in Britain meant that people from minority ethnic backgrounds could legally be banned from housing, employment and public places.

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Italy: man arrested on suspicion of murdering Nigerian street seller

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Beating in broad daylight of Alika Ogorchukwu in Civitanova Marche sparks outrage and protests

An Italian man has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a Nigerian street seller, whose beating in broad daylight was reportedly filmed by onlookers and which has sparked outrage and protests.

Alika Ogorchukwu, 39, was killed in the centre of Civitanova Marche on Friday afternoon.

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Viktor Orbán sparks outrage with attack on ‘race mixing’ in Europe

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Hungary’s far-right prime minister says countries where races mingle are ‘no longer nations’

Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has lashed out against the “mixing” of European and non-European races, in a speech that immediately drew outrage from opposition parties and European politicians.

“We [Hungarians] are not a mixed race … and we do not want to become a mixed race,” said Orbán on Saturday. He added that countries where European and non-Europeans mingle were “no longer nations”.

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California police fatally shot 23-year-old Black man as he ran away, video shows

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Footage shows victim fleeing after police arrived in unmarked car and drew their guns

Police in San Bernardino, California, fatally shot a 23-year-old man on Saturday as he was fleeing, according to surveillance footage that shows an officer firing just seconds after arriving in an unmarked vehicle.

Security camera footage from a parking lot in San Bernardino, a city an hour east of Los Angeles, shows two officers driving up in an unmarked car about 8pm as Robert Adams stood in the lot. As soon as two officers exited the car, Adams turned away from them and ran. It appeared that roughly five seconds after they had stepped out of the car, one of the officers fired at Adams from a distance, seeming to hit him and causing him to collapse to the ground.

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Woman who accused Emmett Till says she didn’t want him dead in memoir

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Carolyn Bryant Donham, 87, mentions in her unpublished book that she didn’t wish Till any harm nor could she protect him

The white woman who accused Black teenager Emmett Till of making improper advances before he was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 says she neither identified him to the killers nor wanted him murdered.

In an unpublished memoir obtained by the Associated Press, Carolyn Bryant Donham says she was unaware of what would happen to the 14-year-old Till, who lived in Chicago and was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was abducted, killed and tossed in a river. Now 87, Donham was only 21 at the time.

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Jayland Walker funeral: hundreds gather to mourn victim of police shooting

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Wednesday declared day of mourning in Akron, Ohio, two weeks after Black man, 25, was killed by officers after chase

Hundreds of people filled a theater and passersby sounded horns in sympathy as family and friends shared their memories of Jayland Walker, the 25-year-old Black man killed in a hail of police gunfire in Akron, at his funeral on Wednesday.

Mourners passed his open casket during the viewing at the Akron Civic Theatre, some wearing T-shirts that said “Black Lives Matter” or “Zero Threat, Zero Violence, Justice for Jayland”.

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Getty opens access to 30,000 images of black diaspora in UK and US

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Photos dating back to 1800s made free to allow telling of black history stories beyond enslavement and colonisation

A collection of almost 30,000 rarely seen images of the black diaspora in the UK and the US, dating from the 19th century to the present, has been launched as part of an educational initiative to raise awareness of the history of black people in the UK.

The Black History & Culture Collection includes more than 20 categories of images including politics, hair, education, female empowerment and LGBTQ+.

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Akron police release body-cam video in fatal shooting of Jayland Walker

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Officials brace for fresh protests after 25-year-old Black man was killed running from officers during a traffic stop

Authorities in Akron, Ohio, have released chilling police body-camera video in the shooting death of Jayland Walker, a Black motorist who was gunned down after running from officers during a traffic stop on Monday.

The video, which shows a fast police chase of Walker’s vehicle, culminates with several officers surrounding the 25-year-old in a parking lot, attempting to Taser him and then opening fire. Walker was accused of firing a handgun at police from his vehicle before leaving the pistol in the driver’s seat and trying to run from officers.

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Person with flamethrower sets fire to Pan-African flag at activist headquarters

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Flag was outside Florida home of the Uhuru movement, a Black international socialist group

A person using a flamethrower set fire Saturday to a Pan-African flag flying on a pole outside the headquarters of the Uhuru Movement, a Black international socialist group based in Florida.

Security video released by the group shows the driver of a white Honda sedan pulling up outside the group’s St Petersburg headquarters, removing a flamethrower from the trunk and shooting a tower of fire at the flag flying about 30ft (9 meters) above the ground.

