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Hope you can support this icon on July 12th, anytime 2-8pm

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Hope you can support this icon on July 12th, anytime 2-8pm

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Welcome to Willa's Closing Sale and Retirement Party! Join us at Willa's Books and Vinyl for a day filled with nostalgia and great finds. This in-person event is your chance to snag some amazing deals on books before Willa rides off into the sunset of retirement. Come celebrate Willa's years of dedication to the community and browse through our collection one last time. Don't miss out on this bittersweet event!

Since August 2024, when The Kansas City Defender announced their initiative to 'Preserve Willa's Books and Vinyl', the community has fostered much intimate and financial support for Willa and her legacy. Her passion-based achievement has made and maintained Kansas City's story. For that, we invite you to offer your time and treasure in service of a collective good. Join us on Saturday, July 12th, at Willa's Books and Vinyls as we celebrate Willa's retirement with storytelling, two archive vendues, and Willa's favorite tunes.

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willa's closing sale and retirement party

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willa's closing sale and retirement party tickets

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willa's closing sale and retirement party kansas city

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willa's closing sale and retirement party kansas city tickets

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Willa's Closing Sale and Retirement Party

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Eventbrite - The Kansas City Defender presents Willa's Closing Sale and Retirement Party - Saturday, July 12, 2025 at Willa's Books and Vinyl, Kansas City, MO. Find event and ticket information.

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It’s Giving Tuesday—Let’s Make History Together!

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The Revolutionary Love Tour – The Revolutionary Love Project

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Valarie Kaur is a renowned civil rights leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, innovator, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. A daughter of Panjabi Sikh farmers from California, Valarie earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School, and holds several honorary doctorates. Her campaign and speeches have inspired millions globally and ignited a movement to reclaim love as a force for justice. Her question: “The future is dark: Is this the darkness of the tomb, or the darkness of the womb?” is a mantra for people fighting for change. The tour will feature lessons from Valarie’s acclaimed book See No Stranger (2020), and showcase two new books Sage Warrior (2024) and children’s book World of Wonder (2024).

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Inclusive, powerful, and healthy communities for all.

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Inclusive, powerful, and healthy communities for all.

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Turnout Tuesdays with SURJ: grow our movement! · Showing Up for Racial Justice

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Come build the movement by calling SURJ members and supporters to invite them into the fight for racial justice with SURJ in 2024! If we’re serious about winning the world we need, we’re going to need to not only take action ourselves, but also invite our people to take action too! We gather every Tuesday to call our people-- other SURJ members and supporters who are looking for their place to plug in and get involved! It’s an amazing opportunity to connect with other SURJ members across the country, hear their stories, and support them in finding their next action step. Each Turnout Tuesday starts with a complete training so you have everything you need to make calls! We make calls together and celebrate our collective impact at the end. All you need is yourself and a device to make calls. Can you join us to turnout our folks for racial justice?

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Turnout Tuesdays with SURJ: grow our movement! · Showing Up for Racial Justice

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Come build the movement by calling SURJ members and supporters to invite them into the fight for racial justice with SURJ in 2024! If we're serious about winning the world we need, we're going to need to not only take action ourselves, but also invite our people to take action too!

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Advancing Black Communities One Gift at a time 

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KC G.I. F.T.- Generating Income for Tomorrow

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KC G.I. F.T.- Generating Income for Tomorrow

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‎A People's History of Kansas City: The Walker Walkouts on Apple Podcasts

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The Walker Walkout, sets the tone for Brown v. Board of Education 

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The Walker Walkout, sets the tone for Brown v. Board of Education 

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70 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in its landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education. But the case may have played out differently if it hadn't been for a tenacious group of women in Johnson County, Kansas, who led their own integration lawsuit five years earlier. As Mackenzie Martin reports, the case centered around a two-room schoolhouse and included a lengthy boycott, big-shot NAACP lawyers, FBI surveillance - and six very brave children.

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‎A People's History of Kansas City: The Walker Walkouts on Apple Podcasts

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70 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional in its landmark decision Brown v. Board of Education. But the case may have played out differently if it hadn't been for a tenacious group of women in Johnson County, Kansas, who led their own i...

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Now Playing In Theaters and on Hulu

Now Playing In Theaters and on Hulu

In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary-part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park). The footage was never seen and largely forgotten-until now. SUMMER OF SOUL shines a light on the importance of history to our spiritual well-being and stands as a testament to the healing power of music during times of unrest, both past and present. The feature includes never-before-seen concert performances by Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, B.B. King, The 5th Dimension and more.
"Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)," is the first official project under the recently announced Onyx Collective brand. The winner of both the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival will be released theatrically by Searchlight Pictures and will begin streaming on Hulu in the U.S. on July 2, 2021. The film will also stream internationally through the Star offering on Disney+ on a date to be confirmed.

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In his acclaimed debut as a filmmaker, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson presents a powerful and transporting documentary-part music film, part historical record created around an epic event that celebrated Black history, culture and fashion. Over the course of six weeks in the summer of 1969, just one hundred miles south of Woodstock, The Harlem Cultural Festival was filmed in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park).

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Marvel Studios' Black Panther - Official Trailer

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Donate today to power our grassroots movement to end gun violence.

What we do in the year ahead matters as we seek to end gun violence in America. We're counting on you to support our work-donate now through December 3rd and your gift will be matched by Mike Bloomberg.

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We are a movement of nearly 10 million moms, mayors, survivors, students, and everyday Americans working to end gun violence.

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‎Permission To BE: Heal Your Way Forward w/ Myisha T Hill on Apple Podcasts

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Glimpse into the Co-conspirators journey.

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Glimpse into the Co-conspirators journey.

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Becka, Tommy, and Olivia welcome back to the podcast, author, speaker, and founder of Check Your Privilege, Myisha T Hill. Their conversation is full of laughter, wisdom, and insights on Myisha's last work, Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future.
https://www.myishathill.com
For more information on this episode and the show notes please visit: PermissionToBePodcast.com

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‎Permission To BE: Heal Your Way Forward w/ Myisha T Hill on Apple Podcasts

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Becka, Tommy, and Olivia welcome back to the podcast, author, speaker, and founder of Check Your Privilege, Myisha T Hill. Their conversation is full of laughter, wisdom, and insights on Myisha's last work, Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future. https://www.myisha...

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Help Thelma's Kitchen serve delicious meals to our neighbors in need

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Help Thelma's Kitchen serve delicious meals to our neighbors in need

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Get involved at Thelma’s Kitchen, Kansas City’s first donate-what-you-can cafe working to transform Troost from a dividing line to a gathering place. We currently specialize in individual and group order box lunches.

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To address the root causes and symptoms of poverty and trauma in our City.

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To address the root causes and symptoms of poverty and trauma in our City.

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Our mission is to cultivate a community seeking reconciliation, to transform Troost from a dividing line into a gathering place, revealing the strength of all.

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Our vision, originally pioneered by Fr. Alexii Atschul is that those who come to Reconciliation Services who have fallen through the cracks find dignity, strength and the solutions they need to build vibrant community together.

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The Prospect KC stands for social equality across all things food

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The Prospect KC stands for social equality across all things food

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The Prospect KC stands for social equality across all things food.

The Spot - a café, sustainably sourced coffeeshop and fresh grocer - operating under The Prospect KC umbrella is designed to be a community space filled with delicious fresh foods prepared throughout the day by our Prospects, shared at community tables overflowing with dishes designed to nourish body and soul."he Prospect KC is for social equality, across all things food, culinary education and culinary access.

We see our future space filled with laughter and delicious food that's been cooked together by hand or heart: hearth kitchens teaching skills, taste buds dancing over each bite shared at communal tables, overflowing with dishes made fresh throughout the day.

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The Prospect KC stands for social equality across all things food. The Spot - a café, sustainably sourced coffeeshop and fresh grocer - operating under The Prospect KC umbrella is designed to be a community space filled with delicious fresh foods prepared throughout the day by our Prospects, shared at community tables overflowing with dishes designed to nourish body and soul."he Prospect KC is for social equality, across all things food, culinary education and culinary access.

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Lakota People's Law Project on Instagram: "Your voice matters! Make your comment today: https://lakota.law/DAPL-EIS-2023

The comment period for the DAPL EIS has been extended till December 13th. We must speak up for grandmother earth! #N#NoDAP"

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Lakota People's Law Project on Instagram: "Your voice matters! Make your comment today: https://lakota.law/DAPL-EIS-2023

The comment period for the DAPL EIS has been extended till December 13th. We must speak up for grandmother earth! #N#NoDAP"

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617 likes, 7 comments - lakotalaw on November 6, 2023: "Your voice matters! Make your comment today: https://lakota.law/DAPL-EIS-2023

The comment period..."

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View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Lakota People's Law Project (@lakotalaw)

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How Can We Win?  (Monopoly Game Analogy for Systemic Racism).

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How Can We Win?  (Monopoly Game Analogy for Systemic Racism).

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#BLM How Can We Win? Kimberly Jones Powerful Speech Video Full Length Black Lives Matter #BLM 2020

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Maps Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages

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Maps Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages

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2nd Saturdays Ivanhoe Farmers Market 37th & Woodland

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2nd Saturdays Ivanhoe Farmers Market 37th & Woodland

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Kansas City's first black-owned brewery. Located downtown in the 18th & Vine Jazz District. We produce delicious beer, inclusive atmosphere and fun experiences.

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For more stories like this one, subscribe to A People's History of Kansas City on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher.
Every June, LGBTQ communities and their allies across America get together for Pride celebrations. Depending on where you are, the festivities can include parades, street parties, performances and corporate sponsors.

But behind the rainbow flags and celebrations of joy, these events are also crucial reminders of the decades-long struggle for LGBTQ civil rights - one that continues.

Kansas City's 2023 Pride parade will take place June 10 under the shadow of a Missouri legislative session that saw 48 anti-LGBTQ bills proposed.

It's reminiscent of the intolerance Lea Hopkins was up against back in 1977, when she spearheaded Kansas City's first gay Pride parade.

"Everyone who's ever known me knows one thing: I will speak my mind. If it works for you, fine. If it doesn't, that's OK, too," Hopkins says.

Meet Lea Hopkins

Lea Hopkins, 79, has a lot of fond memories of growing up in Kansas City, Kansas - but she remembers her mother was strict about who she played with and what she could wear. She got her first pair of pants around age seven.

"They were pink pedal pushers. I was so excited," Hopkins remembers.

She was 13 when she realized she was gay.

"I knew I was different, as they say.... But at 13, what are you gonna do?" she says. "It was my secret for a long, long time."

Before she was an activist, Lea Hopkins was Kansas City's first Black Playboy Bunny - something she never imagined in her "wildest dreams."

Hopkins mostly enjoyed her time at Kansas City's Playboy Club, but she was the unfortunate recipient of harassment.

"You just had to keep quiet and deal with it. But the other girls really used to protect me," she told the Kansas City Star in 1983.

That experience led Hopkins to professional modeling with the Barbizon Agency, where she remembers successfully negotiating for higher pay on behalf of all of the models.

But she felt a continual pull to leave the Midwest and go to New York, where she could more easily be herself.

"I went to New York to come out," she says. "Take it or leave it, I'm not changing for anybody. And once that became obvious, then I had tons of friends, tons of places to go."

She was in New York City during the gay liberation movement of the early '70s. That's where she went to her first lesbian bar, forged formative relationships and learned about the importance of finding your community.

The origin of LGBTQ Pride month

The reason we celebrate Pride during the month of June is because of the Stonewall uprising in New York City.

Early on the morning of June 28, 1969, police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay and lesbian bar.

Unlike the many raids that had come before, this time patrons fought back. After years of homosexuality being criminalized, they'd had enough.

Stonewall came to be known as a watershed moment in the gay liberation movement. But gay rights groups had been around for two decades at that point - including here in Kansas City.

In the mid-1960s, some gay people in America referred to themselves as "homophiles" and formed activist organizations. Every year, they organized marches in Philadelphia known as the Reminder Day Pickets to raise awareness that homosexuals didn't have basic human rights.

On June 28, 1970, organizers shifted gears and decided to commemorate the first anniversary of the Stonewall uprising instead.

Thousands of people marched in New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago in what are considered the first gay Pride parades.

The making of a Kansas City activist

Gay And Lesbian Archive Of Mid-America, University Of Missouri-Kansas City

Pride parades migrated from New York City to Kansas City by way of Lea Hopkins. She moved back to Kansas City in 1974.

At the time, Hopkins was pregnant with her son, Jason, who she conceived with the help of a friend. One of the first things she did was come out to her mother.

"I said, 'Well, you're gonna have the grandchild that you've always wanted. And your daughter is a lesbian,'" she says. "If you cannot deal with who I am, you will not be privy to your grandson."

Inspired by her time in New York, Hopkins was done compromising - but Kansas City in general was a huge departure from the fast-paced life she had grown used to.

"When I left New York and came back to Kansas City, I thought I had died. It was such a shock to me," she says."I was like, 'What have you done? This is gonna be the biggest mistake of your life.'"

It took her awhile to feel the same sense of community she had felt in New York. Eventually, she understood she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

A pivotal moment was when she joined the Kansas City chapter of the Metropolitan Community Church, a national LGBTQ-affirmative church founded in California in 1966 by Rev. Troy Perry.

After seeing Perry speak in Kansas City, she was moved to tears.

"It meant a lot," Hopkins says. "I knew I was never going to go into a Baptist or Methodist church because the pastors were preaching against homosexuality... But I am (religious) in my own way."

Jason Hopkins was one of the first children to be baptized at MCC, which is one of the longest-operating LGBTQ organizations in the city.

In 1975, MCC was one of the sponsoring organizations for Kansas City's first Pride festival, which advertised picnics, dances, workshops and conferences.

The city's first Pride parade didn't come around until 1977.

By that point, Hopkins had started organizing under a group called the Christopher Street Association.

"I started feeling a higher power is speaking to me," she recalls. "And I got the message loud and clear: You are a lesbian. You are with this group. You'll speak out to the day you die."

Kansas City's first parade was "small but mighty," with 25-30 people marching to the Liberty Memorial, holding their heads high while ignoring hateful comments from passersby.

"It was rather dangerous during those times. Gay men were getting beat up," Hopkins says.

"For the people that came on board, they had to realize they may give up a lot. Because you're out now and there's gonna be a camera in your face. Do your parents know you're gay? Your brothers and sisters? Do they know in your apartment building?"

The day Anita Bryant came to town

Only a few weeks passed before Hopkins found herself organizing another event. This time, it was a protest against anti-gay activist Anita Bryant, a well-known singer, beauty queen and brand ambassador for the Florida Citrus Commission.

At the time, Bryant was planning a stop in Kansas City to perform at a Christian Booksellers Association convention in the midst of a national anti-gay crusade across America. Bryant's organizing led to the repeal of municipal gay rights ordinances in Wichita, Kansas; Miami, Florida; and Eugene, Oregon.

The gay community retaliated with huge protests and orange juice boycotts.

"I found out she was coming to Kansas City. I was like, OK, we've gotta be ready," Hopkins says. "I was on TV. I was on the radio."

When Bryant arrived in July 1977, she was met with blocks of protesters marching - 600 people reportedly took part.

While it wasn't Bryant's intent, Hopkins says Bryant played an important role in uniting the gay movement back then.

"We would like to thank Anita Bryant for the media coverage she has afforded us across the country," Hopkins told the Kansas City Times in 1977. "We could not have done it without her."

Hopkins sees parallels between Anita Bryant's anti-gay rhetoric and the language in the far right's rhetoric today. It didn't deter her from speaking out then and it doesn't now.

Hopkins went on to become a public spokesperson for Kansas City's LGBTQ movement.

She was active with the National Organization for Women, and helped start the gay injustices fund, which supported gay young people who needed legal counsel and gave them a place to go.

She's also published several books of poetry, and continues her activism by writing letters to the editor.

"There are just certain issues I will not stand still for," Hopkins says. "Writing helps me a lot 'cause I can go deeper inside my own head and my own heart... I just felt that that needed to be out there when I'm no longer here."

A nod to a historic legacy

For much of the 2000s, most young people in Kansas City probably didn't know who Lea Hopkins was, but that seems to be changing.

Last year, Hopkins was named the grand marshal of Kansas City's 2022 Pride parade, exactly 45 years after starting the city's first such parade.

"I've never seen so many people in my life," she says. "Seeing parents with their kids, the baby strollers... That just made my heart just sing."

Jason Hopkins, Hopkins' only biological child, died from cancer in 1997 at the age of 22. But today, Hopkins says she is surrounded by people she thinks of as sons and daughters.

"I was a semi-mother to all of his classmates. I'm so proud of that. And they're grown now. And when they're in Kansas City, they call me and come by," she says.

For kids today who are struggling with their identity, Hopkins has some advice.

"First thing I'd say was, it's all gonna be alright. Know who you are. It won't be easy, but it's all going to be alright. You'll find your footing. You'll find your space. And you will definitely find your voice. Use it."
A People's History of Kansas City is hosted by Suzanne Hogan. This episode was produced and mixed by Mackenzie Martin with editing by C.J. Janovy.

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Meet Lea Hopkins, the bold, Black lesbian behind Kansas City's very first Pride parade

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Kansas City's first Pride parade in 1977 was spearheaded by Lea Hopkins, whose organizing sparked a wider gay rights movement that continues today. But it was only a few weeks after that successful event that Hopkins found herself on the defense again, when a prominent anti-gay activist came on a crusade through town.

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Yoli Tortilleria was created to fill the authentic tortilla void that founders Marissa and Mark noticed in Kansas City. As their business started to grow, they realized needed a name that stands out, conveys authenticity, and establishes them as local experts on tortillas. Yoli (pronounced yo-lee…

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This story was first published in KCUR's Creative Adventure newsletter. You can sign up to receive stories like this in your inbox every Tuesday.
The Kansas City region is home to a diverse number of Native American nations. Around northern Kansas City, we can find traces of the Hopewell civilization from the Middle Woodland era (100 B.C. to 700 A.D.) and the Mississippi people (760 to 1290 A.D.).

The 90-mile radius of KCUR's broadcast signal extends across the ancestral lands of the Osage, Kaw (Kansa) and Otoe-Missouria. During the 1830s, the Shawnee, Wyandot, Delaware, Munsee, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox and Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo) were forcefully relocated to the region, each community with its own history and traditions. A few decades later, many of these nations were again forced to move.

Today Native Americans only make up about 0.5% of the population in Kansas City and the surrounding communities. Still, this influence is found in our streets and place names, historic sites and museum galleries, along with the cultural contributions of those preserving, expanding and celebrating that heritage.

At the same time, recent acts of vandalism in North Kansas City and Lawrence, Kansas, demonstrate the enduring struggle to respect Native American land and culture.

Many states and cities celebrate Indigenous People's Day on the second Monday of October, acknowledging and honoring the original stewards of lands worldwide. Last year was the first time that Kansas City officially acknowledged the day, with a proclamation from Mayor Quinton Lucas. This year, the day falls on October 11.

And in November, it's National Native American Heritage Month.

To help us learn more about our area, we've identified some of the significant Native American cultural and historic sites in the Kansas City region, with guidance from staff at the Kansas City Indian Center.
Missouri
Despite adopting the name of the people who lived here, there are no longer any recognized tribal lands in Missouri due to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Nations from the East and North were moved first to what was then called Indian Territory (present-day Kansas and Nebraska), then into Oklahoma.

Learn more about the influence of the Otoe-Missouria on Missouri's name with the KCUR podcast A People's History of Kansas City. You can also read about Native Americans who have lived in Missouri in this series from Missouri Life magazine, and explore resources from the State Historical Society of Missouri.

However, there are still remnants of that history, such as Wyandotte Street that runs somewhat brokenly from the River Market to Westport Road, connecting points of contact between Native Americans and Europeans who traded and intermarried. Locations of trading posts are acknowledged with historic markers in Case Park, the West Bottoms, Chouteau Station in Shawnee, Kansas; with monuments such as the François Chouteau and Native American Heritage Fountain; and even in surviving buildings, such as the one at 504 Westport Road.

The Kansas City Indian Center is also located in the Westport area. First formed as a social club to retain cultural practices, it was incorporated in 1971 as the area's "only multi-purpose social service agency for American Indians."

Frank Vaydik Park, in Platte County, is the site of the former Line Creek archeological dig, which uncovered artifacts from the Kansas City Hopewell during the mid-20th century. For decades there was a museum and dig site. Though the museum is no longer there and the artifacts are in storage, it is now home to Line Creek's Thidaware Native American Garden, which is grown using ancient agricultural practices.
Wyandotte County
Since Missouri and many other states forcibly removed their Native American populations, many nations ended up in what became Kansas, then known as Indian Territory. The Delaware (Lenape) first established a reservation in 1829, then sold land to the Wyandot in 1843, for what is now Kansas City in Wyandotte County, Kansas.

Shortly after the Wyandot arrived in the area, an estimated 60 people became sick and died. The Wyandotte National Burying Ground (the name Huron Indian Cemetery is not considered correct) is at 5th and Minnesota Ave., near the 7th Street Casino, owned by the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma.

Also in Kansas City is Kaw Point, where the Kansas (Kaw) River and Missouri River converge. The spot also has come to symbolize the convergence of Native Americans and European Americans. The riverside park includes a memorial to Native American nations.

Though Quindaro was known as a community of African Americans, the name came from the Wyandot, too, meaning "bundle of sticks," symbolizing strength in unity.

In the Argentine neighborhood of Kansas City, there's the former site of Tenskwatawa's "Prophetstown." He was known as The Shawnee Prophet, and his final resting place is White Feather Spring, now on private property, where there's a marker located at the end of a quiet street.
Johnson County
While many histories have been forgotten, there are still those trying to preserve them and right past wrongs. The Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site (in what is now Fairway, Kansas) was first established in 1839 as a manual training school for Native American children.

Recently, the Shawnee Mission Post reported that the city will be working with the Shawnee Tribe to readdress the history of the boarding school, to remember and honor the children who lived there.

When the Shawnee established their reservations in 1826, there were different viewpoints in regard to dealing with the white government and neighbors. Some, including Chief Charles Bluejacket (who was also a Methodist minister), chose assimilation, while others, such as Chief Black Bob, worked to maintain separate traditions within their community. In either case, they were eventually forced to leave Kansas.

Throughout Shawnee, Kansas, we find references to Bluejacket, including a street, a fountain and an apartment complex. There is also the Shawnee Indian Cemetery (the last burial there was in 1870). In Olathe (which means "beautiful" in Shawnee), references to Black Bob include a park, street and elementary school.
Beyond Kansas City
Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas, also started as a boarding school. Learn more about the university and the people of the area at the Cultural Center and Museum. You can also take a self-guided walking tour of the campus.

Lawrence was the first city in Kansas to declare Indigenous People's Day. The University of Kansas's Lied Center will host the 33rd KU FNSA Powwow and Indigenous Cultures Festival in April 2022. (You can watch the 2021 virtual event on Facebook.)

