Author: Common Dreams

The recent demonstrations across the country, over the brutal death of George Floyd and the heritage of institutional racism, have raised the possibility of changing the names of U.S. Army installations honoring Confederate military commanders who waged war against the United States and fought to uphold slavery. President Donald Trump has declared, unequivocally, that these 10 particular installations will not have their names changed. Democrats in the House have come down on the issue forthrightly, demanding change. And, even the Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee on June 10 voted to require the Pentagon to rename those military bases. What...

One day in late June, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas. They carried some historic news: Legal slavery had ended some two and a half years ago with President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. And so some of the last enslaved people left in America were freed. The day became known as “Juneteenth,” a holiday still celebrated today in black communities across the United States. Yet more than 150 years after slavery, black wealth still lags centuries behind white wealth. A report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found that it would take 228 years for black families to...

Starting with the original sin of slavery, those in our nation who were born White have exerted power over those who were born Black. Black Lives Matter is a powerful response to the implicit attitude that Black lives are disposable. As horrific as it was to watch the torture and murder of George Floyd at the hands of the police, all of us owe a debt of gratitude to the brave young woman who captured it on video for all the world to see. She is being “rewarded” with harassment, and the need to move to an undisclosed location....