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Tesla hit by new lawsuit alleging racial abuse

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Fifteen black former or current employees allege they faced racial abuse and harassment at carmaker’s factories

Fifteen black former or current employees at Tesla filed a lawsuit against the electric carmaker on Thursday, alleging they were subjected to racial abuse and harassment at its factories.

The workers said they were subjected to offensive racist comments and behaviour by colleagues, managers, and human resources employees on a regular basis, according to the lawsuit filed in a California state court.

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Daunte Wright’s family to receive $3.2m in settlement over police shooting

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The settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops

Authorities in Brooklyn Center, a city in the suburbs of Minneapolis, have agreed to pay $3.2m to the family of Daunte Wright, a Black man shot dead by a police officer who said she confused her gun with her Taser.

The tentative settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops like the one that resulted in Wright’s death, according to a statement from attorneys representing Wright’s family.

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‘There’s nowhere I feel safe’: Georgia elections workers describe how Trump upended their lives

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Shaye Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, testified how Trump and his allies fueled harassment and racist threats

In powerful and emotional testimony about the sinister results of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, a mother and daughter who were Georgia elections workers described how Trump and his allies upended their lives, fueling harassment and racist threats by claiming they were involved in voter fraud.

Testifying to the January 6 committee in Washington, Shaye Moss said she received “a lot of threats. Wishing death upon me. Telling me that I’ll be in jail with my mother and saying things like, ‘Be glad it’s 2020 and not 1920.’”

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Belgium returns Patrice Lumumba’s tooth to his family 61 years after his murder

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Congolese independence hero’s gold-capped tooth returned as ex-colonial power faces its bloody past

Belgian authorities have returned a tooth belonging to the murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba, as the former colonial power continues to confront its bloody past and look toward reconciliation.

The restitution of the relic took place after Belgium’s King Philippe expressed his “deepest regrets” this month for his country’s abuses in its African former colony, Congo, 75 times the size of Belgium.

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British history should not be treated as a ‘soft play area’, says David Olusoga

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Writer and broadcaster says teaching about the past must not be a way of making people feel good about themselves

Britain’s relationship with history is “not fit for purpose”, according to a leading historian who said too many pupils are still taught a “dishonest version” of the nation’s past that left out uncomfortable truths.

David Olusoga, the writer and broadcaster, told school leaders that Britain often saw its history as “recreational … a place that we go for comfort, a place to make us feel good about ourselves”, leading to ignorance about the history of its empire, and to immigration scandals such as Windrush.

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Samuel L Jackson criticises Oscars for sidelining Poitier and losing mystique

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The actor, who received an honorary Oscar this year, spoke out against the producers’ handling of the in memoriam section, as well as the choice of presenters

Samuel L Jackson has criticised this year’s Oscars ceremony for its handling of the death of pioneering actor Sidney Poitier, as well as their attempts to reach a wider demographic by expanding the pool of presenters.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Jackson said he was “still a little ticked that the greatest actor we had in Hollywood died and they gave him, what, 10 fucking seconds. No. It should have been a whole Sidney Poitier section.”

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Home Office tried to ‘sanitise’ staff education module on colonialism

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Disagreements have led to delay in course rollout as civil servants think empire material ‘too controversial’

Civil servants have attempted to “sanitise” a Home Office teaching module on race, empire and colonialism, according to those involved in devising a mandatory course on British history for the department’s 36,000 employees.

Disagreements have led to a year-long delay in the rollout of the project, which was due to be launched in June 2021. Home Office civil servants are understood to be nervous that some of the proposed material addressing issues of race, colonialism and empire is “too controversial” and have urged academics to tone down some of the content.

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US justice department to investigate Louisiana State Police following 2019 death of Ronald Greene

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Justice department launches civil rights investigation following beatings including death of a Black man placed in a chokehold

The US Department of Justice has announced a federal civil rights investigation into the Louisiana State Police following a raft of brutality cases and the fatal beating of a Black motorist, Ronald Greene, in 2019.

Greene, an unarmed 49-year-old, was arrested by six white officers with body camera footage of the incident, obtained years later by the Associated Press, revealing he had been punched, tasered and placed in a chokehold and later dragged face down in handcuffs and left prone for over nine minutes.

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White NHS nurses twice as likely as black and Asian colleagues to be promoted – study

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Research by Royal College of Nursing suggests racism is ‘endemic’ in health and care

White nurses are twice as likely as black and Asian colleagues to be promoted in the NHS, with minority ethnic staff overlooked due to structural racism, according to research.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) said its study suggests racism is “endemic” in health and care. A survey of almost 10,000 nursing staff found that those who are white or of a mixed ethnic background are more likely than black and Asian colleagues to have received at least one promotion since the start of their career.

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