There are still a few reservations in Kansas. Learn about the last buffalo hunt by the Prairie Band of Potawatomi or the Kansas Kickapoo Tribe in Horton. Near the Nebraska border, the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri have a museum in Reserve, Kansas, and the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska's seat of governance is in White Cloud.

In Council Grove, you'll find the Kaw Mission and Last Chance Store, run by the Kansas Historical Society (though currently closed for reinterpretation).

Just about 30 minutes from downtown Kansas City is Fort Osage in Sibley, Missouri, a living history museum that recounts the days in the early 1800s when it was a military and trading post. The fort was established by William Clark in 1808 and operated until 1827. For a few years during its operation, the Little Osage tribe lived in the area as well.

Reconstruction began in 1941 and in 1961 the fort was recognized as a National Historic Site, in part due to its relation to Hopewell and Osage archaeological sites and the Santa Fe Trail, which began as a trading circuit originally used by Native Americans.

Many of the nations that were moved to this area were then forcibly removed again to Oklahoma. The First Americans Museum (FAM) recently opened in Oklahoma City, telling the stories of the 39 tribal nations now in Oklahoma.
Native American art and culture
Many local museums include Native American art and artifacts in their collections, both ancient and modern, including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the St. Joseph Museum and the Kansas City Museum.

But Native Americans don't exist only in the past. Traditions continue, and many individuals express those traditions through contemporary frameworks. On the KCUR podcast Real Humans, host Gina Kaufmann shares the story of Alexandra Holder (Lakota), a runner with the Haskell Indian Nations University who grew up in Lawrence, Kansas.

Native Spirit Radio features music from many different people from all over the Americas, every Sunday at 5 p.m. It's a long-running show on KKFI 90.1 FM, hosted by Rhonda LeValdo, a faculty member at Haskell Indian Nations University.

The UMKC Gallery of Art is currently hosting an exhibition by Gregg Deal. "Yadooa Hookwu (I Will Speak Now)" explores "Indigenous identity through multiple forms of expression." Deal (Paiute Tribe of Pyramid Lake) is a multi-disciplinary artist who addresses race relations, American history and Indian stereotypes in his work.
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A local's guide to Native American cultural sites around Kansas City

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The culture, history and contributions of the Osage, Kaw, Otoe-Missouria, Shawnee, Wyandot and other Native American tribes can be found across the Kansas City region.

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Whistling Vivaldi, How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

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Whistling Vivaldi, How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do

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About the book

Whistling Vivaldi

How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do" by one of the nation's preeminent social psychologists has been chosen as the 2014-15 One Book One Northwestern University selection. The One Book initiative is the University's community reading program.

A highly readable, first-person account, "Whistling Vivaldi" by Claude Steele was published in 2010 as part of publisher W.W. Norton's "Issues of Our Time" series of books by leading thinkers exploring ideas that matter in the new millennium.

To enhance programming around the 2014-15 One Book selection and its themes, Northwestern has joined the YWCA Evanston/North Shore and the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in presenting a widely praised traveling exhibition on race and identity titled "RACE: Are We So Different?"

"Whistling Vivaldi" is a summary of Steele's groundbreaking research on group identity and the ways in which stereotypes can undermine the performance of the people they target. It takes its unusual name from a story told to the author by Brent Staples, an African-American journalist who writes for The New York Times.

As a graduate student walking at night in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood, Staples came to realize he was a source of distress for many of the white people he passed. "Couples locked arms or reached for each other's hand when they saw me," he wrote. "I did violence to them just by being."

To countervail the stereotype of African-American males as prone to violence, Staples adopted an unusual strategy. He would whistle Vivaldi's Four Seasons or Beatles' tunes as he walked at night.

In a single stroke, Steele writes, Staples successfully distanced himself from the stereotype of the violence-prone black man and relieved both his own discomfort and that of people he passed.

But such a strategy comes at a price. And Steele by no means suggests that the targets of negative stereotypes adopt the culture of those who stereotype them. What "Whistling Vivaldi's" author finds instructive about Staples' story is its illustration of the power of what Steele, in decades of research, has dubbed the "stereotype threat."

The "stereotype threat" occurs when a person is in a situation that evokes negative stereotypes about the group to which he or she belongs.

In experiment after experiment, Steele has found that people's fears of confirming a negative stereotype -- that white men can't jump, that African Americans are intellectually inferior or that females can't do high-level math -- cause stress. And that stress distracts them from the task at hand and, in turn, from completing the task to the best of their ability.

"Whistling Vivaldi" is about the experience of living under the cloud of the stereotype threat and the role such threats play in shaping individuals' lives and society. It also points to evidence that often small, feasible interventions can reduce these threats and dramatically narrow the racial and gender achievement gaps that, in Steele's words, so discouragingly characterize our society.

"With its emphasis on race, identity and the effects of stereotypes on behavior and performance, Steele's remarkable book should generate meaningful discussions of race and difference," said 2014-15 One Book faculty chair Harvey Young. Young is associate chair of the theatre department and holds appointments in African American studies in the Weinberg School of Arts and Sciences and in theatre, performance studies and radio/television/film in the School of Communication.

Young is particularly excited about weaving themes from the "RACE" exhibition, at Skokie's Holocaust Museum from October 2014 through January 2015, into One Book programming. Developed by the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota, the exhibition offers an unprecedented look at race and racism in America by exploring race from biological, cultural and historical perspectives.

Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, "Whistling Vivaldi" author Steele this year assumed the position of executive vice chancellor and provost at the University of California, Berkeley.

The recipient of numerous honors, he received the American Psychological Association's Senior Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest in 1998. He has served as dean of Stanford University's Graduate School of Education and as provost of Columbia University.

This summer, all incoming first-year undergraduates will receive a free copy of "Whistling Vivaldi" as part of One Book One Northwestern. Sponsored by the Office of the President, One Book holds dozens of lectures, films and discussion groups related to the One Book selection. Many of these events are open to the public and the entire community is invited to participate.

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About the book: One Book - Northwestern University

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How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do" by one of the nation's preeminent social psychologists has been chosen as the 2014-15 One Book One Northwestern University selection. The One Book initiative is the University's community reading program. A highly readable, first-person account, "Whistling Vivaldi" by Claude Steele was published in 2010 as part of publisher W.W.

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*Correction appended.

DENVER - Approximately 2,500 White women sat outside the Colorado state capitol building downtown on Monday, demanding that Gov. Jared Polis sign an executive order to ban guns and implement a statewide buyback program. Groups began gathering at 5 a.m., saying they would be in place until 8 p.m. and return at 8 a.m. each day for a week.

The sit-in is organized by Here 4 The Kids, a group founded by women of color with a mission statement opposing gun violence and white supremacy. The group had said last week that they expected 20,000 White women to show up at Monday's sit-in.

The calls for White women in particular to demand an executive order is an inherent part of the strategy crafted by Saira Rao, a first-generation Indian-American woman who is one of the group's founders.

"White women are the most demographically powerful people in the country. Why is it that marketing companies go after White women between the ages of 25 and 55? Power," Rao said. And in addition to financial power and influence, white women have privilege - the kind of privilege that helps keep them safe from police violence in the midst of organized political actions such as this one, Rao said. "If 25,000 Black and Brown people show up, we get murdered and arrested, called Islamic terrorists and tear-gassed or worse. So it has to be White bodies, period."

The group of White women at the Colorado capitol came from across the United States. As they gathered, they spread picnic blankets and set up camp chairs, freely sharing snacks and sunscreen, introducing themselves to strangers and quickly swapping stories about everything from childbirth experiences to anecdotes about their families. Volunteers circulated among the crowds, announcing on the hour the 10-minute moment of silence in honor of victims of gun violence in America. Attendees would then come together on the capitol steps, bringing their hand-drawn signs and standing solemnly as more and more names of those killed by gun violence in 2023 alone were read aloud.

Participants in the sit-in take a group picture at the Colorado State Capitol on June 5, 2023. (Jennifer Gerson for The 19th)

The mood was largely joyful and compassionate, as women frequently commented to one another about how energized they were to be out, sitting, doing something other than posting on social media or signing another petition as a means of expressing their frustration about the state of gun violence. They were somber coming out of the moments of silence, and occasionally concerned about whether the anticipated 20,000 attendees who had RSVP'd to the action would turn out.

While White women gathered at the capitol, a network of BIPOC, queer and disabled people worked on Here 4 The Kids' remote campaign, utilizing the hashtag #AmplifyJune5 to promote the social shares of those on the ground, directing people to contact their governor and other elected officials in their own states asking for an executive order banning guns, letting people share "artivism" projects, and providing virtual support communities for those grieving loved ones lost to gun violence.

Rao spoke of what she saw as the anti-Blackness underlying the Second Amendment and how it was designed to favor slave owners. Having White women make the demand to end the Second Amendment because of its foundation in white supremacy is necessary, Rao said, to fully make the argument that the right to bear arms is trumping children's right to live.

In engaging in this endeavor, Rao said she emphasizes to the White women involved that they are not allies and this work is not allyship since they are showing up for their own children's lives, safety and futures as well.

Rao said the choice of Colorado as a starting point was a deliberate way to focus her group's messaging around "expecting more from the Democrats" by looking at blue states that have "inordinately high" instances of gun violence.

Colorado is widely thought of as a state paving the way for the future of gun reform in America, an incubator for what is possible not only legislatively but in terms of grassroots action. At the signing for the newest batch of gun safety laws in April, Polis, a Democrat, was flanked by grassroots organizers from groups like Moms Demand Action. A slew of new gun safety measures in Colorado have been hailed as a major victory for gun safety advocates, many of whom have been engaged at a grassroots level for over a decade in the state where the gun lobby historically held great influence in the statehouse.

Polis' election in 2018 itself was considered by many to be a win for gun safety activists. Moms Demand Action, a part of the Everytown for Gun Safety network, campaigned for and endorsed Polis when he first ran in 2018 and again when he was up for re-election in 2022. The group was not involved in the Here 4 The Kids sit-in.

In April, Polis signed four new gun safety bills, just five months after the mass shooting at Club Q, a LGBTQ club in Colorado Springs. Two of the new laws have already been challenged by gun advocacy groups: One raises the age for buying a gun from 18 to 21; the other implements a three-day waiting period between the purchase and actual receipt of a gun.

The third new Colorado law is a "red flag" measure that allows those in mandatory reporting situations to petition a judge for an extreme risk protective order, or a move to have a gun temporarily removed from someone they are concerned may cause harm to another person. The fourth new law - sponsored by State Sen. Tim Sullivan, whose son was killed in the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado - makes it easier for victims of gun violence to pursue legal action against the gun industry.

On June 2, Polis signed yet another gun safety bill into law: SB 279 is a ban on "ghost guns," or unserialized frames and receivers - the outer parts of a gun that hold its interior mechanisms and ammunition - that can be made from kits or 3D printers. Polis' signature now marks the fifth major piece of gun safety legislation he's signed in the first half of 2023.

But an executive order banning guns in Colorado would be considered unconstitutional under the Second Amendment, and would be subject to an immediate legal challenge as a result. A statement issued by Polis's office mid-Monday morning said, "The governor supports our Second Amendment right to bear arms and also shares the concerns about improving public safety including reducing gun violence, which is why the governor is committed to making Colorado one of the top 10 safest states."

The statement added that members of the governor's staff had met with leadership at Here 4 The Kids and took issue with their demand to ban all guns.

"These individuals' calls to improve safety and prevent gun violence through their specific requests for an executive order banning all guns would simply be unconstitutional," the statement noted.

But many of those who came to Colorado on Monday said they didn't need a full ban on all guns to feel like they had been seen and heard.

Laurie Muzzy, 42, traveled to Denver from Durham, North Carolina, because she said she was "afraid every place I go that someone is going to come in and just start shooting. Guns are just too available. There's been so many restrictions that politicians have tried to pass and there's not enough work being done to make this happen."

As a North Carolina resident, Muzzy said she is concerned about things like permitless carry and news stories she has seen about people of color being killed by police after finding guns in their vehicles when pulled over, even when permitted. "So I guess we have to ban all of the guns now. I don't want that to happen. I want my coworkers to be able to go hunting and bring back venison and share it with me. My father-in-law goes duck hunting and he's great, he's totally responsible. But that's just not worth kids' lives. Kids are more important than hunting."

Kelly Krupp, 29, of Golden, Colorado, was at the sit-in with her daughter, who was finishing first grade this week. Her young daughter climbed up a streetlight pole, waving her rainbow Here 4 The Kids sign clad in a gymnastics leotard and sunglasses. "I'm here with my daughter, Irene. She was in kindergarten when her school got its first gun threat, and it's been that way every semester since she started school. Her kindergarten graduation was right after Uvalde, and we were living in Texas at the time. She had a moment of silence at her kindergarten graduation for those kids. So something's broken and we want it fixed. I hope that Governor Polis signs the executive order that we've provided him and that change starts here."

Sandgren Dinkel, 46, is a crisis counselor currently living in Aurora, Colorado, who works in the city's public schools. Just last week, she lost a student to gun violence; unarmed, he was shot by the police. "I know some people want to ban guns altogether, but I'm saying let's have more rules," she said. "Let's have universal laws like background checks and waiting periods and lessons and classes required or gun ownership and regulations on storage and handling. Let's do all of that. Let's protect in the same way we do when we get a driver's license. I'm personally not asking for more than that right now."

Katie MacKenzie, a participant in the sit-in, poses for a portrait near the Colorado State Capitol. (Jennifer Gerson for The 19th)

Denver resident Elizabeth Liebetrau, 43, began to cry when asked why she was there at the sit-in, holding a sign with her children's names on it as the reason she was there. "My kids are scared to go to school every day. They literally say, 'Mom - what if there's a shooter today?' And I feel that way at every concert and class and at yoga and at the grocery store. America is sick. We need some big action to change this."

Kinzie Sippola, 30, said she decided to travel to Denver from her home in Las Vegas when she learned that this action was specifically "a call for White women to come together." She said standing in community with the other attendees at Monday's sit-in was a powerful moment for her. "I had this realization that usually when I look around and see a lot of White women, I realize that I'm in a very privileged space. Today I'm with a lot of White women because we are using our privilege instead of accessing a privileged space." Sippola held a sign that read "2 Aunties Here 4 The Kids."

Wolf Terry, a resident of Lakewood, Colorado, DM'd Rao on Instagram in April saying she was interested in volunteering. Within minutes, she was on the phone with Rao, who asked if she could talk immediately. Rao started the call by telling Terry she was now one of six field organizers charged with orchestrating Here 4 The Kids' ground game in Denver.

Terry, 33, said this work has forced her to confront the way that White women often engage - or not - with social crises. "They're willing to post something on social media. They're willing to complain about stuff at the kitchen table or in their friends groups about the state of the world, but they're more willing to look the other way than anything else." Engaging with the work of Here 4 The Kids means she talks about white supremacy a lot, often with other White women, and "it's a scary word that brings up feelings that they don't want to feel and they don't want to tackle those feelings. They want to get easily offended and reject the idea that Black women, Brown women and Indigenous women know more than them because they have a lived experience of having to know more than them."

But the work is not solely about dismantling white supremacy, she said. It's also about guns.

"We've proven time, and time and time again that we will continue to use guns to violently harm marginalized people specifically," Terry said. "This is not an American dream. This is an American nightmare."

Terry said her involvement also feels deeply personal as the mother of a 5-year old autistic son. "You know what I think when I tour my kid's kindergarten for next year? I think he's going to be in a 26-person classroom and because of his sensory issues, if he were to go into lockdown, just as a drill, he will lose his mind because it would be too much for him."

She imagines the compounded danger that would create in an actual school shooting, and she is confident other parents have similar fears. "That is why people are coming together. Because we've had enough. It doesn't matter if you vote Republican, whether you vote Democrat, whether you're independent, whether you're Green Party - we're dying."

Bonnie Rosenberg, 66, learned about Here 4 The Kids after attending a film screening Rao hosted in Atlanta last month with Tina Strawn, the group's co-founder. After the screening, Strawn spoke to the attendees about the planned sit-in on June 5 and how they wanted White women specifically to show up for it. A friend of Rosenberg's who was also at the screening turned to her, Rosenberg recalled, and said, "Bonnie, we need to go." Rosenberg's husband, who was also there, said the same. So she bought a plane ticket and through Here 4 The Kids was put in touch with a group of approximately 20 other women from across the country to coordinate their plans to sit together. "I'm showing my White privilege by showing up," Rosenberg said. "There are over 200 mass shootings this year alone and the year isn't even over yet. If that doesn't motivate me, I don't know what will."

After one of her adult children moved to Germany, Rosenberg said she considered a move abroad herself out of concerns for her safety in the midst of America's gun violence epidemic. When people ask her if she is sad that her daughter does not live in the United States and closer to her, Rosenberg said she replies, "No - I feel that she is safer there. That's so sad that I have to say that. I miss her, and she's recently married and I miss them, but the point is she feels they are safer living there and I do too."

Rosenberg, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, said she had never participated in a sit-in before. She's also never traveled outside of Atlanta for her activism before. She said she also liked the nature of the organizers' demand. "I personally think we should go to the extreme because nothing else has worked."

Nearly nine hours into the sit-in, Rao worked out of an off-site location where leadership - largely all women of color - could safely keep track of the day's events from a distance.

"This entire past two months has been the depth of depravity of this country and the heights of humanity. Seeing the videos and images that people are texting us from the capitol - it's so beautiful," Rao said. "Today's the litmus test on America: Are we choosing children? Or are we choosing the No. 1 killer of children?"

She said she was "delighted" with the day's turnout. When it comes to those who did not attend as promised, she said, "It goes back to heroes and villains. When history asks, 'Where were you on June 5?' are you going to be the villain who couldn't be bothered? Are you going to say, 'Sure I wish the guns wouldn't kill everybody, but I'm crazy busy. I have a SoulCycle class today. I'm going to go hiking today.' Are you going to be the hero or the villain? There are choices."

Rao concluded, "We're just getting started. This is the beginning. White Americans have been asleep at the wheel while their kids - while all of our kids - are getting murdered. Today is the dawning of a new day. I feel more hopeful than you'll ever know."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Laurie Muzzy's surname.

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In Denver, a group asked White women to demand a gun ban

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Correction appended. DENVER - Approximately 2,500 White women sat outside the Colorado state capitol building downtown on Monday, demanding that Gov. Jared Polis sign an executive order to ban guns and implement a statewide buyback program. Groups began gathering at 5 a.m., saying they would be in place until 8 p.m.

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White Women : Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Saira Rao and Regina Jackson

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White Women : Everything You Already Know about Your Own Racism and How to Do Better by Saira Rao and Regina Jackson

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Heal Your Way Forward is a seminal work in antiracism, guiding white and white-identifying folks to utilize activism for intergenerational healing.
In 2018, myisha t hill created the @ckyourprivilege handle on Instagram to undo the harm created between white women and women of the Global Majority. After years of living in the micro- and macro-aggressions of white culture, myisha was tired of staying silent. But she wanted to do more than fight back-she wanted to heal forward.

"myisha t hill is a rare educator who comes from a place of compassion and profound emotional insight. She is leading a revolution of mind, heart, and soul, one that she now continues in her highly anticipated book, Heal Your Way Forward. myisha's work changes how we experience the world by helping us understand our place within it. This book shows anyone interested in human liberation the way to heal, to hope, and to become true advocates and co-conspirators - not just for justice and change, but for the future of who we are as humans." - Anna Paquin, Actress and Producer

In just over three short years, Check Your Privilege and myisha's personal platform have amassed more than 750K followers on Instagram and became hubs for interracial activism during the Great White Awakening of 2020. But like many antiracism activists, myisha saw the activism abate after the election of President Biden.

Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future is the trumpet call to white and white-identifying folks, guiding them to recognize their antiracism work as intergenerational healing. In her first major book, myisha asks the most critical question of antiracism work: what do we want the world to look like in seven generations?

This book is her answer, but also, it's a tactical, practical guide for learning (and unlearning), healing (and feeling through the hurt), and committing (and recommitting) to real change and a reparative future.

This is the book myisha's 750,000 followers have been waiting for-a marriage of personal story, antiracist handbook, and an emotional plea to all people to be the change today so we can heal the world for tomorrow.

In this important work, myisha offers readers the ultimate reason to engage in activism-to create a better world not just for our babies, but for our babies' babies-and a clear strategy to change the future and nature of interracial activism by:

Sustaining the great white awakening by discovering the sweet spot of shame and vulnerability

Making room for white tears

Developing radical listening and lifelong learning

Practicing the great act of recommitment

And building a reparative future

As myisha shares, the more you fail forward, the more you heal your way forward, and the better we can heal the future together.
myisha t hill is a mental health activist, speaker, and entrepreneur passionate about mental wellness and empowerment for all. She runs the advocacy site Check Your Privilege with nearly 700K followers on Instagram. Additionally, myisha works with organizations and community groups taking white people on a self-reflective journey to explore their relationship with power, privilege, and racism.

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Heal Your Way Forward is a seminal work in antiracism, guiding white and white-identifying folks to utilize activism for intergenerational healing. In 2018, myisha t hill created the @ckyourprivilege handle on Instagram to undo the harm created between white women and women of the Global Majority.

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"Thank you for bringing experts, friends, pastors, people deconstructing their faith into such thoughtful conversations. Just listened to podcast 50 - as a white cis woman i thank you for teaching and leading me. Thank you for the work you have done and continue to do.."

- JJHam

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Podcast: Speaking of Racism - Tina Strawn

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"Thank you for bringing experts, friends, pastors, people deconstructing their faith into such thoughtful conversations. Just listened to podcast 50 - as a white cis woman i thank you for teaching and leading me. Thank you for the work you have done and continue to do.." - JJHam

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In this quick episode, you'll learn about the surprising origins of the term white privilege, how even the most well-meaning people get it wrong, and a new way to think about identity. What are you waiting for?

Mentioned:
We're Getting Privilege All Wrong on Apple & Spotify
A Teachable Moment for White Allies on Apple & Spotify
Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, Peggy McIntosh

To support Marie and get exclusive resources, head to patreon.com/mariebeech. To learn more about Marie's DEI services, head to mariebeecham.com.

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white privilege 101: how even well-meaning people get it wrong

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‎The Changemaker: White Privilege 101: How Even Well-Meaning People Get it Wrong on Apple Podcasts

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In this quick episode, you'll learn about the surprising origins of the term white privilege, how even the most well-meaning people get it wrong, and a new way to think about identity. What are you waiting for? Mentioned: We're Getting Privilege All Wrong on Apple & Spotify A Teachable Moment for W...

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Bryan Stevenson's story of justice and redemption

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Bryan Stevenson's story of justice and redemption

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A Story of Justice and Redemption

A powerful true story about the Equal Justice Initiative, the people we represent, and the importance of confronting injustice, Just Mercy is a bestselling book by Bryan Stevenson that has been adapted into a feature film.

About EJI &
Bryan Stevenson

Equal Justice Initiative

EJI is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, challenging racial and economic injustice, and protecting basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, a widely acclaimed public interest lawyer and bestselling author of Just Mercy, EJI is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization located in Montgomery, Alabama.

