Civil Rights
On Juneteenth, the history of how emancipated people were kept unfree needs to be remembered, too
The actual day was June 19, 1865, and it was the Black dockworkers in Galveston, Texas, who first heard the word that freedom for the enslaved had come. There were speeches, sermons and shared meals, mostly held at Black churches, the safest places to have such celebrations. The perils of unjust laws and racist social […]
Biden directs federal agencies to protect LGBTQI+ rights under attack in GOP-led states
President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aiming to curtail conversion therapy, expand health care access and promote safe learning for LGBTQI+ people. The order is meant to counter laws in Republican-led states that restrict the rights of LGBTQI+ kids and their families. A senior administration official referenced Texas and Florida as two states […]
Florida gave voting rights to people with felony convictions. Now some face charges for voting.
Florida authorities arrested a Black man while he was staying in a homeless shelter and charged him with voting illegally in a case tied to Republicans’ drive to root out election fraud. But Kelvin Bolton’s arrest raises questions about the rollout of Amendment 4, passed by Florida voters in 2018 to restore voting rights to […]
The far-right’s repulsive ‘groomer’ attack is a clarion call for violence
Earlier this month, Michigan state Sen. Lana Theis used her invocation on the Senate dais to launch a political tirade that children are “under attack” from “forces that desire things for them other than what their parents would have them see and hear and know.” That prompted walkouts from some Democratic senators, so Theis saw an opportunity to […]
LGBTQ community, people of color in the crosshairs of banned book movement
Students in one Pennsylvania school district were not allowed to read a biography of the first Black President, Barack Obama. In some Tennessee classrooms, a nonfiction comic book about the atrocities of the Holocaust is banned. And one school district in Wisconsin banned from libraries a picture book about a gay rights activist who was […]
LGBTQ groups denounce Laxalt amid growing animosity, attacks on rights
Fearing the rise of legislation targeting transgender and gay people and worried about increased false accusations of grooming and indoctrination, members of the gay and trans community denounced Nevada Senate candidate Adam Laxalt for a long history of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Members of Silver State Equality, Gender Justice Nevada and the Human Rights Campaign, all organizations […]
Senate filibuster on voting rights criticized by advocates for the poor
WASHINGTON — Progressive lawmakers last week joined a virtual news conference with organizers from the Poor People’s Campaign and said they are not giving up on the push to change Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival held the virtual meeting Friday to kick off its […]
Banning hair discrimination emerges as racial justice issue
When Dina Neal, the first African American woman elected to the Nevada Assembly, came to the state Capitol in 2011, she wore her hair in braids. Her hairstyle was a practical choice. Carson City was snowy and cold, “and I did not want to wear my wet hair out every day in 25-degree weather,” she […]