Friday, January 10

Tag: black

Protests erupt in Chicago after black man fatally shot by police
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IN OTHER NEWS

Protests erupt in Chicago after black man fatally shot by police

Harith Augustus, known as Snoop the barber, was killed on Saturday, prompting clashes between police and protesters. Protesters in Chicago are demanding answers after the fatal shooting of a black man by police prompted violent confrontations in the Illinois city. "The whole damn system is guilty as hell," dozens chanted on Saturday just hours after police shot and killed 37-year-old Harith Augustus in the South Shore neighbourhood of Chicago. Augustus is known in the community as Snoop the barber, local media reported. The city's police patrol chief Fred Waller told reporters late on Saturday that Augustus was shot after police officers on foot tried to question him because "the bulge around his waistband" suggested he was armed. Augustus became combative and eventually broke free fro...
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Black Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge in Baltimore’s Economic Renewal
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Journalism

Black Entrepreneurs Lead the Charge in Baltimore’s Economic Renewal

Rasheed Aziz remembers visiting Baltimore in 2006. The empty, hollow buildings sprawled the entire block, he says. Buildings lacked roofs, doorways were boarded up, and tree limbs grew into missing windows. Aziz is the founder of CityWide Youth Development, which he began in central Florida to bring economic development to impoverished neighborhoods using manufacturing and entrepreneurship. In 2006, he decided to move himself—and his nonprofit—to Baltimore after his trip there. During that trip, he says, he saw a need for sustainable employment opportunities in underinvested areas in that city. “I’ve never looked through a window of a building and saw tree limbs before,” says Aziz, remembering his first visit and the “culture shock” he experienced. “That means there’s no roof. It’s a hol...
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US judge orders release of ‘first Black Identity Extremist’
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Journalism

US judge orders release of ‘first Black Identity Extremist’

Critics say African American activist Christopher Daniels has been held since December because FBI policed his views. A US judge has ordered that Christopher Daniels, considered by many to be the first person arrested under the FBI's Black Identity Extremist (BIE) designation, be released from pre-trial detention and dismissed the indictment against him. Daniels, a cofounder of the Huey P Newton Gun Club and Guerilla Mainframe (GMF), two armed organisations based in Dallas who regularly protest against alleged police brutality, "is entitled to be released from pre-trial detention based on the dismissal of the indictment", Judge Sidney Fitzwater wrote in the order issued on May 1. Daniels was arrested in December by the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for possessing rifles ...
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What progress has Black America made since MLK’s assassination?
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Journalism, VIDEO REELS

What progress has Black America made since MLK’s assassination?

Fifty years after the death of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, the world reflects on his life and legacy. This week, the world has been honouring the memory of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. King had a dream to live in a society where people were judged by their character rather than the colour of their skin. But that dream was shattered by an assassin's bullet on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968. King was 39 years old. Five decades later, on the anniversary of his death, people across the US and the world paused to remember what happened and what King stood for. How much progress have black Americans made in the struggle to achieve racial and economic equality? Presenter: Dareen AbuGhaida Guests: Reverend Bernar...
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Documents show US monitoring of Black Lives Matter
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Journalism

Documents show US monitoring of Black Lives Matter

Recently released FBI and DHS documents reveal how the US government sees the movement as a potential threat. Black Lives Matter protests have been monitored by the US government and have been seen as a potential threat, according to recently released documents from the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The documents, which include internal emails and field reports, were circulated among law enforcement agencies in 2016. They were obtained as the result of a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the civil rights group Color of Change (COC) and provided to Al Jazeera. Black Lives Matter (BLM), which started as a response to US police killings of unarmed black individuals in 2014, has grown into a movement fighting to end systemic violence again...
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Anger mounts in US over police shooting of unarmed black man
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Journalism

Anger mounts in US over police shooting of unarmed black man

The killing of 22-year-old Stephon Clark was captured on police body cameras, but shortly after shooting, the audio was deliberately muted and Clark's family and friends want to know why. Anger is mounting in the US city of Sacramento over the police shooting of an unarmed black man last week. 22-year-old Stephon Clark was shot at least 20 times when officers cornered him in his grandmother's backyard. Police say they believed he had a gun. Al Jazeera's Rob Reynolds has more from Sacramento, US.
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Black contributions recognized
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Journalism

Black contributions recognized

Sunday’s Black History Month Extravaganza provided a look back and a path forward. The program was held before a near-capacity crowd at Kewanee’s First Congregational Church and included city leaders, 74th Dist. Rep. Dan Swanson, a representative of U.S. Congresswoman Cheri Bustos and the choirs of Kewanee and Wethersfield high schools. “It’s not just something for black people, but for all of America,” said the Rev. Marshall Jones of the annual month of commemoration, which was started by Carter G. Woodson Association of the Study of Negro Life and History in 1926 and formalized by President Gerald Ford in 1976. February was selected because both Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln were born that month. Jones spoke of the “great gains” made by African American people since emancipation ...
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His Traveling Museum Is Bringing Black History to a Town Near You
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Journalism

His Traveling Museum Is Bringing Black History to a Town Near You

As a social studies teacher in Detroit in 1994, Khalid el-Hakim used African American artifacts he collected to supplement information about Black history he found lacking in middle school textbooks. It was a charge, el-Hakim says, by Minister Louis Farrakhan at the Million Man March in 1995 to men to go back to their cities and “join a community organization and try to make some type of contribution to our community,” that was the catalyst to start a mobile museum. El-Hakim went from having tabletop displays at meetings of the local organization he joined to setting up exhibits for various organizations and institutions—first throughout the city and then across the state and nationwide. His Black History 101 Mobile Museum travels throughout the year from coast to coast sharing Africa...
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6 Tips for White People Who Want to Celebrate Black History
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Journalism

6 Tips for White People Who Want to Celebrate Black History

We’ve come a long way from Negro History Week to Black History Month and yet too often the celebrations that are planned in predominantly white spaces are nothing short of lackluster, rarely bringing a modern-day context to the celebration or acknowledgement that Black history is a continually evolving living history in which we all play a role. Part of the problem is that for non-Black people, too often there is a sense of being a passive celebrator. Yet, in this current climate there is immense opportunity. We can make real racial change by moving from passive observation to active engagement if we move past our own internal roadblocks and fears of messing up. Black history is more than just the named activists, agitators and changemakers—it encompasses the full scope of Black humanity...
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