LEARN MORE ABOUT EJI

Bryan Stevenson

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. A widely acclaimed public interest lawyer who has dedicated his career to helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned, he has won numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Prize and the ACLU's National Medal of Liberty.

JUST MERCY - #1 New York Times Bestseller

The Book

An unforgettable true story about the potential for mercy to redeem us, and a clarion call to end mass incarceration in America - from one of the most inspiring lawyers of our time.

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, dedicated to defending the poor, the incarcerated, and the wrongly condemned.

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI, from the early days with a small staff facing the nation's highest death sentencing and execution rates, through a successful campaign to challenge the cruel practice of sentencing children to die in prison, to revolutionary projects designed to confront Americans with our history of racial injustice.

One of EJI's first clients was Walter McMillian, a young Black man who was sentenced to die for the murder of a young white woman that he didn't commit. The case exemplifies how the death penalty in America is a direct descendant of lynching - a system that treats the rich and guilty better than the poor and innocent.

Download discussion guide

The message of this book . . . is that evil can be overcome, a difference can be made. Just Mercy will make you upset and it will make you hopeful.

Ted Conover / The New York Times Book Review

Selected as a

New York Times Best Seller

Winner of the

Dayton Literary Peace Prize

Winner of a

NAACP Image Award for Nonfiction

Finalist for the

Kirkus Reviews Prize

Winner of a

Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Selected as a

An American Library Association Notable Book

The Movie

Just Mercy takes us inside America's broken criminal justice system and compels us to confront inequality and injustice.

Based on the bestselling book, the Just Mercy movie presents the unforgettable story of Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and the case of Walter McMillian (Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx), who was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit.

Download discussion guide

I spent most of Just Mercy devastated by its most rueful death-row inmate, only to belatedly realize that it was [Rob] Morgan who was breaking my heart.

Wesley Morris / The New York Times

Just Mercy is a handsome, impeccably mounted tribute to [Stevenson's] activism and also his fellow advocates.

Justin Chang / Los Angeles Times

Winner of

ABA Silver Gavel Award

Winner of the National Board of Review's

Freedom of Expression Award

Earned audience score of

99% on Rotten Tomatoes

Michael B. Jordan Winner of

BET Award for Best Actor

Winner of

Christopher Award

Winner of

Four NAACP Image Awards

Winner of American Black Film Festival

Movie of the Year

Jamie Foxx Winner of American Black Film Festival

Excellence in the Arts Award

Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, Rob Morgan, Tim Blake Nelson, Andrene Ward-Hammond, O'Shea Jackson Jr. and Karan Kendrick

Bryan Stevenson is the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. He had barely opened the nonprofit law office in Montgomery, Alabama, when he agreed to represent Walter McMillian, a Black man wrongly convicted of killing a white woman in the town that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird.

Clients

Just Mercy tells the story of EJI's clients, from Walter McMillian and Anthony Ray Hinton - who were exonerated from Alabama's death row - to Joe Sullivan and Ian Manuel - who won release after being sentenced to die in prison for nonhomicide crimes in Florida when they were just 13 years old. We invite you to learn more about the clients featured in the book below.

Sign up to stay connected and receive updates about EJI's work.

By submitting this form, you are granting: Equal Justice Initiative, 122 Commerce Street, Montgomery, Alabama, 36104, United States, http://www.eji.org permission to email you. You may unsubscribe via the link found at the bottom of every email. (See our Email Privacy Policy for details.) Emails are serviced by Mailchimp.

FAQ

If you have additional questions about Just Mercy or the work of EJI, please visit eji.org.

Is Just Mercy a true story?

Yes. The movie is based on an actual case that is detailed in Bryan Stevenson's book, Just Mercy, published in 2014. Bryan took on Walter McMillian's case in 1988 to challenge his wrongful conviction and death sentence. Over the next six years, Bryan filed multiple legal challenges and conducted several hearings, but the trial court refused to grant Mr. McMillian a new trial despite overwhelming evidence of innocence, including the recantation of the State's main witness, Ralph Myers. Bryan appealed the ruling and the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial because the State withheld evidence of Mr. McMillian's innocence. Bryan filed a motion to dismiss all charges; the trial court granted it after the district attorney acknowledged Mr. McMillian's innocence. While the movie condenses the six years of litigation, it mostly tracks the actual account presented in the book. Mr. McMillian's claim of innocence attracted national attention as broadcast a story about the case. The movie accurately introduces other people represented by Bryan Stevenson, including Herbert Richardson, a Vietnam War veteran who was executed in 1989, and Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on death row for a crime he did not commit.

What made the Walter McMillian case unique?

Sadly, while the McMillian case had some unique features, there are actually lots of people who are innocent who have been sentenced to death in the United States. Because Mr. McMillian was accused of a crime that took place in Monroeville, Alabama, the community where Harper Lee grew up and wrote the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, there were interesting dynamics at play in the case. While the Monroeville community loves the Mockingbird story and took great pride in its association with the fictional characters of the book, there was tremendous resistance to recognizing Mr. McMillian's innocence despite overwhelming evidence. Walter McMillian and Ralph Myers were both placed on death row before going to trial, which is illegal and a rare form of coercion. After Mr. Myers agreed to give false testimony against Mr. McMillian, he was removed from death row. Mr. McMillian spent 15 months on death row awaiting his trial in an effort to pressure him into pleading guilty. The case was unique as well because the trial judge, Robert E. Lee Key Jr., moved the trial from Monroe County, which is over 40% Black, to Baldwin County, which had a much smaller Black population, making a nearly all-white jury more likely. Despite that change of venue, the jury that convicted Mr. McMillian of capital murder sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole. In Alabama, the trial judge has the authority to override a jury's verdict of life and impose the death penalty, which is what happened. Judge override of life verdicts has been a unique characteristic of the death penalty in Alabama. The Walter McMillian case is also significant because it was one of the very early cases where a death row prisoner was proved innocent after being sentenced to death despite death penalty reforms in the 1970s and early 1980s.

What happened to Walter McMillian after his release?

Walter McMillian stayed in Alabama after his release. Bryan and the staff at EJI filed civil rights lawsuits against state and local officials for putting him on death row before his trial and for violating his rights. The case settled out of court after several years of litigation. Because police, prosecutors, and judges are immune from judgments that require them to make payments to people victimized by abuse of authority and wrongdoing, the settlement compensation was much less than had been hoped. An effort to make the sheriff accountable went all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but the Court ruled that the sheriff could be protected from liability based on immunity laws. With the money that was obtained for Mr. McMillian, he was able to work in Monroe County selling scrap metal. About 10 years after his release, he began showing symptoms of early onset dementia, which some doctors believed was caused by the trauma of his ordeal on death row. Mr. McMillian died in 2013. He and Bryan remained close friends, occasionally traveling together to talk to audiences about the death penalty. They appeared at a United States Senate hearing shortly after Mr. McMillian's release to testify about the need for ending the death penalty and for reform of the criminal justice system. Read Mr. McMillian's statement.

How often are innocent people sentenced to death?

Since 1973, more than 165 people have been released from death row after evidence of their innocence was uncovered. A shocking rate of error has emerged: for every nine people executed in this country, one innocent person has been exonerated. Wrongful convictions have been found to result from erroneous eyewitness identifications, false and coerced confessions, misconduct by police and prosecutors, inadequate legal defense, false or misleading forensic evidence, and perjury by witnesses who are promised lenient treatment or other incentives in exchange for their testimony. Nine people have been exonerated in Alabama. Walter McMillian, Randall Padgett, Gary Drinkard, Louis Griffin, Wesley Quick, James Cochran, Charles Bufford, Anthony Ray Hinton, and Daniel Moore were found not guilty of the crimes that originally put them on Alabama's death row.

How does the Just Mercy book differ from the movie?

The book provides much more historical context for the issues raised in the movie and provides detail about our nation's evolving embrace of mass incarceration and excessive punishment. The book discusses many more clients and cases than the McMillian case depicted in the movie. The book focuses a lot on Bryan and EJI's work challenging the adult prosecution of children, some of whom were condemned to die in prison when they were 13 or 14 years of age. Bryan explores the evolution of mass incarceration and the impact on the poor, people of color, and people who are disfavored. The impact of over-incarceration on the mentally disabled and the growing numbers of people sentenced harshly because of mental illness is detailed. There are chapters that explore the increasing incarceration rates for women and how many women are criminalized for being poor. Bryan's own journey dealing with racial bias, police violence, and the enormous obstacles that must be overcome to do justice are more fully developed in the book, which recently was adapted for young adults.

How can I learn more about the issues raised in the movie?

In addition to reading the book, Just Mercy, you should visit EJI in Montgomery, Alabama. EJI has recently opened a major cultural complex to educate the public about our nation's history of racial injustice and the implications of that history for issues like mass incarceration and the death penalty. The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened in April 2018 along with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which is dedicated to thousands of African American victims of lynching. EJI's Peace and Justice Memorial Center provides daily presentations about EJI's work and the sites. Over 600,000 people have visited these sites. Visit eji.org to take a closer look at the work of EJI.

Do you have resources for discussing Just Mercy with students or community groups?

Yes, we have a Discussion Guide that provides background information and selected topics for discussing the Just Mercy movie with students, community groups, friends, and family. You can also download this discussion guide for students and groups who are reading the Just Mercy book.

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Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson | Bestselling Book and Adapted Film

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'Just Mercy' is a bestselling book telling the story of EJI and who we represent, that has been adapted into a feature film.

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How the Supreme Court Failed to Protect Black People

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How the Supreme Court Failed to Protect Black People

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A Death in Georgia
On April, 11, 1899, twenty miles southwest of Atlanta, Georgia, just outside Palmetto in Coweta County, a laborer named Sam Hose approached his employer, a wealthy farmer named Alfred Cranford. Hose asked for his accrued wages and permission to visit his mother, Mary Wilkes. Mrs. Wilkes, who lived in a cabin on a farm forty miles to the south, was a near- invalid, forced to care for another son who was retarded. Sam Hose had that day received a letter informing him that she had taken a turn for the worse. Hose, who was about twenty- five years old, had taught himself to read and write, the better to provide support for his family.

Cranford refused either to pay his employee or allow him time off. Sam Hose made the mistake of talking back. Cranford, known for a hot temper, stalked off. He seethed all night at the unimaginable slight.

Sam Hose, of course, was black. Alfred Cranford was white.

The next day, Cranford walked out to where Sam Hose was chopping wood. Cranford drew a gun and announced that he intended to shoot his disrespectful field hand dead on the spot. As they both knew, such a crime would have drawn not the slightest recrimination from the local authorities. In the unlikely event Cranford did go to trial, his acquittal by an all- white jury was a certainty. Sam Hose was a small man, only five feet eight inches tall, weighing not more than 140 pounds. In fear for his life, he flung his ax, striking the white man in the head and killing him instantly. He then fled in terror.

For the previous three months, a series of suspicious fires had plagued Palmetto. Two businesses and a home had gone up in flames. County officials insisted Palmetto Negroes were responsible and, further, that the fires were part of a grand conspiracy. White leaders would be murdered and the entire town burned to the ground. Local citizens were frantic.

In March, nine local black men had been arrested. All were later described by an outside investigator as "hard- working and intelligent." No evidence against any of them was ever produced, and each claimed to be able to easily prove his innocence. Palmetto had no jail, so the men were incarcerated in a local ware house, to be guarded, at least in theory, by sheriff's deputies. The night of their arrest, before any formal proceedings could be initiated, a group of concerned citizens, 150 white men, visited the prisoners. With the guards either ignoring the mob or joining it, eight of the nine were shot. Four died, and the others were seriously wounded.

Although the fires ceased-- actually, they had stopped weeks before the arrests - talk of insurrection by marauding Africans continued to spread panic throughout Palmetto. The day after the shootings, for example, an Atlanta newspaper reported, "All business has been suspended, the town is under military patrol, and every male inhabitant is armed to the teeth, in anticipation of an outbreak which is expected to- night." Although no uprising ever took place, news, a month later, of Alfred Cranford lying dead outside his home with an ax in his head revived fears of an impending race war.

Bloodhounds were set on Sam Hose's trail.

Sensational as the killing already was, rival newspapers in Atlanta, the Journal and the Constitution, decided that the story should be made even more lurid. Making no effort what ever to determine the actual facts of the case, they competed with each other for maximum embellishment and, one assumes, maximum sales. Sam Hose therefore became "a monster in human form." This "beast," the Journal reported to its readers, had burst in on the Cranford family during dinner, attacking the farmer from behind, cleaving his head in two. The Constitution took up the story from there. After brutally murdering the husband with the ax, Sam Hose then repeatedly raped

Cranford's wife, Mattie, on the kitchen floor, "within arm's reach of where the brains were oozing out of her husband's head." What's more, this rampaging savage was afflicted with syphilis, which he intended to pass on to the pitiable widow. Not content with what he had done to the adults, Sam Hose then set upon either a Cranford infant, or two young Cranford children depending on which account one read. The infant was dashed to the ground. Or the young children were assaulted. The details of this final outrage were kept from the Journal's God- fearing readers, but the clear implication was that the assault was "unnatural.

For ten days, Sam Hose was tracked by a posse said to number as many as three hundred men. During the hunt, on April 18, the Constitution's headline read CIRCLE OF VENGEANCE SLOWLY CLOSING ON FLEEING SAM HOSE. HUNDRED OF ARMED MEN ARE BEARTING THE COUNTRY FOR THE MURDERER OFALFRED CRANFORD. HE CANNOT ESCAPE, THEY SAY DETECTOBE BEDFORD HAS FOUND THE MURDER'S DISCARDED SHOES. ONE NEGRO CAPTURED SEVERAL TIMES. THE ENTIRE SECTION THROUGH WHICH HE IS SUPPOSED TO BE MAKING HIS ESCAPE IS UP IN ARMS, DETERMINED TO LYNCH HIM. The article went on to say, "When Hose is caught he will either be lynched and his body riddled with bullets or he will be burned at the stake." The newspaper added, "There have been whisperings of burning at the stake and of torturing the fellow low, and so great is the excitement, and so high the indignation, that this is among the possibilities." Two days later, the Constitution added, "Several modes of death have been suggested for him, but it seems to be the universal opinion that he will be burned at the stake and probably tortured before burned." Clark Howell, the editor of the newspaper, offered a $500 reward, an amount matched by Georgia's new governor, Allen D. Candler. The town of Palmetto added $250 more.

On April 22, Sam Hose was finally apprehended at his mother's cabin. He was taken by train to Newnan, the Coweta County seat, which, unlike Palmetto, had its own jail. He was repeatedly questioned, both at the time of his arrest and during the train ride. Described later by white deputies as "free from excitement or terror," he "told his story in a straightforward way, said he was sorry he had killed Cranford [in self- defense], and always denied that he had attacked Mrs. Cranford."

On the night of April 22, Sam Hose was again questioned, this time in the Newnan jail. There are no witness accounts of this session, but, at its conclusion, the white jailers reported that "Hose made a partial confession, acknowledging that he killed Mr. Cranford, and said that the murder had been instigated by a colored preacher [Lige Strickland] who had paid him $12 to commit it." A later investigation by the Chicago private detective found this to be hogwash. "I did not talk with one white man," the investigator reported, "who believed that Strickland had anything to do with [Hose]. I could not find any person who heard [Hose] mention Strickland's name. I talked with men who heard [Hose] tell his story, but all agreed that he said he killed Cranford because Cranford was about to kill him, and that he did not mention Strickland's name."

Word of Sam Hose's capture spread through Georgia with remarkable speed. By early the next morning, Sunday, April 23, plans for his execution were complete. Such was the demand to witness the spectacle that a special excursion train was arranged to carry eager Georgians from Atlanta to the promised execution. In the meantime, Lige Strickland had been snatched up in Palmetto.

As noon approached, a huge crowd had gathered in an open green, one mile from the Newnan town square. At least 2,000 were present, although a dispatch to the New York Times claimed "one special and two regular trains brought nearly 4,000 people to Newnan." At the station in Atlanta, conductors cried out, "Special train to Newnan! All aboard for the burning!" The Constitution noted that "the spot selected was an ideal one for such an affair, and the stake was in full view of those who stood about with unfeigned satisfaction."

Into this festive atmosphere, men arrived in Newnan accompanied by their wives and even their children. "Ladies clothed in their Sunday finery watched from carriages, gazing excitedly over the heads of men carrying small children on their shoulders as the ritual began." Not every white citizen was in favor of what was to take place. Former Georgia governor William Y. Atkinson, a Newnan native who had recently completed his second term before being replaced by Allen Candler, was appalled. He rode to the site and stood in a buggy, pleading for the crowd to leave and let the law take its course. Atkinson was shouted down.

Finally, Sam Hose was brought in a wagon from the jail. He was dragged to the center of the mob of thousands of jeering whites. He was stripped of his clothing and tied to a small sapling. Wood was stacked around him and soaked with kerosene. Hose himself was smeared with oil. Before the match was struck, however, one of "the cool, determined men who went about arranging to burn him" walked up to Sam Hose and sliced off his left ear. Then his right. His fingers were cut off, then his genitals. Still before the fire was lit, one of these cool, determined men stood next to Sam Hose and skinned his face. (Reports filtered out that during this process Sam Hosemade a full confession, admitting to both the rape of Mattie Cranford and the complicity of Lige Strickland, but a subsequent investigation proved this to be a fabrication as well.)

Finally, a match was thrown on the pyre.

"The stake bent under the strains of the Negro in his agony and his sufferings cannot be described, although he uttered not a sound," the Constitution faithfully reported. As the heat rose, Sam Hose's eyes popped from their sockets and his veins burst. "At one juncture, before the flames had begun to get in their work well, the fastenings that held him to the stake broke and he fell forward partially out of the fire." The men around him extinguished the flames, retied the victim, again doused him with oil, after which Sam Hose "was kicked back and the flames renewed. Then it was that the flames consumed his body and in a few minutes only a few bones and a small part of the body was all that was left of Sam Hose."

Excerpted from Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903 by Lawrence Goldstone. Published in January 2011 by Walker & Co. Copyright 2011 by Lawrence Goldstone. All rights reserved.

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The Supreme Court's Failure To Protect Blacks' Rights

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A Death in Georgia On April, 11, 1899, twenty miles southwest of Atlanta, Georgia, just outside Palmetto in Coweta County, a laborer named Sam Hose approached his employer, a wealthy farmer named Alfred Cranford. Hose asked for his accrued wages and permission to visit his mother, Mary Wilkes. Mrs.

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In 1875, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which forbade racial discrimination in access to public accommodations and facilities. Over the ensuing years, a number of African Americans sued businesses that denied them access to segregated facilities. In 1883, the Supreme Court heard five of those cases, and, on October 15, 1883, struck down the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in an 8-1 decision known as the Civil Rights Cases.

In the Civil Rights Cases, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment, which was cited as the constitutional authorization for the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and mandates "equal protection of the laws," does not apply to private entities. According to the Court, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applied only to actions taken by state governments or laws passed by state governments. Writing for the majority less than twenty years after ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, Justice Joseph Bradley questioned the necessity and appropriateness of laws aimed at protecting Black people from discrimination:

"When a man has emerged from slavery, and, by the aid of beneficent legislation, has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen or a man are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected."

The Supreme Court's decision in the Civil Rights Cases eliminated the only federal law that prohibited racial discrimination by individuals or private businesses, and left African Americans who were victims of private discrimination to seek legal recourse in unsympathetic state courts. Racial discrimination in housing, restaurants, hotels, theaters, and employment, became increasingly entrenched and persisted for generations. It would take more than eighty years for the federal government to again attempt to outlaw discrimination with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

About EJI

The Equal Justice Initiative works to end mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and racial inequality.

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Until we confront our history of racial injustice and its legacy, we cannot overcome the racial bias that exists today.

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Oct. 15, 1883 | Supreme Court Strikes Down Civil Rights Act; Legitimating Segregation

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In 1875, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which forbade racial discrimination in access to public accommodations and facilities. Over the ensuing years, a number of African Americans sued businesses that denied them access to segregated facilities.

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Tabitha Brown's path to stardom was a long and winding one. For years she pursued acting while raising a family and dealing with undiagnosed chronic autoimmune pain. Before she became vegan, her condition made her believe she wouldn't live to see forty.

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This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley: 9780593239797 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her stunning debut, the creator of Black Liturgies weaves stories from three generations of her family alongside contemplative reflections to discover the “necessary…

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Sula book. Read 4,727 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. This rich and moving novel traces the lives of two black heroines from thei...

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Read 760 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. A warm, welcoming picture book that celebrates diversity and gives encouragement and suppo...

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This “important and timely” (Drew Faust, Harvard Magazine) #1 New York Times bestseller examines the legacy of slavery in America—and how b…

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Melba Pattillo Beals (Little Rock 9 Memoir)

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Melba Pattillo Beals (Little Rock 9 Memoir)

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I don't know if I can rate such a personal story but this book did wonders for my persona learning experience, although much of it was not easy to read about.
Trigger Warnings: Racism, harassment, physical assault, attempted rape, ostracization, mobs, threats, shooting, slurs against indigenous Americans, bullying, mention of suicidal thoughts, mention of illness and death of a nanny and death of of a grandmother

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I don't know if I can rate such a personal story but this book did wonders for my persona learning experience, although much of it was not easy to read about.Trigger Warnings: Racism, harassment, physical assault, attempted rape, ostracization, mobs, threats, shooting, slurs against indigenous Americans, bullying, mention of suicidal thoughts, mention of illness and death of a nanny and death of of a grandmother

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"Funny and frank, delivered in such a generous spirit that almost any reader is bound to be won over." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times

"I remember the day Elamin Abdelmahmoud told me he was writing a book called Son of Elsewhere; just the title broke my heart and somehow still drew me in. Abdelmahmoud is one of our generation's most gifted and emotional writers. He takes us on a fascinating journey of self-discovery, from an awkward adolescent immigrant boy trying to fit in to a courageous young man struggling to carve out an identity of his own without severing his roots. Abdelmahmoud reminds us that, while his story is uniquely his own, we can all learn something about ourselves in 'The Elsewhere.'" -Brandi Carlile, Grammy Award-winning artist and New York Times bestselling author of Broken Horses

" Son of Elsewhere is a profound, tender collection of stories that speaks to those who exist in and out of liminal spaces. It's a narrative that forces readers to interrogate Blackness beyond American borders, American exceptionalism at the expense of Black and Brown people, and identity between separate languages. Abdelmahmoud is a skillful cartographer of place, architecture, and human emotion, blending them together so effortlessly that one will walk away from this debut seeing the symphony-and collision-in the mundane and the extraordinary. With this book, Abdelmahmoud announces that he is here and we should be so thankful for that." -Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing, Wandering in Strange Lands, and Caul Baby

"It is astounding how accurately and honestly Elamin Abdelmahmoud manages to map the strange territory between cultures that so many migrants call home. The interlinked essays in this collection, which filter the immigrant experience through everything from country music to professional wrestling fan fiction, manage to pull off a rare trick-at once sincere, ironic, hilarious and profound. Son of Elsewhere is the sort of book that can only come from a writer both incisive and open-hearted. Abdelmahmoud, to our great fortune, is both." -Omar El Akkad, Scotiabank Giller Prize-winning author of What Strange Paradise and " Son of Elsewhere is marvelous and wise and fascinating. Like a conversation with one of your smartest friends, Elamin Abdelmahmoud offers a unique perspective that feels both familiar and challenging. It's a privilege to read." -R. Eric Thomas, bestselling author of Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America

"Elamin Abdelmahmoud's Son of Elsewhere achieves what all nonfiction work should: a unique type of universality. His writing feels like a magic trick-every page is charming, funny, and yet painful, a collection that presses on your most tender feelings, like a bruise yet to heal." -Scaachi Koul, author of One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter

"Hilarious and somber, introspective and rollicking, this search for self is breathtakingly original."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Son of Elsewhere by Elamin Abdelmahmoud: 9780593496855 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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"Funny and frank, delivered in such a generous spirit that almost any reader is bound to be won over." -Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times "I remember the day Elamin Abdelmahmoud told me he was writing a book called Son of Elsewhere; just the title broke my heart and somehow still drew me in.

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Tyler Merritt is an actor, musician, comedian, and activist behind The Tyler Merritt Project. Raised in Las Vegas he has always had a passion for bringing laughter, grace, and love into any community that he is able to be a part of. For over twenty years now he has spoken to audiences ranging from elementary school students to nursing home seniors. His television credits include ABC's Kevin Probably Saves The World, Netflix's Messiah, Netflix's Outer Banks, Disney/Marvel's Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Apple TV's upcoming series Swagger. Tyler's viral videos "Before You Call the Cops" and "Walking While Black" have been viewed by over 60 million people worldwide with "Before You Call The Cops" being voted the number one most powerful video of 2020 by NowThis Politics. He is a Cancer survivor who lives in Nashville, Tennessee.

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Tyler Merritt is an actor, musician, comedian, and activist behind The Tyler Merritt Project. Raised in Las Vegas he has always had a passion for bringing laughter, grace, and love into any community that he is able to be a part of.

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Baba's Pantry comes from 25 years of experience and expertise in the food industry. A labor of love, Baba's mission is to make everyone feel like family and to feed them authentic recipes passed down from his mother. Baba's food is filled with bold flavors and rich aromas-an array of colors, textures, and tastes just like home.

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Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City

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Welcome to the New Black Archives

Permanent Exhibit

With My Eyes No Longer Blind

The Black Archives' permanent exhibit, With My Eyes No Longer Blind - titled after the Langston Hughes poem - traces the story of African Americans in the Kansas City from the days of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the mayor-ship of Emanuel Cleaver II.

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The Black Archives needs your support to continue to present the remembrances, reflections, experiences and historical contributions of African Americans.

Dr. Carma's Corner

Visit Dr. Carma's Corner and get content on the Black Archives, Kansas City, 18th and Vine and much more. You don't want to miss out on the information that she will be sharing.

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Home - Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City

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Skip to content Welcome to the New Black Archives Permanent Exhibit The Black Archives' permanent exhibit, With My Eyes No Longer Blind - titled after the Langston Hughes poem - traces the story of African Americans in the Kansas City from the days of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the mayor-ship of Emanuel Cleaver II.

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How to be in solidarity with the defenders of the Weelaunee Forest

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How to be in solidarity with the defenders of the Weelaunee Forest

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must be intentional in breaking down the systems that continue to oppress and disenfranchise the Black community with Black women being the most effected. Going through these daily prompts you will be called to think critically and act tangibly in solidarity.

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ItsTime4Justice's Mission:

To give an outlet for overlooked victims and situations to be seen and voiced. Create a network of support for those in need and those that have services to give. Too often those missed connections cause people without support to feel the community does not care. It's Time 4 Justice's purpose is not to become another organization, but to provide a central avenue to know where to go when you need help, and through this network find the help you need, quickly.

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ItsTime4Justice's Mission: To give an outlet for overlooked victims and situations to be seen and voiced. Create a network of support for those in need and those that have services to give. Too often those missed connections cause people without support to feel the community does not care.

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We provide quality Handmade Soaps & Skincare products. Hand-poured Candles, Wax melts & more. Soaps & skincare products

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N-Tune Life, we are a lifestyle enhancing brand that highlights awareness in daily lifestyle needs.

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N-Tune Life, we are a lifestyle enhancing brand that highlights awareness in daily lifestyle needs.

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Please "Like" and "Follow" MO Hives KC on your favorite social pages! By transforming vacant lots in the inner city, MO Hives is promoting both thriving bee farms (apiaries) and thriving communities. In addition to emphasizing the importance of the pollinating insect for improving food production yields, MO Hives is working to find safe, sustainable environments for bees to live, feed, and grow.

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Willa's Books & Vinyl was conceived in the heart of Willa Robinson, who developed a love for books and reading at a very early age. In 1994 she started selling her books on 18th and Vine, in Kansas City, Missouri, as a street vendor. The rest is history.
Willa's Books & Vinyl specializes in used and rare African-American books, first editions, as well as the works of a wide variety of main-stream authors.
Willa's Books & Vinyl also maintains a large collection of African -American History, literature, vintage jazz and blues lps, 45 soul, and rare selections of vintage magazines.
There is something for everyone in Willa's Books & Vinyl vast collections.

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Willa's Books & Vinyl | African-American Books Vintage Vinyl

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Willa's Books & Vinyl was conceived in the heart of Willa Robinson, who developed a love for books and reading at a very early age. In 1994 she started selling her books on 18th and Vine, in Kansas City, Missouri, as a street vendor. The rest is history.

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History

Incorporated in 1971, the Heart of America Indian Center, Inc., d/b/a Kansas City Indian Center, operates as the Kansas City area's only multi-purpose social service agency for American Indians.

Following World War II, with government relocation and training programs - and a formal policy in the early 1950s of reservation termination - American Indians were relocating to urban areas. To help sustain the cultural and spiritual beliefs of their tribes, local elders began a social club. The center was founded as a formal, tax-exempt, 501(c)(3) organization in 1971 to accept federal, state, and private funds for social programs.

Mission

Our mission is to encourage social, educational, and economic advancement of the American Indian community by promoting traditional and cultural values.

Goals

Provide health, welfare, and cultural services to American Indian individuals and families of our community

Promote fellowship among the American Indian people of all tribes living in the Kansas City Area

Stimulate the natural integration of the American Indian into the community

Encourage artistic and vocational pursuits by American Indian people

Preserve and foster traditional American Indian cultural values

The head of the spiritual being is synonymous with the eye of the eagle. Both watch over the smaller physical Indian, who is protected by two shades of spirit wings, representing traditional ways and modern life.

Staff

Gaylene Crouser, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Executive Director

Carole Cadue-Blackwood, MSW, Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, Social Worker, Morningstar Program

Jason Swartley, Santee Sioux, Emergency Assistance/Food Pantry Coordinator

Lupe Krehbiel, Data Coordinator

Ed Smith, Osage, Youth Coordinator

Board of Directors

Alice Flanagan-Spiller, Crow, Chairman

David Barnett, Muscogee (Creek), Vice Chairman

Stoni Rae Hutchison, Choctaw, Secretary

Teddy Tatum, Red Lake Band of Chippewa, Treasurer

George Biswell,Cherokee

Nick Peroff, Ph.D

Linda Link, Choctaw

Meagan Barnett, Muscogee (Creek)

Robert Prue, Ph.D, Sicangu Lakota

Shelby Rose, Diné

Melissa Winter, Choctaw

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Incorporated in 1971, the Heart of America Indian Center, Inc., d/b/a Kansas City Indian Center, operates as the Kansas City area's only multi-purpose social service agency for American Indians. Following World War II, with government relocation and training programs - and a formal policy in the early 1950s of reservation termination - American Indians were relocating to urban areas.

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Missouri Amendment 4, the Allow Legislature to Require a City to Increase Funding without State Reimbursement for a Police Force Established by State Board Amendment, is on the ballot in Missouri as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 8, 2022.

A "yes" vote supports allowing the legislature to increase minimum funding for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners.

A "no" vote opposes allowing the legislature to increase minimum funding for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners.

What will this measure do?

This constitutional amendment would amend Section 21, Article X of the Missouri Constitution by allowing the Missouri General Assembly to increase minimum required funding for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners before 2027. This would specifically increase the minimum funding to the police force of Kansas City, Missouri.

Section 21 of the Missouri Constitution prohibits increases made to an activity or service beyond the ones required by existing law, unless a state appropriation is made and dispersed to pay for the costs. This amendment creates an exception for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners. Kansas City, Missouri, is the only city that does not have local jurisdiction over its department, and therefore the only city that this measure would impact.

In March, another bill, Senate Bill 678 (SB678), was passed that would increase the minimum funding requirement for Kansas City's police department. Missouri law mandates that Kansas City devote 20% of its general revenue to the police department. That bill would increase that funding to 25%.

What are the arguments for and against this measure?

State Rep. Doug Richey (R), a supporter of Amendment 4, brought up two ordinances passed by the Kansas City Council in 2021. One ordinance would have given city leaders more control over the Kansas City Police Department (KCPD), and another would have reduced the funding of the KCPD by $42.3 million. This led to a lawsuit filed by the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners against Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and the Kansas City Council. A judge later found that the Kansas City Council violated state law in plans to reallocate the $42.3 million. "The actions of the mayor and city council last year raised tremendous alarm regarding the stability of funding for something as important as the Kansas City Police Department," Richey said. State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer (R-34), who sponsored the measure, argued this measure would prevent future attempts to "defund the KCPD", saying that "this ensures the brave men and women in the KCPD have the resources they need to keep our city safe."

Gwen Grant, President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Kansas City, said "It has the potential of causing a lot of harm to Kansas City," and "It just makes absolutely no sense that the state legislature would dictate how our local government should allocate its resources, all for the protection of the police in response to a false narrative of defunding." Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said that this measure would take away the ability to work with local police departments and neighborhood leaders in looking for better solutions to violent crime.

How did this measure get on the ballot?

The measure was sponsored by Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment. It passed the Missouri State Senate on March 21, 2022, by a vote of 23-10. The measure then passed the Missouri House of Representatives on May 13, 2022, by a 103-44 vote. In the Missouri State Senate, 22 Republicans and 1 Democrat supported the measure, while 9 Democrats and 1 Republican opposed the measure. In the Missouri House of Representatives, 100 Republicans and 3 Democrats supported the measure, while 41 Democrats and 3 Republicans opposed it.

Because both chambers approved of the measure, it went onto the ballot.

Text of the measure

Ballot title

The official ballot title is as follows:

"

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to authorize laws, passed before December 31, 2026, that increase minimum funding for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners to ensure such police force has additional resources to serve its communities?

State and local governmental entities estimate no additional costs or savings related to this proposal.

"

Ballot summary

The official ballot summary is as follows:

"

A "yes" vote will amend the Missouri Constitution to allow the general assembly by law to increase the minimum funding for a police force established by the state board of police commissioners to ensure such police force has additional resources to serve its communities. Currently the only police force established by the state board of police commissioners is found in Kansas City, Missouri.

A "no" vote will not amend the Missouri Constitution regarding the funding for a police force established by the state board of police commissioners.

If passed, this measure will have no impact on taxes.

"

Constitutional changes

The measure would amend section 21 of Article X of the state constitution. The following underlined text would be added, and struck-through text would be deleted:

Note: Use your mouse to scroll over the below text to see the full text.

Text of Section 21: 1. The state is hereby prohibited from reducing the state financed proportion of the costs of any existing activity or service required of counties and other political subdivisions. A new activity or service or an increase in the level of any activity or service beyond that required by existing law shall not be required by the general assembly or any state agency of counties or other political subdivisions, unless a state appropriation is made and disbursed to pay the county or other political subdivision for any increased costs.

2. Notwithstanding the foregoing prohibitions, before December 31, 2026, the general assembly may by law increase minimum funding for a police force established by a state board of police commissioners to ensure such police force has additional resources to serve its communities.

Supporters

Opposition

Campaign finance

If you are aware of a committee registered to support or oppose this amendment, please email editor@ballotpedia.org.

Background

Board of police commissioners

The Kansas City Police Department was founded in 1874, and in its founding, it was governed by a board of governor-appointed commissioners. This changed in 1932, when the Kansas City Council brought the Kansas City Policy Department under city governance. In 1939, the Kansas City Police Department returned to being governed by the state board of commissioners.

Kansas City is the only police department in the state of Missouri that is governed by a state board of commissioners.

Kansas City police funding

In May 2021, the Kansas City Council passed two ordinances that would give the city leaders more control on the funding of the Kansas City Police Department. The first ordinance reduced the KCPD budget by $42.3 million, cutting it to 20% of the city's general fund. Missouri Law requires the city to spend 20% of its general fund revenue on policing. The second ordinance would negotiate how that $42.3 million would be spent.

On May 28, the Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners filed a lawsuit against Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council, filed in the Jackson County Circuit Court. The lawsuit stated that the police board of commissioners has sole management over the police budget, and that the city has to spend at least 20% of its general revenue on policing. The lawsuit demanded the return of the $42.3 million. On October 5, 2021, a Jackson County judge ruled that the Kansas City Council violated state law in its plans to relocate the $42.3 million.

On May 13, 2022, the Missouri State Legislature passed Missouri Senate Bill 678 (SB678) to increase the funding of the Kansas City Police Department from 20% of the Kansas City general revenues to 25% of the general revenues. On August 17, 2022, Lucas announced he is filing a lawsuit in the Jackson County Circuit Court against the state of Missouri over SB678.

Missouri ballot measures from 1985 to 2020

In Missouri, a total of 131 ballot measures appeared on statewide ballots between 1985 and 2020. Eighty-three ballot measures were approved, and 48 ballot measures were defeated.

Path to the ballot

To put a legislatively referred constitutional amendment before voters, a simple majority vote is required in both the Missouri State Senate and the Missouri House of Representatives.

On March 21, 2022, the Missouri State Senate approved Senate Joint Resolution 38 (SJR38) proposing this amendment by a vote of 23-10, with one absent. In the Senate, the amendment was passed largely along party lines, with 22 Republicans and one Democrat in favor and nine Democrats and one Republican opposed.

On May 13, 2022, the Missouri House of Representatives voted to approve SJR38. In the House, 103 voted yes, and 44 voted no (with 9 absences). The voting largely occurred along party lines, with 100 Republicans and 3 Democrats voting for the measure, while 44 Democrats and 3 Republicans opposed the measure.

Vote in the Missouri State Senate

March 21, 2022

Requirement: Simple majority vote of all members in each chamber

Number of yes votes required: 18

Yes

No

Not voting

Vote in the Missouri House of Representatives

May 13, 2022

Requirement: Simple majority vote of all members in each chamber

Number of yes votes required: 82

Yes

No

Not voting

How to cast a vote

Click "Show" to learn more about voter registration, identification requirements, and poll times in Missouri.

How to cast a vote in Missouri

In Missouri, all polling places are open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Central Time. An individual who is in line at the time polls close must be allowed to vote.

Registration

To vote in Missouri, one must be 18 years old, a United States citizen, and Missouri resident. An applicant may print an application, pick one up from a county clerk's office, or request that an application be mailed. The completed application must be returned by mail. All returned applications must be postmarked at least 27 days prior to Election Day in order to be processed. An applicant may also register to vote online.

Automatic registration

Missouri does not practice automatic voter registration.

Online registration

Missouri has implemented an online voter registration system. Residents can register to vote by visiting this website.

Same-day registration

Missouri does not allow same-day voter registration.

Residency requirements

To register to vote in Missouri, you must be a resident of the state. State law does not specify a length of time for which you must have been a resident to be eligible. Voters may file change-of-address forms after the registration deadline, up to and including Election Day, provided that they can present photo identification upon doing so.

Verification of citizenship

See also: Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States

Missouri requires those registering to vote by mail for the first time to provide a form of identification that shows proof of United States citizenship.

Verifying your registration

The Missouri Secretary of State's office allows residents to check their voter registration status online.

Voter ID requirements

Missouri requires voters to present photo identification while voting..

The following were accepted forms of identification as of August 2022. Click here for the Missouri Secretary of State's page on accepted ID to ensure you have the most current information.

Voters can present the following forms of information:

A nonexpired Missouri driver or non-driver license;

A nonexpired military ID, including a veteran's ID card;

A nonexpired United States passport; or

Another photo ID issued by the United States or the state of Missouri which is either not expired or expired after the date of the most recent general election.

If a voter does not have an ID, he or she can obtain one for free by filling out this form.

External links

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Missouri Amendment 4, Allow Legislature to Require a City to Increase Funding without State Reimbursement for a Police Force Established by State Board Amendment (2022)

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Missouri Amendment 4, the Allow Legislature to Require a City to Increase Funding without State Reimbursement for a Police Force Established by State Board Amendment, is on the ballot in Missouri as a legislatively referred constitutional amendment on November 8, 2022.

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Memorialize victims of racial terror lynching, raise public awareness, facilitate education, and engage in conversations around reconciliation.

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Community Remembrance Project of Missouri (CRP-MO) works with communities across the state to memorialize victims of racial terrorism to provide reconciliation.

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 ACTIVISM & JUSTICE MOBILIZE WITH THE OPEN TABLE SCAN THE QR CODE The Open Table has shown up at various actions in support of various justice initiatives. We have a texting platform that will allow us to notify you when actions and protests are happening in KC. Just scan the QR code to sign up, or text the word "Mobilize" to 816.256.2951.

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 ACTIVISM & JUSTICE MOBILIZE WITH THE OPEN TABLE SCAN THE QR CODE The Open Table has shown up at various actions in support of various justice initiatives. We have a texting platform that will allow us to notify you when actions and protests are happening in KC. Just scan the QR code to sign up, or text the word "Mobilize" to 816.256.2951.

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Jenny Booth Potter knew as a young adult that racism could no longer be tolerated. But what exactly could she do? With candor and humility, Jenny shares her journey of growing in awareness, reckoning with her own white privilege, and learning how to be an antiracism advocate. For anyone overwhelmed…

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Native
Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
* Individual store prices may vary.

Other Editions of This Title:
Digital Audiobook (5/4/2020)
Hardcover (5/5/2020)
MP3 CD (5/5/2020)
Compact Disc (5/5/2020)

Description

Foreword INDIES 2020 Book of the Year Award (SILVER Winner for Religion)
2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award (Inspirational)
2021 Midwest Book Award (Silver Winner for Religion/Philosophy)

Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her Potawatomi identity both informs and challenges her faith.

Curtice draws on her personal journey, poetry, imagery, and stories of the Potawatomi people to address themes at the forefront of today's discussions of faith and culture in a positive and constructive way. She encourages us to embrace our own origins and to share and listen to each other's stories so we can build a more inclusive and diverse future. Each of our stories matters for the church to be truly whole. As Curtice shares what it means to experience her faith through the lens of her Indigenous heritage, she reveals that a vibrant spirituality has its origins in identity, belonging, and a sense of place.

Brazos Press, 9781587434310, 208pp.

Publication Date: May 5, 2020

About the Author

Kaitlin B. Curtice is a member of the Potawatomi Nation, as well as a Christian, public speaker, and poet. She travels around the country speaking on faith and justice within the church as it relates to Indigenous peoples and has been a featured speaker at Why Christian, Evolving Faith, Wild Goose Festival, The Festival of Faith & Writing, The Revolutionary Love Conference, and more. Curtice is a monthly columnist for Sojourners, has contributed to On Being and Religion News Service, and has been featured on CBS and in USA Today and the New Yorker for her work on having difficult conversations within the church about colonization. She is the author of Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places and writes on her blog at www.kaitlincurtice.com.

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Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God | IndieBound.org

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Foreword INDIES 2020 Book of the Year Award (SILVER Winner for Religion)2021 Georgia Author of the Year Award (Inspirational)2021 Midwest Book Award (Silver Winner for Religion/Philosophy)Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics...

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I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown

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I'm Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness, by Austin Channing Brown

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"Powerful . . . Brown calls on readers to live their professed ideals rather than simply state them." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Takes readers on a journey through the racial divide in a way we've truly never seen before. Powerful, haunting, and absolutely impossible to put down, [Brown's] account of what it's like to grow up black, middle-class, and female in modern America is not to be missed."

"A deeply personal celebration of blackness that simultaneously sheds new light on racial injustice and inequality while offering hope for a better future."
"Moves the race conversation forward . . . Brown offers a powerful perspective on race with her first-hand account."
"I read Austin Channing Brown's incredible book in one sitting. This is one that every black woman needs to read to be validated and every white person needs to read to receive some perspective . . . Brown has concisely articulated the burdens, questions, and frustrations that I find myself experiencing daily as a black woman." -Sojourners

"What a stunning debut from a seasoned racial justice leader. Austin does double duty by fiercely affirming blackness while simultaneously unveiling and demystifying the subtle effects of white supremacy among Christians. I trust Austin, I listen to Austin and I learn from Austin. I hope you will too." -Christena Cleveland, professor at Duke University and author of Disunity in Christ

"Austin Channing Brown introduces herself as a master memoirist, delivering a manifesto on racism in America that will live on shelves besides Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander. This book will break open hearts and minds. It's an example of how one woman can change the world by telling the truth about her life with unflinching, relentless courage." -Glennon Doyle, bestselling author of Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior, and president of Together Rising

"I have laughed, I have held back tears, I have reflected with joy, hope, and hurt while reading. Austin captures perfectly the sentiment of many black people in America. She's not only telling her story, she's telling our story. Austin is a gift to the body and the culture." -Lecrae, Grammy award-winning artist and bestselling author of Unashamed

"Austin is one of my most important teachers. I'm Still Here is devastating, beautiful, and haunting and it leaves no room for a tepid reaction. Her crystal clear voice will move you, push you, and break your heart. Prophetic and tender, I plan to put this book in every pair of hands I know and join her in the dismantling of white supremacy. She's still here and I'm with her." -Jen Hatmaker, New York Times bestselling author of Of Mess and Moxie and For the Love

"The movement toward diversity and forgiveness, [Brown] points out, too often involves white people seeking credit for recognizing the crimes of the past even as they do nothing to fix things today, and black people being required to provide endless absolution and information while calmly enduring dignity-eroding and rage-inducing injustices." -Library Journal (starred review)

"Brown passionately rejects facile reliance on 'hope,' stating that 'in order for me to stay in this work, hope must die' and 'the death of hope gives way to a sadness that heals, to anger that inspires, to a wisdom that empowers me.' An eloquent argument for meaningful reconciliation focused on racial injustice rather than white feelings."

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I'm Still Here by Austin Channing Brown: 9781524760854 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * From a leading voice on racial justice, an eye-opening account of growing up Black, Christian, and female that exposes how white...

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Valarie Kaur - renowned Sikh activist, filmmaker, and civil rights lawyer - has ignited the hearts of millions around the globe, making "Breathe and Push!" a mantra in movements for social change. Now in her stunning debut, Kaur declares revolutionary love is the call of our times, a radical, joyful practice that extends in three directions: to others, to our opponents, and to ourselves.

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Parkville window, food truck and catering

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Parkville window, food truck and catering

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Off The Hook BBQ | Delicious BBQ & Catering | Off The Hook BBQ | Contact Us

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We’re delivering food justice one neighborhood at a time.

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We’re delivering food justice one neighborhood at a time.

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Access

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Our Mission
We're delivering food justice one neighborhood at a time.
Access to fresh and affordable food is crucial for our communities to thrive. Kanbe's Markets eliminates food insecurity by empowering individuals and providing them with healthy choices.

There is plenty of nourishing food to go around. Yet, over 400,000 residents in Kansas City are without reasonable access to fresh, healthy and affordable foods. We're on a mission to change that.

By providing innovative food delivery systems that are more inclusive, enhance small businesses and empower individuals to make healthy choices, we step closer toward an equitable future of food.
Learn More

Healthy corner store locations

Our Healthy Corner Stores program is the foundation of our mission. We went from one location when we were founded in 2017, to 12 at the beginning of 2020. Now we have 41 locations all over the east side of Kansas City, providing fresh produce to our community.

We have close to 50 locations including alternative access points providing fresh produce to the community.

Community partners

Through our Healthy Corner Store program, our Food Redirection program, and our Community Engagement partnerships, we have helped expand the reach of accessible produce to Kansas City community members in need of fresh, healthy and affordable food.

Pounds of food kept out of landfills this year so far in 2023

Food waste diversion is an important part of what we do. So far this year we have redirected 104,783 pounds of produce from ending up in landfills.

We're on a mission to create a world where fresh food is available to every individual. It takes all of us to give access. See all the ways you can help.

Join grassroots growers

Our group of monthly givers plants deep roots for change every day of the year.

Volunteer opportunities

Help us sort produce, at events, and other opportunities!

Make a Donation

You can put fresh and affordable food within walking distance for Kansas Citians.

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We're delivering food justice one neighborhood at a time. Access to fresh and affordable food is crucial for our communities to thrive. Kanbe's Markets eliminates food insecurity by empowering individuals and providing them with healthy choices. Our Healthy Corner Stores program is the foundation of our mission.

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Empowering young people, through music, to write their own success stories.

15+ GRAMMY-Recognized Artist Mentors

Who We Are

Art as Mentorship is a Kansas City-based non-profit organization that takes an innovative approach to fully grasp young students' full potential through music programs. We envision an inclusive community where under-represented artists are emboldened to raise their voices through music.

We believe the future will be made brighter by enabling the healing qualities of music to unite us and serve as a vehicle for social change.

Our team is made up of musicians, creatives and industry professionals who strive to lift the voices of our students.
Our Team

What We Do

We provide our students with consistent support to propel themselves through self-discovery, emotional intelligence and the freedom of creativity. In our programs, we give students the chance to learn and grow from music industry mentors, many of whom are world-class, GRAMMY Award-winning professionals.

We work to transform young artists through access to world-class mentorship, real-world skill development and mental health support.

We give students access to resources and equipment they wouldn't have otherwise to lift their voices and write their own stories.
Our Story

Who We Work With

A diverse group of industry professional mentors are a part of Art as Mentorship. Grammy recognized artists, community organizers, and industry icons - Martin Kierszenbaum, Tim Anderson, Lili Trifilio of Beach Bunny, Kevin Morby, Ed Arenas of Chicano Batman, Jake Luppen from Hippocampus to name a few.

Students get 1-on-1 mentorship with real, working professionals. Day to day, the Art As Mentorship team directs and encourages kids along with mental health professionals.

Ignition Camp
The Rebel Song Academy's Ignition Camp is our week-long songwriting bootcamp to find and ignite the creative spark within students! This camp appeals to a wide range of young artists - from seasoned musicians looking to enhance their songwriting skills, to those that have never picked up an instrument but love music. Students band together to create original songs and perform them at our Youth Summer Concert.

Recommended Ages: 11-18

Upcoming Dates: Summer 2023 Camp TBA
Learn More RSA Live!
In 2020, we launched RSA Live!, the virtual sister program of our Rebel Song Academy. Operating in tandem with RSA, and spearheaded by Making Movies frontman and Art as Mentorship founder, Enrique Chi, we brought in nationally-renown mentors to work directly with young artists of all backgrounds, empowering them, through music, to write their own success stories. Our industry-professional mentors will work directly with students and answer questions in our virtual chat room.

Recommended Ages: All ages

Upcoming Dates: TBA
Learn More

Rebel Song Academy
The Rebel Song Academy is at the heart of our programming. Our flagship 12-week music camp takes an innovative approach to exploring young artists' full potential through creativity, mentorship opportunities, and fostering their inherent sense of exploration and achievement. Students work directly with industry-professional mentors to write, record, publish, and perform an original song.

Recommended Ages: 14-18

Upcoming Dates: Fall 2022 dates TBA
Learn More AMERI'KANA
AMERI'KANA is a collaborative project between Art as Mentorship and Making Movies that explores America's music- both past and present. This event highlights the contributions of Black, Indigenous, and people of color and how interwoven these individuals are in all of America's stories through this musical festival in Kansas City. AMERI'KANA gives our students resources to learn about the origins of American music as well as performance opportunities at Celebrate AMERI'KANA Music and Arts Festival.

Recommended Ages: 11-18

Upcoming Dates: September 10, 2022 - Celebrate AMERI'KANA Music and Arts Festival
Learn More

AMERI'KANA is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Additional Support Provided By

Martha Lee Cain Tranby Music Enrichment Fund

R.A. Long Foundation

Tim Lyons Music Fund

Paul & Marilyn Lyons

Mike Lyon Foundation

Terry Basham

Make your mark through a donation to Art as Mentorship.

Your donation goes directly to helping youth who would not receive it otherwise. Due to our small size and 1-on-1 mentality, every donation goes straight to a child's aid. We have seen amazing outcomes. Our operation is small enough that a little bit of money goes a long way in funding young musicians' dreams.
Donate

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Youth Music Program in Kansas City | Home | Art as Mentorship

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Empowering young people, through music, to write their own success stories. 15+ GRAMMY-Recognized Artist Mentors Art as Mentorship is a Kansas City-based non-profit organization that takes an innovative approach to fully grasp young students' full potential through music programs. We envision an inclusive community where under-represented artists are emboldened to raise their voices through music.

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view the yasmeen cafe restaurant menu in kansas city

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View the online menu of Yasmeen Cafe and other restaurants in Kansas City, Missouri.

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Chapter One
The Black Man and Language

We attach a fundamental importance to the phenomenon of language and consequently consider the study of language essential for providing us with one element in understanding the black man's dimension of being-for-others, it being understood that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other.

The black man possesses two dimensions: one with his fellow Blacks, the other with the Whites. A black man behaves differently with a white man than he does with another black man. There is no doubt whatsoever that this fissiparousness is a direct consequence of the colonial undertaking. Nobody dreams of challenging the fact that its principal inspiration is nurtured by the core of theories which represent the black man as the missing link in the slow evolution from ape to man. These are objective facts that state reality.

But once we have taken note of the situation, once we have understood it, we consider the job done. How can we possibly not hear that voice again tumbling down the steps of History: "It's no longer a question of knowing the world, but of transforming it."

This question is terribly present in our lives.

To speak means being able to use a certain syntax and possessing the morphology of such and such a language, but it means above all assuming a culture and bearing the weight of a civilization.

Since the situation is not one-sided, the study should reflect this. We would very much like to be given credit for certain points that, however unacceptable they may appear early on, will prove to be factually accurate.

The problem we shall tackle in this chapter is as follows: the more the black Antillean assimilates the French language, the whiter he gets-i.e., the closer he comes to becoming a true human being. We are fully aware that this is one of man's attitudes faced with Being. A man who possesses a language possesses as an indirect consequence the world expressed and implied by this language. You can see what we are driving at: there is an extraordinary power in the possession of a language. Paul Val"ry knew this, and described language as "The god gone astray in the flesh."

In a work in progress we propose to study this phenomenon. For the time being we would like to demonstrate why the black Antillean, whoever he is, always has to justify his stance in relation to language. Going one step farther, we shall enlarge the scope of our description to include every colonized subject.

All colonized people-in other words, people in whom an inferiority complex has taken root, whose local cultural originality has been committed to the grave-position themselves in relation to the civilizing language: i.e., the metropolitan culture. The more the colonized has assimilated the cultural values of the metropolis, the more he will have escaped the bush. The more he rejects his blackness and the bush, the whiter he will become. In the colonial army, and particularly in the regiments of Senegalese soldiers, the "native" officers are mainly interpreters. They serve to convey to their fellow soldiers the master's orders, and they themselves enjoy a certain status.

There is the town, there is the country. There is the capital, there are the provinces. Apparently, the problem is the same. Take an inhabitant of Lyon in Paris. He will boast of how calm his city is, how bewitchingly beautiful are the banks of the Rhône, how magnificent are the plane trees, and so many other things that people with nothing to do like to go on about. If you meet him on his return from Paris, and especially if you've never been to the capital, he'll never stop singing its praises: Paris, City of Light; the Seine; the riverside dance cafés; see Paris and die.

The same process repeats itself in the case of the Martinican. First, there is his island: Basse Pointe, Marigot, Gros Morne, in opposition to the imposing city of Fort-de-France. Then-and this is the essential point-there is what lies beyond his island. The black man who has been to the métropole is a demigod. On this subject I shall indicate a fact that must have struck my fellow islanders. After a fairly long stay in the métropole, many Antilleans return home to be deified. The native islander who has never left his hole, the country bumpkin, adopts a most eloquent form of ambivalence toward them. The black man who has lived in France for a certain time returns home radically transformed. Genetically speaking, his phenotype undergoes an absolute, definitive mutation. Even before he leaves one senses from his almost aerial way of walking that new forces have been set in motion. When he meets a friend or colleague, gone is the expansive bear hug; instead our "future" candidate bows discreetly. The usually raucous voice gives way to a hushed murmur. For he knows that over there in France he will be stuck with a stereotype in Le Havre or Marseille: "I'm fwom Matinique; this is my vewy furst visit to Fwance"; he knows that what the poets call "divine cooing" (meaning Creole) is but a term midway between Creole and French. In the French Antilles the bourgeoisie does not use Creole, except when speaking to servants. At school the young Martinican is taught to treat the dialect with contempt. Avoid Creolisms. Some families forbid speaking Creole at home, and mothers call their children little ragamuffins for using it.

My mother wanted a memorandum sonIf you don't learn your history lessonYou'll not go to Sunday massIn your Sunday bestThis child will be the shame of usThis child will be our God damn itShut up I told you you have to speak FrenchThe French from FranceThe Frenchman's FrenchFrench French.

Yes I must watch my diction because that's how they'll judge me. He can't even speak French properly, they'll say with the utmost contempt.

Among a group of young Antilleans, he who can express himself, who masters the language, is the one to look out for: be wary of him; he's almost white. In France they say "to speak like a book." In Martinique they say "to speak like a white man."

The black man entering France reacts against the myth of the Martinican who swallows his r's. He'll go to work on it and enter into open conflict with it. He will make every effort not only to roll his r's, but also to make them stand out. On the lookout for the slightest reaction of others, listening to himself speak and not trusting his own tongue, an unfortunately lazy organ, he will lock himself in his room and read for hours-desperately working on his diction.

Recently, a friend told us this story. On arrival in Le Havre a Martinican goes into a café and calls out with great assurance: "Waiterrrr? Bwing me a dwink of beerrrr!" This is a case of genuine intoxication. Anxious not to correspond to the black man who swallows his r's, he makes use of a great many of them but doesn't know how to divide them out.

There is a psychological phenomenon that consists in believing the world will open up as borders are broken down. The black Antillean, prisoner on his island, lost in an atmosphere without the slightest prospect, feels the call of Europe like a breath of fresh air. For we must admit that Césaire was overly generous in his Notebook of a Return to My Native Land. The city of Fort-de-France is truly lackluster and shipwrecked. Over there on the slopes of the sun is "the city-flat, sprawled, tripped up by its common sense, inert, winded under the geometric weight of its eternally renewed cross, at odds with its fate, mute, baffled, unable to circulate the pith of this ground, embarrassed, lopped, reduced, cut off from fauna and flora."

Césaire's description has nothing poetical about it. It is easy to understand therefore why the black man, on the announcement of his entry into France (as is said of someone entering "high society"), is overjoyed and decides to change. Moreover, there is nothing thematic about this change that is structural and independent of any introspection. In the United States, Pearce and Williamson have conducted an experiment called the Peckham experiment. The authors have proved that there is a biochemical modification in a married couple, and apparently they have detected in the husband certain hormones of his pregnant wife. It would be interesting (and there will always be somebody willing) to make a study of the black man's humoral mutation on entering France. Or simply study his psyche before he leaves and then one month after settling in France.

There is a dramatic conflict in what is commonly called the human sciences. Should we postulate a typical human reality and describe its psychic modalities, taking into account only the imperfections, or should we not rather make a constant, solid endeavor to understand man in an ever-changing light?

When we read that a man loses his affective faculties starting at the age of twenty-nine and he has to wait until he is forty-nine to regain them, we feel the ground give way beneath our feet. Our only hope of getting out of the situation is to pose the problem correctly, for all these findings and all this research have a single aim: to get man to admit he is nothing, absolutely nothing-and get him to eradicate this narcissism whereby he thinks he is different from the other "animals."

This is nothing more nor less than the capitulation of man.

All in all, I grasp my narcissism with both hands and I reject the vileness of those who want to turn man into a machine. If the debate cannot be opened up on a philosophical level-i.e., the fundamental demands of human reality-I agree to place it on a psychoanalytical level: in other words, the "misfires," just as we talk about an engine misfiring.

The black man entering France changes because for him the métropole is the holy of holies; he changes not only because that's where his knowledge of Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Voltaire comes from, but also because that's where his doctors, his departmental superiors, and innumerable little potentates come from-from the staff sergeant "fifteen years on the job" to the gendarme from Panissiéres. There is a kind of spell cast from afar, and the black man who leaves in one week for the métropole creates an aura of magic around him where the words Paris, Marseille, the Sorbonne, and Pigalle represent the high points. On departure, the amputation of his being vanishes as the ocean liner comes into view. He can read the authority and mutation he has acquired in the eyes of those accompanying him to the ship: "Adieu madras, adieu foulard."

Now that we have accompanied him to the port, let him sail away, and we'll come back to him later on. Let us now go and meet one of those who have returned home. The new returnee, as soon as he sets foot on the island, asserts himself; he answers only in French and often no longer understands Creole. A folktale provides us with an illustration of this. After having spent several months in France a young farmer returns home. On seeing a plow, he asks his father, an old don't-pull-that-kind-of-thing-on-me peasant: "What's that thing called?" By way of an answer his father drops the plow on his foot, and his amnesia vanishes. Awesome therapy.

So here is our new returnee. He can no longer understand Creole; he talks of the Opera House, which he has probably seen only from a distance; but most of all he assumes a critical attitude toward his fellow islanders. He reacts differently at the slightest pretext. He knows everything. He proves himself through his language. On the Savanna in Fort-de-France, a meeting place for young people, the new returnee is given the floor for a purpose.

As soon as school's out, they all gather on the Savanna. Imagine a square 600 feet long and 120 feet wide, lined by worm-eaten tamarind trees down each side; at the top the huge war memorial, acknowledging the mother country's gratitude to her children; and at the bottom the Central Hotel-a square twisted with uneven paving stones and gravel that crunches underfoot, and walking up and down in it 300 or 400 young people, greeting one another, making contact, no, never making contact, then walking on.

"Hi, how's it going?"

"Hi, how's it going?"

"Hi, how's it going?"

And that's been going on for fifty years. Yes, this town is a lamentable shipwreck. This life too.

They meet and talk. And the new returnee is quickly given the floor because they are waiting for him. First of all regarding form: the slightest mistake is seized upon, scrutinized, and in less than forty-eight hours it will be all over Fort-de-France. There is no forgiving the Martinican flaunting his superiority for failing his duty. Let him say, for instance: "I did not have the good fortune, when in France, of seeing gendarmes on horses' backs," and he is lost. His only choice is either to get rid of his Parisian affectation or to die of ridicule. For people will never forget; once married, his wife will realize she has married a joke, and his children will have to deal with and live down the tale.

Where does this change of personality come from? What can this new way of being be ascribed to? Any idiom is a way of thinking, Damourette and Pichon said. And the fact that the newly returned Martinican adopts a language different from that of the community in which he was born is evidence of a shift and a split. Professor Westermann writes in The African Today that the feeling of inferiority by Blacks is especially evident in the educated black man who is constantly trying to overcome it. The method used, Westermann adds, is often naive: "The wearing of European clothes, whether rags or the most up-to-date style; using European furniture and European forms of social intercourse; adorning the native language with European expressions; using bombastic phrases in speaking or writing a European language; all these contribute to a feeling of equality with the European and his achievements."

By referring to other research and our personal observations, we would like to try to show why the black man posits himself in such a characteristic way with regard to European languages. We recall once again that our findings are valid for the French Antilles; we are well aware, however, that this same behavior can be found in any race subjected to colonization.

We have known, and unfortunately still know, comrades from Dahomey or the Congo who say they are Antillean; we have known, and still know, Antilleans who get annoyed at being taken for Senegalese. It's because the Antillean is more "évolué" than the African-meaning he is closer to the white man-and this difference exists not only on the street or along the boulevard, but also in the administration and the army. Any Antillean who has done military service in a colonial regiment of infantry is familiar with this distressing situation: on one side, the Europeans and the French Antilleans; and on the other, the Africans. I can remember once when in the heat of action a nest of enemy machine guns had to be wiped out. Three times the Senegalese were ordered out and three times they were forced back. Then one of the Senegalese asked why the toubabs didn't go. In such moments we no longer knew whether we were toubabs or "natives." For many Antilleans, however, the situation was by no mean distressing, but on the contrary quite normal. That would be the last straw, to put us with the niggers! The European despises the African, and the Antillean lords it as uncontested master over this black rabble. An extreme example, but nevertheless amusing, is the following: I was recently talking with a Martinican who was incensed that certain Guadeloupeans were passing for Martinican. But, he added, the mistake was rapidly detected; they are more savage than we are-meaning once again that they are farther removed from the white man. It is said that the black man likes to palaver, and whenever I pronounce the word "palaver" I see a group of boisterous children raucously and blandly calling out to the world: children at play insofar as playing can be seen as an initiation to life. The black man likes to palaver, and it is only a short step to a new theory that the black man is just a child. Psychoanalysts have a field day, and the word "orality" is soon pronounced.

But we have to look further. We cannot hope to cover the fundamental question of language here in its entirety. The remarkable research by Piaget has taught us to distinguish stages in its emergence, and the studies by Gelb and Goldstein have demonstrated that the function of language operates by steps and degrees. Here we are interested in the black man confronted by the French language. We would like to understand why the Antillean is so fond of speaking good French.

In his introduction to the Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache Jean-Paul Sartre tells us that the black poet will turn against the French language, but this will not be the case for the Antilleans. In this respect I agree, moreover, with Michel Leiris, who recently wrote on the subject of Creole: "Still very much a popular language which everyone can speak more or less, except for the illiterate who speak it exclusively, Creole seems destined sooner or later to become a relic of the past, once education (however slow its progress, delayed by the too few schools, the shortage of public libraries, and the very low standard of living) is widely accessible to the underprivileged sectors of the population." And, adds the author: "For the poets I'm talking about here it's not a question of their turning themselves into "Antilleans"-along the lines of the picturesque Provençal model-by borrowing a language that, moreover, is devoid of any external influence, whatever might be its intrinsic qualities, but a question of asserting their personal integrity faced with Whites who are steeped in the worst racial prejudice and whose arrogance clearly proves to be unfounded."

There may be one Gilbert Gratiant writing in Creole, but admittedly he is a rare case. Besides, the poetic worth of such writing leaves much to be desired. On the other hand, great works have been translated from the Wolof and Fulani, and we have been reading Cheikh Anta Diop's linguistic research with great interest.

There is nothing comparable in the French Antilles. The official language is French; elementary-school teachers keep a close eye on their pupils to make sure they are not speaking Creole. We will not go into the reasons why. The problem perhaps lies in the fact that in the Antilles, as in Brittany, there is a dialect and there is the French language. But that can't be right, because the Bretons do not consider themselves inferior to the French. The Bretons were never civilized by the Whites.

By refusing to multiply elements we run the risk of not staying in focus. It is important, however, to tell the black man that an attitude of open rupture has never saved anybody; and although it is true that I must free myself from my strangler because I cannot breathe, nevertheless it is unhealthy to graft a psychological element (the impossibility of expanding) onto a physiological base (the physical difficulty of breathing).

What does this mean? Quite simply this: when an Antillean with a degree in philosophy says he is not sitting for the agrégation because of his color, my response is that philosophy never saved anybody. When another desperately tries to prove to me that the black man is as intelligent as any white man, my response is that neither did intelligence save anybody, for if equality among men is proclaimed in the name of intelligence and philosophy, it is also true that these concepts have been used to justify the extermination of man.

Before continuing I believe it necessary to say one or two things. I am speaking here on the one hand of alienated (mystified) Blacks, and on the other of no less alienated (mystifying and mystified) Whites. Although only Sartre and Cardinal Verdier have said that the scandal of the black question has gone on far too long, we must conclude that their attitude is right. We too could give multiple references and quotations showing that "color prejudice" is indeed an idiocy and an iniquity that must be eradicated.

Sartre begins his Black Orpheus thus: "What would you expect to find when the muzzle that has silenced the voices of black men is removed? That they would thunder your praise? When these heads that our fathers have forced to the very ground are risen, do you expect to read adoration in their eyes?" All I know is that anyone who tries to read in my eyes anything but a perpetual questioning won't see a thing-neither gratitude nor hatred. And if I utter a great shout, it won't be black. No, from the point of view adopted here, there is no black problem. Or at least if there is one, the Whites are only accidentally interested. Our history takes place in obscurity and the sun I carry with me must lighten every corner.

Dr. H. L. Gordon, physician at the Mathari psychiatric hospital in Nairobi, writes in an article in the East African Medical Journal: "A highly technical skilled examination of a series of 100 brains of normal natives has found naked eye and microscopic facts indicative of inherent new brain inferiority."

"Quantitatively," he adds, "the inferiority amounts to 14.8 percent."

We have said that the black man was the missing link between the ape and man-the white man, of course-and only on page 108 of his book does Sir Alan Burns come to the conclusion, "We are unable to accept as scientifically proven the theory that the black man is inherently inferior to the white, or that he comes from a different stock." Let us add it would be easy to prove the absurdity of such statements as: "The Bible says that the black and white races shall be separated in Heaven as they are on earth, and the natives admitted to the Kingdom of Heaven will find themselves separated to certain of our Father's mansions mentioned in the New Testament." Or else: "We are the chosen people; look at the color of our skin; others are black or yellow because of their sins."

By appealing, therefore, to our humanity-to our feelings of dignity, love, and charity-it would be easy to prove and have acknowledged that the black man is equal to the white man. But that is not our purpose. What we are striving for is to liberate the black man from the arsenal of complexes that germinated in a colonial situation. Monsieur Achille, a teacher at the Lycée du Parc in Lyon, cited a personal experience during his lecture. It is a universally familiar experience. Few black people living in France have not experienced it. As a Roman Catholic, he took part in a pilgrimage. Seeing a black face among his flock, the priest asked him: "Why you left big savanna and why you come with us?" Achille answered most politely, and in this story it wasn't the young deserter of the savanna who was the most embarrassed. Everyone laughed at the exchange and the pilgrimage continued. But if we stop to reflect, we realize that the priest's usage of pidgin calls for several remarks.

1. "I know black people; you have to talk to them kindly, talk to them about their country; knowing how to talk to them, that's the key. Now here's what you have to do . . ." This is no exaggeration. A white man talking to a person of color behaves exactly like a grown-up with a kid, simpering, murmuring, fussing, and coddling. It's not just one white person we have observed, but hundreds; and our observations were not limited to one category; insisting on a fundamentally objective attitude, we studied such behavior in physicians, police officers, and foremen on work sites. People will tell us, forgetting our aim, that we could have focused our attention elsewhere, and that there are Whites who do not fit our description.

Our answer to these objections is that here we are picking holes with the mystified, the mystifiers, or the alienated, and that if there are Whites who interact sanely with Blacks, those are precisely the cases that will not be taken into account. It's not because my patient's liver is functioning normally that his kidneys are healthy. Since his liver is found to be working normally, it's only normal for me to leave it at that and turn my attention to the kidneys. In other words, alongside normal people behaving rationally according to human psychology, there are those who behave pathologically according to an inhuman psychology. And it so happens that the existence of such a type of person has determined a number of realities that we would like to help eliminate in this study.

Speaking to black people in this way is an attempt to reach down to them, to make them feel at ease, to make oneself understood and reassure them.

Consulting physicians know this. Twenty European patients come and go: "Please have a seat. Now what's the trouble? What can I do for you today?"

In comes a black man or an Arab: "Sit down, old fellow. Not feeling well? Where's it hurting?" When it's not: "You not good?"

2. To speak gobbledygook to a black man is insulting, for it means he is the gook. Yet, we'll be told, there is no intention to willfully give offense. OK, but it is precisely this absence of will-this offhand manner; this casualness; and the ease with which they classify him, imprison him at an uncivilized and primitive level-that is insulting.

If the person who speaks to a man of color or an Arab in pidgin does not see that there is a flaw or a defect in his behavior, then he has never paused to reflect. At a personal level, during certain consultations, I have felt myself lapsing.

In the company of this seventy-three-year-old peasant afflicted with senile dementia I suddenly feel I am losing my touch. The very fact of adopting a language suitable for dementia and the mentally retarded, the fact of "leaning over" to address this poor seventy-three-year-old woman, the fact of my reaching down to her for a diagnosis are the signs of a weakening in my relations with other people.

He's an idealist, they'll say. Not at all; it's the others who are the scumbags. I always make a point of speaking to the "towelheads" in correct French and I have always been understood. They answer as best they can, but I refuse to indulge in any form of paternalism.

"Hey, no feel good? Show me! Belly pain? Heart hurting?" Said in that accent that the hospital interns know all too well.

They have a clear conscience when the answer comes back along the same lines. "You see, I told you so. That's how they are."

In the opposite case, you need to retract your pseudopodia and behave like a man. The entire foundation collapses. A black man who says: "I object, sir, to you calling me 'my old fellow.'" Now there's something new.

But we can go even lower. You're sitting in a café in Rouen or Strasbourg and you have the misfortune to be spotted by an old drunk. He makes a beeline for your table: "You African? Dakar, Rufisque, whorehouse, women, coffee, mangoes, bananas . . ." You get up and leave; you are greeted with a hail of insults: "You didn't play big shot like that in your jungle, filthy nigger!"

Mr. Mannoni has described what he calls the Prospero complex. We shall return later to these findings that will allow us to understand the psychology of colonialism. But it is already safe to say that to speak pidgin means: "You, stay where you are."

When I meet a German or a Russian speaking bad French I try to indicate through gestures the information he is asking for, but in doing so I am careful not to forget that he has a language of his own, a country, and that perhaps he is a lawyer or an engineer back home. Whatever the case, he is a foreigner with different standards.

There is nothing comparable when it comes to the black man. He has no culture, no civilization, and no "long historical past."

Perhaps that is why today's Blacks want desperately to prove to the white world the existence of a black civilization.

Whether he likes it or not, the black man has to wear the livery the white man has fabricated for him. Look at children's comic books: all the Blacks are mouthing the ritual "Yes, boss." In films the situation is even more acute. Most of the American films dubbed in French reproduce the grinning stereotype Y a bon Banania. In one of these recent films, Steel Sharks, there is a black guy on a submarine speaking the most downright classic dialect imaginable. Furthermore, he is a true nigger, walking behind the quartermaster, trembling at the latter's slightest fit of anger, and is killed in the end. I am convinced, however, that in the original version he did not have this way of expressing himself. And even if he did I can't see why in a democratic France, where 60 million citizens are colored, anyone would dub the same idiocies from America. The reason is that the black man has to be portrayed in a certain way, and the same stereotype can be found from the black man in Sans pitié-"Me work hard, me never lie, me never steal"-to the servant in Duel in the Sun.

All they ask of the black man is to be a good nigger; the rest will follow on its own. Making him speak pidgin is tying him to an image, snaring him, imprisoning him as the eternal victim of his own essence, of a visible appearance for which he is not responsible. And of course, just as the Jew who is lavish with his money is suspect, so the black man who quotes Montesquieu must be watched. Let me make myself clear: "watched" insofar as he might start something. I do not contend that the black student is suspect to his peers or his professors. But outside university circles there is an army of fools. It is a question not of educating them but of teaching the black man not to be a slave of their archetypes.

Granted, these fools are the product of a psychological-economic structure. But that does not get us anywhere.

When a black man speaks of Marx, the first reaction is the following: "We educated you and now you are turning against your benefactors. Ungrateful wretches! You'll always be a disappointment." And then there's that sledgehammer argument from the plantation owners in Africa: our enemy is the elementary-school teacher.

The fact is that the European has a set idea of the black man, and there is nothing more exasperating than to hear: "How long have you lived in France? You speak such good French."

It could be argued that this is due to the fact that a lot of black people speak pidgin. But that would be too easy. You're traveling by train and ask:

"Excuse me, could you please tell me where the restaurant car is?"

"Yes, sonny boy, you go corridor, you go straight, go one car, go two car, go three car, you there."

Let's be serious. Speaking pidgin means imprisoning the black man and perpetuating a conflictual situation where the white man infects the black man with extremely toxic foreign bodies. There is nothing more sensational than a black man speaking correctly, for he is appropriating the white world. I often have conversations with foreign students. They speak French badly. Little Robinson Crusoe, alias Prospero, is in his element. He explains, informs, comments, and helps them with their studies. But with the black man, he is utterly stupefied; the black man has put himself on an equal footing; the game is no longer possible; he's a pure replica of the white man, who has to surrender to the facts.

After everything that has just been said, it is easy to understand why the first reaction of the black man is to say no to those who endeavor to define him. It is understandable that the black man's first action is a reaction, and since he is assessed with regard to his degree of assimilation, it is understandable too why the returning Antillean speaks only French: because he is striving to underscore the rift that has occurred. He embodies a new type of man whom he imposes on his colleagues and family. His old mother no longer understands when he speaks of her pj's, her ramshackle dump, and her lousy joint. All that embellished with the appropriate accent.

In every country in the world there are social climbers, those who think they've arrived. And opposite them there are those who keep the notion of their origins. The Antillean returning from the métropole speaks in Creole if he wants to signify that nothing has changed. It can be sensed on the docks where friends and relatives are waiting for him-waiting for him not only in the literal sense, but in the sense of waiting to catch him out. They need only one minute to make their diagnosis. If he says: "I am so happy to be back among you. Good Lord, it's so hot in this place; I'm not sure I can put up with it for long," they have been forewarned-it's a European who's come back.

In a different respect, when a group of Antillean students meet in Paris they have two options:

Either support the white world-i.e., the real world-and with the help of French be able to address certain issues and aim at a certain degree of universalism in their conclusions.

Or reject Europe, "Yo," and come together thanks to Creole by settling comfortably in what we'll call the Martinican Umwelt. By this we mean-and this goes especially for our Antillean brothers-that when one of our comrades in Paris or another university town attempts to address a problem in all seriousness he is accused of putting on airs, and the best way of disarming him is to brandish the Antilles and shift into Creole. This is one of the reasons why so many friendships fall through after a few months of life in Europe.

Since our argument is the disalienation of Blacks, we would like them to realize that every time there is a break-down in understanding among themselves faced with the white world, there is a lack of judgment.

A Senegalese who learns Creole to pass for an Antillean is a case of alienation.

The Antilleans who make a mockery out of him are lacking in judgment.

As we have seen, we are not mistaken in thinking that a study of the Antillean's language can reveal several characteristics of his world. As we said at the beginning, there are mutual supports between language and the community.

To speak a language is to appropriate its world and culture. The Antillean who wants to be white will succeed, since he will have adopted the cultural tool of language. I can remember just over a year ago in Lyon, following a lecture where I had drawn a parallel between black and European poetry, a French comrade telling me enthusiastically: "Basically, you're a white man." The fact I had studied such an interesting question in the white man's language gave me my credentials.

It should be understood that historically the black man wants to speak French, since it is the key to open doors which only fifty years ago still remained closed to him. The Antillean who falls within our description goes out of his way to seek the subtleties and rarities of the language-a way of proving to himself that he is culturally adequate.11 It has been said that the Antillean orator has a power of expression which leaves the Europeans gasping. In 1945, during an electoral campaign, Aimé Césaire, who was running for parliament, was speaking at a boys' school in Fort-de-France in front of a packed auditorium. In the middle of his talk a woman fainted. The next day a colleague describing the event commented: "His French was so dynamite the woman fell to the floor and started ketching malkadi." The power of language.

A few other facts deserve closer attention-for instance, M. Charles-André Julien introducing Aimé Césaire as a "black poet with a university agrégation" or else quite simply the expression "a great black poet."

These ready-made phrases that seem to be commonsense-after all Aimé Césaire is black and a poet-contain a hidden nuance, a persisting crux. I know nothing about Jean Paulhan except that he writes interesting books. I have no idea how old Roger Caillois is; the only evidence I have of him is when his presence streaks across the sky from time to time. And let no one accuse me of affective anaphylaxis. What I mean to say is that there is no reason why Monsieur Breton should say of Césaire: "Here is a black man who handles the French language unlike any white man today."

And even if Monsieur Breton were telling the truth, I don't see where the paradox lies; I don't see why there should be any emphasis, because after all Aimé Césaire is Martinican with a university agrégation.

Let us return to Michel Leiris:

If in the Antillean writer there is a desire to break with the literary forms associated with official education, such a desire, striving toward a freer future, would not assume the appearance of folklore. Seeking above all in literature to formulate a message that is their very own and, in the case of some of them at least, to be the spokesmen of a real race with unrecognized potential, they scorn the artifice which for them, whose intellectual education has been almost exclusively French, would represent recourse to a language they could only use as a second language they have learned.

But, Blacks will retort, we should be honored that a white man such as Breton writes such things about us.

Let us move on. . . .

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Black Skin, White Masks | Grove Atlantic

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Chapter One The Black Man and Language We attach a fundamental importance to the phenomenon of language and consequently consider the study of language essential for providing us with one element in understanding the black man's dimension of being-for-others, it being understood that to speak is to exist absolutely for the other.

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Be The Phenom

Blue Room Birthday Jay McShann.

This clip is a small glimpse of an amazing night where family, friends, and fans came out to honor the incomparable Mr. Jay McShann in celebration of his 104th birthday. Poet alludes to a multitude of Mr. McShann's music. Listen to hear; look to see; and when you find the allusion, we guarantee you be groovin' to the titles, such as "Hot Biscuits," "Kansas City," " Once Upon a Time," "Hootie Blues," "Hold'em Hootie," "Doo Wah Doo," "Confessin' the Blues," "Vine Street Boogie," "McShann Bounce," "Soft Winds," "Joy of the Jingle," and more. Who is Jay McShann? A versatile pianist, singer, and composer, his music over the years ranged from blues to boogie-woogie, ballads, swing, and bebop. His unique style is considered a cornerstone of the sound known around the world as Kansas City Jazz. Jay was born January 12, 1916, in Muskogee, Okla., the youngest of four children of Jess and Leona McShann. A self-taught pianist inspired by the blues, Jay began playing professionally as a teen. In 1936, he moved to Kansas City to join the vibrant jazz culture he found there. Shortly thereafter, he earned the nickname "Hootie" as he is known to many. Within a few months, Jay was well established in the KC music scene heading a small band until in 1940 when he assembled a big band whose incarnations over the years included: Gene Ramey, Charlie Parker, Walter Brown. After service in WWII, Jay relocated for a short time to the west coast and assembled a small band that featured vocalist, Jimmy Witherspoon. He returned to his Kansas City home and family and soon after recorded a hit with blues singer Pricilla Bowman. Jay recorded scores of albums for numerous record labels during his career. His compositions have been recorded by The Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Little Walter, Esther Phillips, and Jimmy Witherspoon among others. Over the years Jay toured extensively as a headline act in leading concert halls and festivals across the US, and internationally. Wherever he went, Jay won fans and friends alike with his engaging music, affable personality and engaging grin. Jay joined the Musician's Union Local 627 in 1937 and was awarded Local 34627 gold card life membership in 1976 and was a Mutual Musician's Foundation Gold Card member as well as an Elder Statesman of KC Jazz. He studied at the Kansas City Conservatory of Music and was later awarded an Honorary Doctorate from UMKC. His numerous other awards and honors include induction into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame, the Pioneer awards from both the Rhythm & Blues Foundation and the International Association of Jazz Educators, two Grammy Award nominations, designation of the McShann Pavilion at the American Jazz Museum, and an Alvin Ailey dance composition in his name. Jay has been featured in a number of movies and television documentaries including, "The Last of the Blue Devils" in 1980, Ken Burns' "Jazz" in 2001, Clint Eastwood's "Piano Blues" in 2003, and the documentary "Hootie Blues", as well as hundreds of magazine and newspaper features around the world. The biographical information about Dr. Jay McShann was found at: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/kansascity/name/james-mcshann-obituary?pid=20201702

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Author Performer Poet | Poet T.L. Sanders

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Poet, Terrance Sanders, Author and Performing Artist in Kansas City, Missouri

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Siembra y llegará. As Making Movies delivers its fourth album, XOPA, the Kansas City band proves true the maxim which, in English, is like an encouraging version of "reap what you sow." Meant to inspire its recipient to push forward, the phrase is chanted on the LP's multi-movement epic, "La Primera Radio" - but it's exemplary, too, of Making Movies' musical odyssey.

This is a band that makes American music with an asterisk: because Making Movies' sound encompasses the entirety of the Americas, not solely the country inarguably centered in mainstream everything. It's through this broader perspective that Making Movies crunches classic rock into Latin American rhythms - African-derived percussion and styles like rumba, merengue, mambo and cumbia - in a way that feels oddly familiar, yet delivers the invigorating chills of hearing something singularly special.

Each member - Enrique Chi, vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter; his brother Diego Chi, bassist and experimental vocalist; percussionist Juan-Carlos Chaurand; and Duncan Burnett, newly incorporated into the band on drums - is enthusiastically committed to music history, to uncovering connections between genres and cultures both their own and otherwise. They're all lifelong musicians too, hailing from disparate yet similar backgrounds - parents that cherished music, fathers that kickstarted cultural movements, families in which gospel is critical to their very existence.

"The goal is to create music that includes every bit of our individual identities," Enrique says. "Music is our way to find a deeper understanding of our own stories. It's a healing of sorts."

But none of this earned understanding precludes the group's perpetual evolving. Enrique Chi, lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter, is compelled to share knowledge, but like any sincere historian, though, he also listens. It's impossible to know everything; in musical lore and its future there is still so much yet to be uncovered.

The band's collective yearning for exploration has attracted a nexus of connections, many of them legendary players, like Steve Berlin of iconic rock band Los Lobos, a recurring collaborator and steadfast champion of the band. An approach from beloved Panamanian musician Rubén Blades led to joint songs like "No te Calles'' and "Cómo Perdonar." Making Movies has also created with indie-folk band Hurray for the Riff Raff, trumpeter Asdru Sierra of Ozomatli, Puerto Rican salsero Frankie Negrón, and all-female mariachi group Flor de Toloache. On the heels of Making Movies' 2019 album ameri'kana, the band worked on an eponymous documentary series, through which they connected with the legendary organist Reverend Charles Hodges, an soul music pioneer who played alongside Al Green, and fellow Memphis, Tennessee, musicians the Sensational Barnes Brothers.

Making Movies creates music that is undoubtedly pedagogical, yet inarguably kinetic. And their live shows, despite the precision with which they perform, are not lacking in dynamism. Every time they perform, they are wholly present, feeling every original groove with the same rush of as when they first found it.

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Siembra y llegará. As Making Movies delivers its fourth album, XOPA, the Kansas City band proves true the maxim which, in English, is like an encouraging version of "reap what you sow." Meant to inspire its recipient to push forward, the phrase is chanted on the LP's multi-movement epic, "La Primera Radio" - but it's exemplary, too, of Making Movies' musical odyssey.

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Find your Legislators by entering a valid Missouri mailing address. Click Here to use Legislator Lookup with your 9-digit zipcode.

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On Tuesday, an 18-year-old crashed his truck, exchanged fire with police officers, entered an elementary school, and murdered 19 children and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle. The dead are not statistics.

The incident in Uvalde, Texas took place days after another 18-year-old killed 10 people with a similar weapon in Buffalo, New York. In the first 145 days of 2022, there have been 213 mass shootings, defined as an incident where four or more people are shot or killed.

" Evil will always walk among us," Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (R) said of the massacre. That is true. But only in the United States does evil have virtually unfettered access to military-style rifles. These weapons are not designed for sport or self-defense; they are designed to kill many people very quickly.

The Uvalde shooting demonstrates how the law can limit access to guns. The shooter bought a semi-automatic rifle on his 18th birthday, when it became legal for him to do so. If the age limit for purchasing a rifle in Texas was 21, yesterday's massacre may not have occurred.

The country could change the catastrophic status quo without infringing on the Second Amendment. Indeed, many such reforms are immensely popular. But a few dozen Republican Senators continue to stand in the way. In the meantime, the death toll mounts.

Here are the key facts about guns in America, pulled from Popular Information's previous reporting on mass shootings.

There are more guns than people in the United States

According to a 2018 Small Arms Survey, the latest data, there are more civilian-owned firearms in the United States than people, with more than 120 guns for every 100 Americans.

The number of guns sold has increased dramatically in recent years. A record 39,695,315 guns were sold to civilians in 2020. By comparison, there were 15 million guns sold in 2011 and 9 million in 1999. 18.9 million guns were sold in 2021, the second-most annual gun sales on record.

Remarkably, this spike has occurred as the number of people interested in owning guns has declined. In 1977, more than 50% of all households in the United States owned a gun. By 2018, just 34% of American households reported having a gun in the home. Gun manufacturers have made up for this decline by selling a larger number of more deadly firearms to a smaller number of people.

More guns = more mass shootings

A 2018 study of 171 countries from 1966 to 2012 found "firearm ownership rates appeared to be a statistically significant predictor of the distribution of public mass shooters worldwide. Many of the nations in this study that ranked highest in firearm ownership rates also ranked highly in public mass shooters per capita."

The author of the study, University of Alabama professor Adam Lankford, concluded that the "United States and other nations with high firearm ownership rates may be particularly susceptible to future public mass shootings, even if they are relatively peaceful or mentally healthy according to other national indicators."

In other words, the United States has a lot of mass shootings because it has a lot of guns. According to the research, reducing the prevalence of guns might reduce the number of mass shootings in the future.

Policies to reduce the number of guns are very popular

A 2018 poll by Guns Down America, a gun-control advocacy group, found that 67% of Americans support stricter gun laws. More striking is that overwhelming majorities, including a majority of Republicans, support positions that are often described as out of the mainstream. This includes support for requiring a license to purchase a handgun (89%), a limit on monthly gun purchases (80%), and a voluntary government gun buyback program (79%). These are all provisions that, taken together, could reduce the number of guns in circulation.

The poll found that advocating for fewer guns in America is a popular political message.

There is also strong support for background checks (94%), and a ban on semi-automatic weapons (78%).

The federal government has safety standards for toy guns, but not real guns

Nearly every product - from toasters to lawnmowers to teddy bears - must comply with standards set by the government to ensure the item is safe for public use. The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulates household goods and recreational products. The Food and Drug Administration regulates food and prescription drugs. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates motor vehicles. But there is one category of products that is not regulated for consumer safety by any government agency: guns and ammunition.

The Second Amendment has been in place since 1788, but the consumer protection exemption for guns came much later, in 1972. A law passed that year explicitly forbids the CPSC from evaluating the safety of guns. As a result, there "is not a single federally mandated safety standard or child-proofing requirement for firearms made in the United States."

The exemption means that the CPSC can regulate toy guns but not actual guns. The agency can mandate a recall of a doll, due to safety concerns, but not a semi-automatic rifle.

The gun industry received special legal protections in 2005

"Most people don't realize, the only industry in America, billion-dollar industry, that can't be sued, exempt from being sued, are gun manufacturers," Biden said in April 2001.

That is not precisely true. But Biden is referring to the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), signed into law in 2005, which does provide sweeping legal immunity to the gun industry. The PLCAA prevents gun manufacturers from civil liability resulting from "the criminal or lawful misuse" of firearms or ammunition.

But there are a few exceptions to the law, including an "action for death, physical injuries or property damage resulting directly from a defect in design or manufacture of the product, when used as intended or in a reasonably foreseeable manner." You can sue a gun manufacturer civilly if the gun malfunctions. But, in nearly every circumstance, you can't sue if the gun functions properly and kills people.

Prior to the PLCAA's passage, in 2000, New York City and 30 other localities sued gun manufacturers, alleging the "industry's selling practices create a public nuisance by allowing guns to be sold in an illegitimate secondary market where they fall into the hands of criminals."

Had the lawsuit been successful, the gun industry would have to be much more careful about how firearms are marketed and sold. It could have curtailed firearms that are "designed and marketed primarily for killing people, with military-inspired features and advertising."

But the PLCAA was passed to end New York City's lawsuit and others like it. The lawsuits were thrown out of court. While civil litigation has prompted significant reform in the tobacco and pharmaceutical industry, the gun industry is able to continue with business as usual as the body count mounts.

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On Tuesday, an 18-year-old crashed his truck, exchanged fire with police officers, entered an elementary school, and murdered 19 children and two teachers with a semi-automatic rifle. The dead are not statistics. The incident in Uvalde, Texas took place days after another 18-year-old killed 10 people with a similar weapon in Buffalo, New York.

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Winter Sun, 2017, oil on wood panel, by Kay WalkingStick. Courtesy of the artist and June Kelly Gallery

Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet
From the arctic old white head to the brown feet of tropical rain
Bless the eyes of this land, for they witness cruelty and kindness in
this land
From sunrise light upright to falling down on your knees night
Bless the ears of this land, for they hear cries of heartbreak
and shouts of celebration in this land
Once we heard no gunshot on these lands; the trees and stones can be heard singing
Bless the mouth, lips and speech of this land, for the land is a
speaker, a singer, a keeper of all that happens here, on this land

Bless the arms and hands of this land, for they remake and restore
beauty in this land

Bless the heart of this land on its knees planting food beneath the
eternal circle of breathing, swimming and walking this land

Bless the gut labyrinth of this land, for it is
the center of unknowing in this land

Bless the femaleness and maleness of this land, for each holds the
fluent power of becoming in this land
When it was decided to be in this manner here in this place, this
land, all the birds made a birdly racket from indigo sky holds
Bless the two legs and two feet of this land, for the sacred always
walks beside the profane in this land

Bless the destruction of this land, for new shoots will rise up from
fire, floods, earthquakes and fierce winds to make new this land
We are land on turtle's back-when the weight of greed overturns
us, who will recall the upright song of this land
Bless the creation of new land, for out of chaos we will be
compelled to remember to bless this land

Bless us, these lands, said the rememberer. These lands aren't our
lands. These lands aren't your lands. We are this land.

Cehotosakvtes

Traditional Mvskoke Song

It is said that two beloved women sang this song as their band came over on the Trail of Tears. One woman walked near the front of the people, and the other walked near the back with the small children. When anyone faltered, they would sing this song to hold them up.

Cehotosakvtes
Chenaorakvtes Momis komet
Awatchken ohapeyakares hvlwen

Do not get tired.
Don't be discouraged. Be determined.
Come. Together let's go toward the highest place.
Translated by Rosemary McCombs Maxey

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Bless this land from the top of its head to the bottom of its feet From the arctic old white head to the brown feet of tropical rain Bless the eyes of this land, for they witness cruelty and kindness in this land From sunrise light upright to falling down

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New book by PC(USA) staffer explores the history of Black protest

by Darla Carter | Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — The next time you see the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, congratulate him on his new title: first-time author.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) staffer’s book, “Unbroken and Unbowed: A History of Black Protest in America,” will be officially released Tuesday by Westminster John Knox Press.

Writing a book has “always been a desire that I’ve had, and quite frankly, I’m just astonished that it’s come to realization,” said Hawkins, Associate Director of Advocacy for PC(USA)’s Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries.

The 362-page book takes readers on a journey through the history of Black protest in America and debunks myths, such as enslaved people being passive rather than being engaged in constant resistance.

“We know about Nat Turner and a few slave revolts, but there were over 250 slave revolts in the United States, and historians have basically written off slave (ship) mutinies, but there were over 200 slave (ship) mutinies,” Hawkins said. “As a matter of fact, they had to take out insurance on slave ships because there was no guarantee it would reach its shore.”

“Unbroken and Unbowed” also takes on modern protests and controversies, such as Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. Hawkins uses the football player’s stance as a vehicle to address the topic of Black patriotism.

“Unbroken and Unbowed,” a book by the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, will be available beginning Tuesday. (Photo by Rich Copley)

The question is not “’Is Black protest patriotic?’ but ‘Why are Blacks so patriotic?’” Hawkins said. “We have a level of commitment to this country even in the midst of all of these periods where the country has not been committed to us.”

The book has been endorsed by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign.

“By chronicling the history of Black-led protest in America, Rev. Hawkins both reveals a tradition of struggle for a more perfect union and unmasks the lie that Black protest is ‘un-American,’” Barber wrote.

Hawkins oversees the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness and the Presbyterian Ministry at the United Nations, which are both part of the Compassion, Peace & Justice ministries of the Presbyterian Mission Agency.

Categories: Peace & Justice
Tags: Colin Kaepernick, compassion peace & justice, nat turner, office of public witness, poor peoples campaign, presbyterian ministry at the united nations, rev dr liz theoharis, rev. dr. william barber ii, Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, slave revolts, slave ship mutinies, unbroken and unbowed, westminster john knox press
Tags: black, black protest, black protest in america, book, compassion peace, compassion peace justice, compassion peace justice ministries, hawkins, history of black, history of black protest, jimmie hawkins, justice ministries, peace justice, peace justice ministries, protest in america, ship mutinies, slave revolts, slave ship, slave ship mutinies, unbroken and unbowed
Ministries: Compassion, Peace and Justice

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Hawkins releases ‘Unbroken and Unbowed’ Feb. 22 | Presbyterian Mission Agency

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The next time you see the Rev. Jimmie Hawkins, congratulate him on his new title: first-time author.

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Welcome to Prospero's Books & Media

Founded in 1997 with three floors of books and media, meet and take home the greatest minds in history, or join in on KCs finest, running conversations at the counter. Located in the scrum of KC's bohemia. A five-minute ride from the Plaza and downtown convention district. Make a day of it: grab a drink and a bite just outside our door along 39th Street's restaurants and bars.

BUY

From Dr. Seuss to Dr. Gonzo: 3 floors, 70 categories, 50,000 titles of BOOKS, vinyls, CDs & film in an historic 1890 building. Peruse titles, check out the art-n-oddities, find a nook or cranny and read a while.

SELL & TRADE

We buy & trade for your books in good condition. Trade value towards something in the store (it goes on file) or for cash. Come visit and just ask about the process. We promise to not bite.

EVENTS

Be it live music, a reading, a book release or an art opening, Prospero's intimate, 3rd-floor offers a live experience not found anywhere else in Kansas City. To date, we've hosted over 2,000 live events. To book our space please visit our events page.

Special Guest...

Janet Planet
Daily By Appointment Upstairs
Saturdays 12-7
Walk-in $20
Offering Spiritual Consultations, Clearings, Chair Reiki
She's been at Aquarius/Vulcan Forge for 20 years
831-254-2151

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Founded in 1997 with three floors of books and media, meet and take home the greatest minds in history, or join in on KCs finest, running conversations at the counter. Located in the scrum of KC's bohemia. A five-minute ride from the Plaza and downtown convention district.

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The rainy, grey weather in Buffalo certainly suited the mood on the ground on Monday.

The black community is grieving and they are scared after 10 people - now named by officials - were gunned down in a racially-motivated attack in a New York supermarket.

The victims, aged between 32 and 86, were shot dead by the suspected gunman on Saturday afternoon.

Three others were injured.

Among those killed were a former police officer, a woman who helped feed the poor and a man who drove shoppers to and from the market.

Eleven out of the 13 people killed or injured at Tops Friendly Market were black, and Buffalo's police chief has described the attack as a "racist hate crime". The neighbourhood where the attack was carried out is predominantly black.

Lakisha Chambers lives a few blocks away from the Tops grocery store - one of the few markets available to residents in the area - and walked over to the scene for the first time since the shooting on Monday.

There is still a police presence, the area is taped off and memorials with balloons and candles dot the area.

Seeing it in person makes it more real, she tells BBC. "We all could've been in here".

Black Americans can't shop, can't go to church, can't just live in this country without fear of being killed, she says.

What struck her, as well, was the age of the gunman, who is just 18 years old. To her, it suggests that the US must do better to stop racism once by addressing the underlying causes leading to attacks like this.

Who were the victims?

Details of the victims were officially released on Monday by the local police. The names of the 10 who died were:

Roberta A. Drury, 32, who had moved to Buffalo to be with her brother, who had had a bone marrow transplant

Margus D. Morrison, 52,

Andre Mackneil, 53

Aaron Salter, 55, a retired police officer who was working as a security guard in Top Friendly Mart grocery store

Geraldine Talley, 62

Celestine Chaney, 65, a devoted grandmother

Heyward Patterson, 67, a dedicated church-goer who drove people to and from the supermarket

Katherine Massey, 72, a community activist with a "beautiful soul", according to her sister

Pearl Young, 77, who dedicated her Saturdays to working in a soup kitchen

Ruth Whitfield, 86, who had just been to visit her husband in a care home

The youngest victim, store worker Zaire Goodman, 20, was released from hospital after being shot in the neck.

Jennifer Warrington, 50, has also been treated and released, while Christopher Braden, 55, is in a stable condition.

The Buffalo Urban League is also on site, working in the community to help provide counselling services.

Thomas Beauford Jr, its president and chief executive, calls what happened it trauma on top of trauma.

This densely populated area already suffers from all the ills of unequal policies and problems caused by lack of investment and devalued properties, he tells BBC.

The Tops supermarket is the only large resource for fresh food and products for miles in this area. Its closure will amplify the food desert that exists in the community, adding further to their hardship, he says.

Questions are now being asked about whether red flags were missed in the run-up to the attack. "I want to know what people knew and when they knew it," New York Governor Kathy Hochul told ABC News.

The suspect had already been flagged at least once to authorities, spending a day-and-a-half in hospital undergoing a mental health evaluation after making a "generalised threat" while at school in June last year.

Despite this, he was not on any FBI or state-wide watchlists, and no red flags reportedly came up on a background check when buying a gun.

A 180-page document seemingly authored by the suspect has also emerged, in which he describes himself as a fascist and a white supremacist. He was arrested after the attack and has pleaded not guilty to murder charges. He is next due in court on 19 May.

Buffalo police chief Joseph Gramaglia told reporters the evidence uncovered in the case so far indisputably suggests that it was racially motivated.

"This is an absolute racist hate crime that will be prosecuted as a hate crime" he said.

Saturday's attack is thought to be the worst mass shooting so far in the US in 2022. Some 40,000 deaths a year involve firearms in America, a figure that includes suicides - and mass shooting events occur frequently.

Additional reporting by Pratiksha Ghildial

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Buffalo shooting: Black Americans describe grief and fear

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The rainy, grey weather in Buffalo certainly suited the mood on the ground on Monday. The black community is grieving and they are scared after 10 people - now named by officials - were gunned down in a racially-motivated attack in a New York supermarket.

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The mass shooting of Black grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday follows a string of similar attacks. Gunmen have targeted worshippers at synagogues and mosques and temples and Bible study; they have opened fire on summer camps and people at festivals. We know the names of these places: Charleston; El Paso; Poway; Pittsburgh; Oak Creek; Christchurch, New Zealand. We know the names of the shooters, too, although I won't list them here, because adding to their notoriety deepens the problem.

Some of us also know by now that although we might think these are attacks on specific victim groups-and they are attacks on Black, Jewish, Islamic, Sikh, Latino, and immigrant populations-the aforementioned examples have all been part of one movement. In each event, a white-power activist was the perpetrator. Several of the assailants wrote extensively about their motivations in manifestos that outlined a coherent political ideology. And in the United States, they have been backed by a broad social movement that our legislators have failed to condemn, that our court system has failed to prosecute, and that our society has not stopped.

This means that these are not "lone wolf" attacks even when they may appear to be, and certainly not just because a shooter has claimed to have been operating alone. The white-power movement has, since the early 1980s, organized the disparate groups of the militant right (Klansmen, neo-Nazis, militiamen, and others) around cell-style terrorism. Activists deliberately obscure their connections with one another. Yet the historical record reveals an interwoven tapestry of people on the militant right who have united in common cause to target minority communities and to undermine American democracy, and who ultimately hope to provoke race war.
Juliette Kayyem: A 'lone wolf' shooter has an online pack
The recent litany of places hit is only the latest record of the white-power movement's most craven acts of violence since its coming-out party at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. There is a longer list of sites of violence, including Oklahoma City, where in 1995 a white-power bomber killed 168 people in the nation's largest act of domestic terrorism. There is also a longer list of smaller acts of violence, people killed in ones and twos, and a longer list of communities where this violence and intimidation still resonate.

But all of this violence represents only half of the urgent threat we must now confront. The other half of white nationalism is in our halls of governance and on our televisions, claiming ignorance of its most violent outgrowths. Think for instance of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021: Although white-power and militant-right activists represented a small group of the participants, they were the most organized, the ones with tactical gear and advance planning. They were the ones with intergroup communication and battle readiness.

The crucial difference is that January 6 was meant to be not an act of mass-casualty violence but rather a piece of performative activism. We know this because of the symbology of the attack and its deep roots in white-power-movement texts such as The Turner Diaries, which-amid plans for many mass-casualty attacks and for genocide-set out an attack on the Capitol as something very different. It was meant to strike the seat of power and thus awaken others to the cause. It worked, too. Despite increased surveillance and deplatforming in the immediate aftermath, researchers have documented a regrouping: upticks in web traffic in white-power spaces, local organizing, and online radicalization. We may yet find that the alleged shooter in Buffalo, only 18-who wrote that he became radicalized in January 2022-was propelled by that latest wave in this cresting sea.

In white-power ideology, mass violence is seen as a tool rather than an end point. Here we need look no further than the manifestos that are now routinely shared online from gunman to gunman, imparting instructions for future mass shooters as well as explaining how the attack itself is meant to provoke race war and civil unrest. The Buffalo document includes long sections of text pasted from the manifesto connected to the Christchurch shooting; the El Paso document did the same.

All of this is much too important to ignore as a disconnected string of events or to set aside as simply inexplicable acts of hate and prejudice. The alleged shooter in Buffalo is said to have written that boredom, isolation, and internet radicalization led him to his act. When we imagine how many others like him are in front of their screens, alone but together, we might summon an appropriate level of concern to move us to action. Every person should demand accountability from our elected officials for these events, whether January 6 or yesterday's mass shooting. The death toll is still mounting, and the threat to our democracy grows.

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latest record of the white-power movement

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The mass shooting of Black grocery shoppers in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday follows a string of similar attacks. Gunmen have targeted worshippers at synagogues and mosques and temples and Bible study; they have opened fire on summer camps and people at festivals.

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This attack, like too many before it, is leading to a renewed conversation and for some self-examination for many on questions of race, white supremacy and extremist ideology.

We're going to focus on some of those questions ourselves with Eric Ward. He has long studied all of this and the proliferation of hate crimes. He's now at the Southern Poverty Law Center. And Jelani Cobb, writer, journalist and historian. He's also the next dean of the Columbia Journalism School.

Our conversation is part of our ongoing coverage of Race Matters.

Jelani Cobb, Eric Ward, welcome to both.

Jelani Cobb, let me start with you.

We heard that man at the very beginning of Cat Wise's piece say, we don't know if there are any other haters out there. What is your answer to him?

Jelani Cobb, Columbia University School of Journalism: Well, we can answer that in the affirmative.

I don't think, unfortunately, there's any question. When we look at the connections between what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. What happened in El Paso, what happened at the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh, what's happened now in Buffalo, what's happened in other places that I'm not mentioning now, having covered and having written about this issue, we can be fairly certain that there are more people of a like mind who out there.

And the bigger question is, what we, as a society, are prepared to do in order to prevent these kinds of atrocities from happening again and again.

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How America can respond to white nationalist violence

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This attack in Buffalo in a predominantly Black neighborhood, like too many before it, is leading to another period of conversation and self-examination for some on questions of race, white supremacy and extremist ideology. Eric Ward, of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Jelani Cobb, the next dean of the Columbia Journalism School, join Judy Woodruff to discuss for our series, "Race Matters."

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White People | Official Full Documentary | MTV

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Filled with Minda Harts's signature wit and warmth,  Right Within   offers strategies for women of color to speak up during racialized moments with managers and clients, work through past triggers they may not even know still cause pain, and reframe past career disappointments as opportunities to grow into a new path.

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Differentiate news sources to make the best decisions

Ad Fontes Media helps businesses, consumers, educators, and platforms navigate today's complex and dynamic news landscape. We provide data, tools, and educational resources for all stakeholders in quality news media.

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Home of the Media Bias Chart® - Ad Fontes Media rates the news for bias and reliability via a proven methodology and politically balanced...

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Aya - The Fern

A West African Adinkra symbol representing defiance, endurance, and resourcefulness.

The fern is a hardy plant that can grow in difficult places. "An individual who wears this symbol suggests that (s)he has endured many adversities and outlasted much difficulty." (Willis, The Adinkra Dictionary)

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Aya Coffee + Books, located on the East Side of Kansas City, MO, is a place that transforms lives and communities by cultivating culture and connections through beverages + books.

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BLK + BRWN Bookstore Opens in Kansas City, Mo.

BLK + BRWN bookstore opened Saturday at 104 1/2 West 39th Street in Kansas City, Mo., the Star reported, adding that owner Cori Smith "grew up reading Black writers such as Bell Hooks, Assata Shakur and Toni Morrison. Now, she's selling their books." Opening day was a big success.

Smith said she chose to open on Juneteenth, during Pride Month: "It felt very important and intentional to bring awareness about Black queerness and brown queerness and Black liberation. June to me is a month about freedom for all of those reasons." Prior to becoming a bookseller, Smith was the program director at Justice in the Schools, a project offering free legal services to students and families in the Kansas City and Hickman Mills school districts.

"I always was surrounded by Black and brown literature," Smith noted. "And so I always was just very interested in Black books, Black authors, stories about people that look like me. And so that's kind of been steadfast throughout my life."

Smith said her title selection at the bookshop is an effort to acquaint readers with genres they may not typically associate with Black writers: "I'm also trying to incorporate other books--just different genres that I feel like a lot of Black and brown people don't necessarily see or get a chance to experience from other Black and brown authors. Suspense and thrillers are things that I don't necessarily associate with Black and brown authors or stories that will have a character that looks like me."

When she chose BLK + BRWN's location, Smith was also thinking about accessibility. "I really, really wanted it to be in a neighborhood that felt very Black and brown," she said. "And it was very intentional for me to find a space where I could still get my foot in and still be surrounded by people within my community. This was perfect. Right next door to me, there's a barber shop that is predominantly Black and brown. And then on the other side of them is an African braiding salon. It just made sense. It was really good alignment that it just happened this way."

Bear and Bee Bookshop Set for North Adams, Mass.

Jen Stevens and Rye Howard are opening the Bear and Bee Bookshop this coming Saturday, June 26, in North Adams, Mass., the Berkshire Eagle reported.

The store will sell mostly used books and some new ones, as well as gifts, cards, puzzles and games. Major categories include gardening, women's health, herbalism, gender and social justice, fiction and mysteries. "Those are really our passions," Stevens told the newspaper.

Howard added, "Having a bookstore to support our interests and the interests of everyone else in the community seems like an important resource for a city to have. If there's not one here already, then we thought we might be able to supply that.... We want to be a place where everything is chosen because it's interesting to at least somebody."

Stevens and Howard moved to North Adams last summer from Bangladesh, where Stevens was working for the United Nations on global maternal health and midwifery education. Howard also has a public health background, and is an environmental public health scientist.

After doing some research, they chose North Adams, Stevens said. "Being data geeks a little bit, we basically made a map, a GIS map, where universities are, to where bookstores are, to same-sex marriage rates. A little bit of everything to try to get the right mix of what we were looking for. And North Adams kind of came to the top."

Hoping to make the store a community center, the pair are planning to host several book clubs, one about health and another about social justice. And already they're helping organize an LGBTQ Pride event with other local businesses this Friday, June 25, from 6 to 9 p.m., in the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art courtyard.

Crosswalk Controversy: Chapter One Supports Students' Pride Efforts

A proposal to paint four crosswalks at one intersection in Hamilton, Mont., in rainbow colors during Pride month was voted down last week by the city council, but high school students who supported the effort decorated the windows at Chapter One Bookstore "with rainbows and messages of inclusiveness and diversity," Ravalli Republic reported.

Chapter One co-owner Mara Luther told the paper, "When I heard there was such a kerfuffle about this crosswalk, that there's so many negative comments and that it started veering into adding something to city policy, it seemed like Chapter One Bookstore--being right on Main Street and on the corner--was a great spot for these young activists to have a place give voice to their actions and the spirit behind them."

The proposal, entitled "Allyship Pride Crosswalk Project," would have painted the four crosswalks at the intersection of Third and State streets 11 colors that represent people of color, the trans community and LGBTQ.

Frances Carrasco, a recent Corvallis High School graduate, who has been a spokesperson for the project, came up with the idea after she saw a painted crosswalk in Bozeman. "I thought it was a beautiful idea," she said. "I wanted to incorporate it into our town."

At a city council meeting last Tuesday, an ordinance concerning crosswalk painting--which would include an application process, a $150 filing fee and $1 million in liability insurance, among other requirements--was debated and voted down, and the council "denied painting pavement" in Hamilton, KPAX reported.

"While council members deliberated the basic question of whether to adopt or deny pavement painting, a crowded audience focused its public comment on the issue of an LGBTQ+ pavement painting," with many people speaking against the Pride proposal, KPAX said.

Luther told MTN News: "We've been emotional about it because we've had people come in and just thank us for making them feel welcome and safe, and wanted in their community. Because it's hard to remember that the quiet voices are there when the loud voices are so loud and so hateful, and yeah, we've seen a lot of support for this project."

International Update: Independent Bookshop Week, Digital Bologna Fair a Success

Independent Bookshop Week 2021, part of the Booksellers Association's Books Are My Bag campaign, started Saturday and continues through this Saturday, June 26. The initiative celebrates indie bookshops in the U.K. and Ireland with events, celebrations, reading groups, storytelling, author signings, literary lunches and more.

" Bookshops deliver a huge amount to their communities and their high streets. Every town or city is richer with a bookshop and they are heroes," Books Are My Bag posted on Facebook.

Bookends Keswick noted: "This week, come celebrate with us everything that's awesome about indie book shops! In partnership with @booksaremybag, IBW is our chance to give back even more to you lovely book lovers."

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This year's digital Bologna Children's Book Fair had a 55% increase in page views compared to the 2020 online edition. The Bookseller reported that the fair, "which moved to June owing to the pandemic, said it attracted more than 75,000 visits from around the world. In all, 16,000 people took active part in its scheduled initiatives, while 800 exhibitors registered on tits rights exchange platform."

BolognaBookPlus, a new general trade strand, debuted at the fair. It was organized by guest director Jacks Thomas, former director of the London Book Fair, who said, "Launching BolognaBookPlus in 2021 has been challenging and exhilarating in equal measure and we are delighted with the output which is a solid foundation on which to build out the offering even further as we forge forward."

BCBF exhibition manager Elena Pasoli commented: "BolognaBookPlus marks a turning point in BCBF history: for the first time in our 58-year history, in addition to 250+ events at the children's fair, in virtual form this year, Bologna brought together worldwide publishing industry professionals, not just from children's publishing, to discuss the key issues for the entire publishing industry at this particular time."

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In Hong Kong, "booksellers walk a fine line" under the security law imposed by Beijing last year. "As they navigate the constraints of the sweeping law, many independent bookstores have strengthened their resolve to connect with their readers and crystallized their roles as vibrant community hubs," the New York Times reported. "In interviews, booksellers said that more people had rushed to buy books and photo collections documenting the 2019 protests, driven by the fear that these records would one day disappear. Some customers, meanwhile, have simply turned to their neighborhood bookstores for a sense of connection."

