How Real Conspiracies Inspired False Rumors About Flooding Black Communities With Fireworks
An amateur fireworks display in Brooklyn from June.Stephanie Keith/Getty For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.John Williams had just finished his fourth novel and was trying to figure out how to sell it. His 1967 book, The Man Who Cried I Am, focused on a CIA plot to stave…
You Aren’t the Ones Who Are Struggling to Breathe
mpi04/MediaPunch/AP For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.They’re everywhere these days—in our grocery stores, at our post offices, and attending our city council meetings. They’re furious and victimized by a great social injustice that has befallen this nation. Outraged white people are in full rebellion over mask mandates.…
White People Own 98 Percent of Rural Land. Young Black Farmers Want to Reclaim Their Share.
Leah Penniman, left, tends the crops at Soul Fire Farm.Courtesy of Soul Fire Farm For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.Black people have largely been expelled from the US agricultural landscape. In 1920, nearly a million Black farmers worked on 41.4 million acres of land, making up a…
Aunt Jemima Is Not a Black Role Model
Benno Schwinghammer/Zuma For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.Last Tuesday, at a Students for Trump rally in Phoenix, Arizona, a Turning Point USA ambassador explained the ultimate significance of Aunt Jemima. “She was the picture of the American dream,” Reagan Escudé told the crowd, referring to Quaker Oats’…
Tom Cotton’s Argument Against DC Statehood Is the Same One Racists Have Always Used
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sounded the alarm that DC statehood would create a weirdly shaped blob.C-Span. For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.On Friday, the House of Representatives is set to pass a bill that would make Washington, DC, the 51st state. The District would change its name…
Slavery Existed in Illinois, But Schools Don’t Always Teach That History
A visitor looks over Confederate Mound, a memorial to more than 4,000 Confederate prisoners of war who died in captivity at Camp Douglas and are buried around the monument in Chicago, Illinois.Scott Olson/Getty For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis and more, subscribe to Mother Jones’ newsletters.This story was published originally by ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom…