SOCIAL JUSTICE

Employees have a right to express support for Black Lives Matter while they’re on the job, according to a historic labor board decision. A Home Depot store violated labor law when it disciplined Antonio Morales, the National Labor Relations Board ruled on Feb. 21, 2024. Morales, a Home Depot employee in the Minneapolis area, had drawn the letters BLM on a work apron and refused to remove them. BLM stands for the Black Lives Matter movement, which campaigns against violence and systemic racism aimed at Black people. Morales ultimately quit because of pressure to end the use of BLM messaging. The NLRB has now ordered Home Depot to rehire Morales based on the legal right U.S. employees have to engage in “concerted activity” for the purpose of “mutual aid or protection.” As a legal scholar...

Beyond 40 Acres and a Mule Residents of Evanston, Illinois, filed into the Evanston Township High School Auditorium for the reparations committee’s regular meeting on Jan. 11, 2024. People braved the cold winter weather to wait patiently through the meeting’s public comments, musical performances, and education sessions for the announcement of the order in which the next set of residents would receive their reparations funds. “This information will be available starting Tuesday or Wednesday of next week on the web page and also at 311,” announced Robin Rue Simmons, chair of the Evanston Reparations Committee. “So city staff will be available outside to tell you what your selection number is if you can’t see them on the screen.” An Excel spreadsheet with unique identifiers for the 454 dir...

The women who stood with Martin Luther King Jr. and sustained a movement for social change. Historian Vicki Crawford was one of the first scholars to focus on women’s roles in the civil rights movement. Her 1993 book, “Trailblazers and Torchbearers,” dives into the stories of female leaders whose legacies have often been overshadowed. Today she is the director of the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, where she oversees the archive of his sermons, speeches, writings and other materials. Here, she explains the contributions of women who influenced King and helped to fuel some of the most significant campaigns of the civil rights era, but whose contributions are not nearly as well known. An activist in her own right Coretta Scott King is often remembered as a devoted wif...

Black communities are using mapping to document and restore a sense of place. When historian Carter Woodson created “Negro History Week” in 1926, which became “Black History Month” in 1976, he sought not to just celebrate prominent Black historical figures but to transform how white America saw and valued all African Americans. However, many issues in the history of Black Americans can get lost in a focus on well-known historical figures or other important events. These highways displaced many Black communities. Some Black activists are using mapping to do the opposite: highlight hidden parts of history. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division Our research looks at how African American communities struggling for freedom have long used maps to protest and survive racism while affir...

The diversity within Black Canada should be recognized and amplified. It seems trite, in 2024, to suggest that the Black population in Canada is diverse. On the surface, this is a relatively uncontroversial point to make and one that most people would agree with. However, are we curious enough about what this diversity actually looks like? Further, what are the implications of reckoning with these nuances as we support and shape Black-focused policies, programs, studies, and spaces? These questions lead us into less certain terrain. Global music star Abel Tesfaye, formerly known as The Weeknd, is arguably one of the most recognizable contemporary Black Canadian figures. Piecing together some of the public details about his background and activities paints a picture that helps us apprecia...

Back in the day, being woke meant being smart. If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had his way, the word “woke” would be banished from public use and memory. As he promised in Iowa in December 2023 during his failed presidential campaign, “We will fight the woke in education, we will fight the woke in the corporations, we will fight the woke in the halls of Congress. We will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.” DeSantis’ war on “woke ideology” has resulted in the banning of an advanced placement class in African American studies and the elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in Florida’s universities and colleges. Given the origins of the use of the word as a code among Black people, DeSantis has a nearly impossible task, despite his tireless efforts. For Black people, the...

As the father of Black history, Carter G. Woodson had a simple goal – to legitimize the study of African American history and culture. To that end, in 1912, shortly after becoming the second African American after W.E.B. Du Bois to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard, Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. More than 100 years later, Woodson’s goal and his work detailing the struggle of Black Americans to obtain full citizenship after centuries of systemic racism is still relevant today. As dozens of GOP-controlled state legislatures across the U.S. have either considered or enacted laws restricting how race is taught in public schools, The Conversation U.S. has published numerous stories over the years exploring the rich terrain of Black history – and the n...

Book explores how colleges seek to increase racial diversity without relying on race in college admissions. When the Supreme Court outlawed the use of race in college admissions in June 2023, it forced colleges and universities to rethink how to maintain and increase diversity in their student bodies. It’s a topic that political science professor Lauren Foley had been exploring in her new book, “On the Basis of Race: How Higher Education Navigates Affirmative Action Policies.” Below, Foley expounds on what she sees as the future of diversity in higher education now that college admission officials can no longer consider race. Is racial diversity in higher education about to suffer? Yes, the likelihood of admission for racial minority students will suffer as a result of the nationwide ...

What do a Black scientist, nonprofit executive and filmmaker have in common? They all face racism in the ‘gray areas’ of workplace culture. American workplaces talk a lot about diversity these days. In fact, you’d have a hard time finding a company that says it doesn’t value the principle. But despite this – and despite the multibillion-dollar diversity industry – Black workers continue to face significant hiring discrimination, stall out at middle management levels and remain underrepresented in leadership roles. As a sociologist, I wanted to understand why this is. So I spent more than 10 years interviewing over 200 Black workers in a variety of roles – from the gig economy to the C-suite. I found that many of the problems they face come down to organizational culture. Too often, compani...