"The social movement has changed the way people read and the value they place on books," said Pong Yat Ming, founder of Book Punch. "I want to bring out that kind of energy, that desire for change through reading. Books are powerful, like forceful punches responding to the social environment."

"There's been a greater need for people to gather around the hearth and keep warm together," noted Sharon Chan, owner of Mount Zero Books. "When the pain is so collective, the biggest challenge for us is how to maintain a healthy outlook, to keep finding books that our readers would want, to help them relax a bit. I think they see this as a space where they can feel safe and find like-minded people.... They could try to ban us from doing certain things in public, but that will not stop us from doing so in private. Justice is on my side, and I do not feel afraid."

Daniel Lee, who runs Hong Kong Reader, observed: "We can't completely uphold freedom of speech, because the law has changed. To the greatest extent possible, we will try to run our bookstore without breaking the law. So if the government can explicitly say that there are problems with certain books, we will follow. It's a compromise.... As long as something called a 'bookstore' is allowed to exist, we will continue selling books." -- Robert Gray

Obituary Note: Edward de Bono

Edward de Bono, the thinker and writer who coined the term "lateral thinking," has died at age 88, the Guardian reported. The author of more than 60 books, a prolific speaker and the host of a BBC television show, de Bono sought to free readers, viewers and listeners "from the tyranny of logic through creative thinking."

He introduced the concept in his 1967 book, The Use of Lateral Thinking, arguing that logic, or vertical thinking, was stifling, and that innovative solutions and groundbreaking ideas could be reached only through creative thinking.

A vocal critic of the British education system, de Bono asserted that schools relied too heavily on vertical thinking, memorization and testing. Those methods, he said, not only hindered creative thinking but also crushed the confidence of many students. In his 1972 book, Children Solve Problems, he put forth that most children are creative problem solvers by nature, and it is schooling that changes that.

In 1985, de Bono published Six Thinking Hats, in which he proposed a way to improve business meetings that involved participants donning imaginary hats of six different colors. Each hat represented a different emotion or outlook, and by every participant donning a particular hat at the same time, meetings could be more efficient and there would be less ego involved. The book went on to become an international bestseller, and companies like Motorola, IBM and Boeing reported success with the method.

Never too shy to self-promote, de Bono once called his thinking hats method "the most important change in human thinking for the past 2,300 years." He also took criticism rather personally: in response to a negative review of Six Thinking Hats that appeared in the Independent, he wrote to the editor saying he was entitled to compensation for the loss in earnings resulting from the review. And, years after the fact, he called the same reviewer a "silly little idiot" in an interview.

In addition to his work as an author and speaker, de Bono was a savvy businessman. He founded the company Advanced Practical Thinking Training in 1991, which worked with clients like Goldman Sachs, British Airways and Siemens, and was a "remarkable success." He received honorary degrees from institutions around the world and, in 1995, received Malta's National Order of Merit.

#Juneteenth: 'Read Black Authors--Every Day, Period'

Last Thursday, President Biden signed the bill designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday in the U.S. On Saturday, indie booksellers shared their celebrations and reflections on social media. Here's a sampling:

Main Street Books, Davidson, N.C.: "Happy Juneteenth! We were honored to hear Newbery & Caldecott illustrator, Gordon James, read books filled with his vibrant, affirming art at the Juneteenth Celebration hosted by Ada Jenkins Center today.... Thank you to all of the organizers and volunteers for bringing together our community to joyfully celebrate Black liberation."

Annie Bloom's Books, Portland, Ore.: "Celebrate Juneteenth by supporting Portland's Black-owned bookstore, Third Eye Books Accessories & Gifts LLC. Grand opening at their new location in SE tomorrow, 2-4 pm!"

The Open Book Canyon Country, Santa Clarita, Calif.: "Freedom Day. Jubilee Day. Liberation Day. Emancipation Day. Juneteenth has a few names, but this day commemorating the end of slavery in 1865 is also a day to remember that even though slavery ended, the struggle didn't, and there is as much to celebrate in how far we've come since 1865 as there is to reflect on and continue to grow."

Wise Blood Booksellers, Kansas City, Mo.: "Happy Juneteenth! Read Black authors--every day, period. Support Black-owned businesses (like Willa's Books & Vinyl and @bliss_books_wine_kc, for example!). No one's free until everyone's free."

Northshire Bookstore, Manchester Center, Vt.: "Today we celebrate Juneteenth, a day commemorating the liberation of enslaved people in the U.S. As #juneteenth is now an official holiday, this year marks the perfect opportunity for reflection. Shown above are some of our favorite pieces for all ages to further your education on this celebration!"

Bookie's, Homewood, Ill.: "Wishing our customers, neighbors, and friends a very happy Juneteenth! Keep reading and fighting for even more freedom."

Turning Page Bookshop, Goose Creek, S.C.: "Lataya and I selling books & accessories at the Juneteenth Celebration at River Front Park."

Changing Hands Bookstore, Phoenix & Tempe, Ariz.: "Today is #Juneteenth! We've put together some recommended reads to celebrate and honor the occasion--books about our true history as a country, about community, about Black joy, the ongoing work of liberation and anti-racism, and more. We hope you find something to read, to love, and to share. Happy Juneteenth."

Loganberry Books, Shaker Heights, Ohio: "Today is Juneteenth! We are excited to commemorate this day with you. Many Juneteenth Programs are commemorated with a rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing, which is considered the African American National Anthem. The lyrics to this anthem, written by James Weldon Johnson, signify the journey, history, and future of many African American people. Remember that a percentage of sales today will be donated to the Urban League of Cleveland, and there is a place to donate to Karamu House as well!"

Harriett's Bookshop, Philadelphia, Pa. (video): " 'Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.'--Toni Morrison w/ @seraiahnicole & the community."

Personnel Changes at Sourcebooks

Madeleine Brown has joined Sourcebooks as marketing assistant.

When You Think You've Heard or Seen It All Department

From Melissa DeMotte, owner of the Well~Read Moose, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho:

"When you think you have heard or seen it all at the bookstore: Guy comes into our store and asks if we have a community board so he can hang a flyer that Amazon is hiring. Seriously?!?!?"

Book Trailer of the Day: Oakley the Squirrel

Media Heat: Desiree Hartsock Siegfried, Ronan Farrow, Jessamyn Stanley on GMA

Today:
Live with Kelly and Ryan: Eric Ripert, author of Vegetable Simple: A Cookbook (Random House, $35, 9780593132487).

Good Morning America: Desiree Hartsock Siegfried, co-author of The Road to Roses: Heartbreak, Hope, and Finding Strength When Life Doesn't Go as Planned (Zondervan, $26.99, 9780310361947).

NPR's Here & Now: Dax-Devlon Ross, author of Letters to My White Male Friends (St. Martin's Press, $24.99, 9781250276834).

Tomorrow:
Good Morning America: Ronan Farrow, author of War on Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence (Norton, $18.95, 9780393356908).

Also on GMA: Jessamyn Stanley, author of Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance (Workman, $15.95, 9781523505210).

Jimmy Kimmel Live: Quentin Tarantino, author of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: A Novel (Harper Perennial, $9.99, 9780063112520).

Late Show with Stephen Colbert: Craig Melvin, author of Pops: Learning to Be a Son and a Father (Morrow, $26.99, 9780063071995).

Late Night with Seth Meyers: Graham Norton, author of Home Stretch: A Novel (HarperVia, $26.99, 9780063112094).

Also on Late Night: Brandon Taylor, author of Filthy Animals (Riverhead, $26, 9780525538912).

Movies: Cat Person

Studiocanal and Imperative Entertainment are teaming up on a film adaptation of Cat Person, based on Kristen Roupenian's 2017 short story that became the New Yorker's most downloaded work of fiction that year, Deadline reported. Directed by Susanna Fogel ( The Flight Attendant) and written by Michelle Ashford ( Masters of Sex), the project stars Nicholas Braun ( Succession) and Emilia Jones ( Locke & Key).

Fogel commented: "Using Kristen's excruciatingly well-observed short story about the horrors of dating as the jumping off point for an actual genre film, Cat Person will explore the hellscape of modern romance and the idea that we have all been the villain in someone else's story, and the victim in others."

Awards: NYPL Young Lions; Neustadt Finalists

Catherine Lacey won the $10,000 New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award for her book Pew (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). The award is given to " an American writer age 35 or younger for either a novel or a collection of short stories." The finalists were:

Meng Jin for Little Gods (Custom House)
Hilary Leichter for Temporary (Coffee House Press)
Brandon Taylor for Real Life (Riverhead Books)
C Pam Zhang for How Much of These Hills Is Gold (Riverhead Books)

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Finalists have been announced for the $50,000 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, sponsored by World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma's magazine of international literature and culture, and recognizing "significant contributions to world literature." The winner will be chosen in October. See the finalists here.

Top Library Recommended Titles for July

LibraryReads, the nationwide library staff-picks list, offers the top 10 July titles public library staff across the country love:

Top Pick
Such a Quiet Place: A Novel by Megan Miranda (Simon & Schuster, $26.99, 9781982147280). "The tight-knit neighborhood of Hollow's Edge is supposed to be a safe, private place where the neighbors all know each other. But secrets lie behind every door. Miranda creates a vivid setting where the characters develop quickly, and the twisty plot will keep readers guessing until the end. For fans of psychological thrillers like The Other Mrs., Into the Water, and Every Secret Thing." --Leslie Hagel, Fairfield Public Library, Fairfield, Conn.

All the Little Hopes: A Novel by Leah Weiss (Sourcebooks Landmark, $16.99, 9781728232744). "In World War II-era North Carolina, two best friends use their love of Nancy Drew mysteries to help find a missing man, while tending honeybees for the war effort and working on the family's tobacco farm alongside Nazi POWs. This coming of age story is heartfelt, mystical, and full of love and family. Reminiscent of Summer of My German Soldier and The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek." --Jennifer Winberry, Hunterdon County Library, Flemington, N.J.

The Bone Code: A Temperance Brennan Novel by Kathy Reichs (‎Scribner, $27, 9781982139964). "Set in 2021, with some references to Covid, this thrilling read has a very contemporary feel, combining current scientific and forensic terminology with a sinister plot. A waste container turns up with two bodies, similar to an old unsolved case of Brennan's. For fans of fast-paced, suspenseful mysteries like Prime Suspect and Carved in Bone." --Marilyn Sieb, L.D. Fargo Library, Lake Mills, Wis.

Devil in Disguise by Lisa Kleypas (Avon, $8.99, 9780062371966). "In this addition to the Ravenels series, Merritt, a young London widow, shares an instant attraction with a Scottish whiskey distiller named Keir, and they begin a steamy and passionate romance. But someone wants him dead. And Sebastian, aka Lord St. Vincent, is also in the picture. For fans of the Brides of Redemption and the Hellions of Havisham series." --Leah Cummings, Urbandale Public Library, Urbandale, Iowa

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead: A Novel by Emily Austin (Atria, $26, ‎ 9781982167356). "In need of a short novel with a unique and lovable character, genuine LOL moments, and an ending that is richly deserved, hopeful, and joyful? Then this is for you. It's brilliantly written and also a brutally honest depiction of what it's like to have severe anxiety. For fans of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and Mostly Dead Things." --Jennifer Schultz, Fauquier Public Library, Warrenton, Va.

Falling: A Novel by T.J. Newman (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, $28, 9781982177881). "A pilot is given an impossible choice: crash the airplane that he is flying, killing everyone on board, or his family will be murdered. A tense, whiteknuckle thriller with all the makings of a summer blockbuster. Perfect for fans of The Chain." --Nanette Donohue, Champaign Public Library, Champaign, Ill.

The Forest of Vanishing Stars: A Novel by Kristin Harmel (Gallery, $28, 9781982158934). "Stolen from her parents at two years old, Yona learns to survive in the forest. Years later, Yona teaches Jews fleeing the Holocaust to survive in the forest. A tale of personal responsibility, betrayals, loss, and love that stays with you long after you've read it. For readers who enjoyed The Nightingale, Salt to the Sea, and The Baker's Secret." --Cynthia Hunt, Amarillo Public Library, Amarillo, Tex.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers (Tor, $20.99, 9781250236210). "The quiet life of a tea monk is interrupted when a robot arrives after centuries to honor a promise to check in. The robot cannot return to the wilderness until the question of 'what do people need?' is answered. This is a book I will be recommending to everyone! For readers who enjoyed The Bear and The House in the Cerulean Sea." --Liz Aleshunas, St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Mo.

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan (Tor, $27.99, 9781250621801). "In her intense, wonderfully written, and completely absorbing debut, Parker-Chan gives 14th century China a stunner of a rewrite. When her father and brother die as a consequence of a brutal attack, Zhu leaves her impoverished village and takes on her brother's identity and his fate. For readers who enjoyed Priory of the Orange Tree, Gideon the Ninth, and The Poppy War." --Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, Huntington, N.Y.

The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives: A Novel by Kristin Miller (‎Ballantine, $17, 9781524799526). "When Brooke moves to the exclusive California neighborhood of Presidio Terrace, she befriends both Erin and Georgia. She finds out much more than she ever expected. Readers will be so wrapped up in the drama, privilege, and mystery, they might finish in one sitting. For readers who enjoyed Big Little Lies and Never Have I Ever." --Danielle Aronowitz, South Plainfield Public Library, South Plainfield, N.J.

Review: The Council of Animals

The Council of Animals by Nick McDonell, illus. by Steven Tabbutt (Holt, $25.99 hardcover, 208p., 9781250799036, July 20, 2021)

In the witty and compelling The Council of Animals by Nick McDonell ( Twelve), humans are nearly extinct following an unspecified disaster ("The Calamity") of their own making. The animals, also sorely suffering in a changed world, gather to debate and vote on the next steps: to allow the humans to live, or to kill and eat them all. This council includes a grizzled, arthritic bulldog; a not-so-bright horse; an underfed grizzly bear; a religious crow; an aloof and possibly turncoat cat; and a bully of a baboon. The belated seventh council member is the source of some trepidation and mystery. When the humans (who mostly remain offscreen) appear doomed, a motley alliance must form, swelling the ranks of animal characters to encompass a trio of moles, a giant lizard that thinks it's a bat, a small but important scorpion and more. To save humanity, these intrepid creatures will travel and adventure together, learning interspecies trust and new animal facts, and finding hilarity and danger along the way.

This story contains both whimsy and life-or-death consequences, charmingly related with humor and sagacity by a narrator, "a humble historian (or animal contextographer)," who conceals their own identity until the very end. The details of this animal-centered world are endlessly entertaining, as reference is made to "the wallaby who taught Elvis how to sing. The lobsters who elevated Salvador Dalí's conceptual practice. The raccoon who, quite disastrously, advised Calvin Coolidge." Steven Tabbutt's deceptively simple illustrations reinforce the storybook impression and advance character development, as when the bear classically addresses a human skull during an existential crisis. While frequently playful, this narrative is not all fun and games: the dog might have PTSD, the baboon has disturbingly dictatorial tendencies and the stakes couldn't be higher. McDonell's clever, lively prose and snappy pacing propels readers onward.

The Council of Animals has the feel of a fable, both a romp with sweetly goofy animal characters and a serious and clear-eyed story about the real world and its dangers. "It is the duty of the historian to face the hideous facts, and violence is one." Ultimately, this is a tale about community and cooperation. Humans may have something to learn from the animals about communication and mutual responsibility: "Even bony zompompers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench like to chat with blue whales now and then." Thought-provoking, captivating, funny, instructive: this is a book for readers who have ever yearned for a little extrahuman wisdom and cheer. -- Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Shelf Talker: A council of animals decides the post-Calamity fate of humans in this wise, witty, perfectly compelling tale of adventure and survival.

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Shelf Awareness for Monday, June 21, 2021

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BLK + BRWN bookstore opened Saturday at 104 1/2 West 39th Street in Kansas City, Mo., the Star reported, adding that owner Cori Smith "grew up reading Black writers such as Bell Hooks, Assata Shakur and Toni Morrison. Now, she's selling their books." Opening day was a big success.

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Emergency Dialogue After Buffalo Shooting - Resources, May 2022

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In 1877, the US federal government unilaterally seized the Black Hills - which contain Mount Rushmore - from the Sioux, a direct violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The treaty language stated that these lands should be reserved for the "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians."

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We work to end the long history of treaty violations and systemic corruption that has resulted in the loss of children and sacred lands for the Lakota people. #OurChildrenAreSacred #NoDAPL Take action to defend Lakota sovereignty now at lakotalaw.org

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Tour: Haskell Indian Nations University; Shawnee Indian Mission Manual Labor School; Fort Smith; Ft. Scott;  Dodge City; Indigenous Community Center;  Heart of American Indian Center (KCIC)

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Tour: Haskell Indian Nations University; Shawnee Indian Mission Manual Labor School; Fort Smith; Ft. Scott;  Dodge City; Indigenous Community Center;  Heart of American Indian Center (KCIC)

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A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white.
The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Many years later, one sister lives with her black daughter in the same southern town she once tried to escape. The other secretly passes for white, and her white husband knows nothing of her past. Still, even separated by so many miles and just as many lies, the fates of the twins remain intertwined. What will happen to the next generation, when their own daughters' storylines intersect?

Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.

As with her New York Times-bestselling debut The Mothers, Brit Bennett offers an engrossing page-turner about family and relationships that is immersive and provocative, compassionate and wise.

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A GOOD MORNING AMERICA Book Club Pick! From The New York Times-bestselling author of The Mothers, a stunning new novel about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds, one black and one white. The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical.

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More about the show

In the words of Nina Simone, "How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?" As we celebrate Black Culture and Juneteenth in the month of June, this soul-driven show brings awareness to the struggle while celebrating the triumphs experienced by these artists and Black People today.
The Ruby Room series is hybrid nightclub/theater experience that celebrates Artists who have made a significant impact on American culture. The evening begins at the bar, where cocktails are curated to coincide with the evening's performance - and then moves into the Ruby Room for a 90 minute performance - but do not fret - there is an intermission to allow the bar experience to overlap! Join us for cocktails & cabaret!

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For The Culture - Music Theater Heritage

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More about the show In the words of Nina Simone, "How can you be an artist and not reflect the times?" As we celebrate Black Culture and Juneteenth in the month of June, this soul-driven show brings awareness to the struggle while celebrating the triumphs experienced by these artists and Black People today.

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Bun Mee Phan Vietnamese Fusion Food Sandwiches Tacos and more

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Bun Mee Phan Not so BASIC Banh Mi. Serving fusion Vietnamese and more.

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Vegan Crave Burgers & Bakery

Here at Vegan Crave Burgers and Bakery. Our Mission is Love and Light. We are a soy-free establishment that prepares all of our dishes and desserts in-house, from scratch, with LOVE being the main ingredient. We are located in the Iron District an outdoor container courtyard that's full of great energy and good vibes! Order online for carryout or delivery. "Let Us Satisfy Your Crave!l

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Online ordering menu for Vegan Crave Burgers & Bakery. Here at Vegan Crave Burgers and Bakery. Our Mission is Love and Light. We are a soy-free establishment that prepares all of our dishes and desserts in-house, from scratch, with LOVE being the main ingredient.

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Here at Love is Key, we serve cuisine such as Fruit tray, Southern Bell, King, Southwest 7 Layer Dip Tray, and Vegetable Tray. We are located along Troost Avenue! Order online for carryout or delivery!

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Online ordering menu for Love is Key. Here at Love is Key, we serve cuisine such as Fruit tray, Southern Bell, King, Southwest 7 Layer Dip Tray, and Vegetable Tray. We are located along Troost Avenue! Order online for carryout or delivery!

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Mid-America LGBT Chamber of Commerce | LGBT Business Enterprise (BE) Certified

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KC Black Owned Business Directory - KCBlackOwned

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A comprehensive directory of black owned businesses in the Kansas City area.

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Food Sovereignty is a term that refers to both a movement and an idea (Wittman et al., 2010) however, as with most political concepts, it is essentially contested. This contested nature stems partly from the conviction of many of its transnational advocates that food sovereignty needs to be defined 'from the bottom-up' and as such it evades a precise single definition. While there is merit in such an approach given the diverse political and agro-ecological settings in which food sovereignty has emerged as a rallying cry for change, it also raises the question of whether food sovereignty can be relational without bounds [1].

Whilst the lack of distinction of the food sovereignty concept continues to form a theoretical problem, which according to some prevents the further development of the debate[2], in practice the issue areas that food sovereignty advocates concern themselves with are very clear. The primary documentation issued by organisations like La Via Campesina and the declarations issued at the two Nyéléni meetings, include calls for the democratisation of the food system and the protection of the rights of small farmers. It also expresses a commitment to address the multiple inequalities reproduced within the current corporate-dominated food system. As such, food sovereignty builds upon a rights-based approach to food, but adds a qualifier to such rights. Human beings do not merely have a right to food, but rather 'a right to food that is healthy and culturally appropriate, produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods', which are defined by people instead of corporations or unaccountable governments [3]. In this manner, food sovereignty represents a radical alternative to the food security paradigm, which holds central the benefits of free food markets and seeks to solve the problem of world hunger through scientific innovation and increased market liberalisation.

Whilst the precise origins of food sovereignty remain somewhat unclear, Edelman (2014) has put forward a strong case that it was first articulated in Mexico [4]. Additionally, as a result of Latin American peasant farmer organisation La Via Campesina's use of the term and the fact that some of the movement's key international meetings were deliberately held in the global South (at Nyéléni in Mali) so as to make a statement, food sovereignty itself is often seen as a 'southern' rallying cry. In part this is because it is associated with smallholder farming which is exercised more extensively within the global South. This is not to say that smallholder farmers do not exist within Europe or the United States,[5] or that the aspirations of small holder producers in Latin America, East Asia or elsewhere may not align with the food export-oriented framework that is conventionally understood as driven by 'northern' actors [6]. Nor is it to suggest that food sovereignty - where it pertains to democratisation and exercising ownership over a given food system - has no place in American and European societies. The geographic dimensions of food sovereignty, however, do serve to communicate that the negative socio-economic impacts resulting from the proliferation of large-scale industrialised food production elsewhere has been predominantly felt in the global South.

Reflecting on the structure of the global food economy, it has been suggested that the fundamental interests of geographically differently located actors may be at odds with one another, even if they collectively mobilise behind the banner of food sovereignty [7]. Food sovereignty activists stand accused of taking a 'big bag fits all' approach (Patel) and brushing over the contradictions inherent in the movement. As already indicated above, however, whilst the broad geographic delineations may help to explain existing inequalities, the reproduction of binary North-South oppositions is not always conducive to better understanding the mechanisms through which such inequalities are reproduced. For example, factors such as the interaction between local elites and transnational capital or the role of food culture and dietary change are not easily captured through territorial markers such as 'North' and 'South'.
Essential Reading
Holt-Gimenez, Eric & Amin, Samir, (2011) Food movements unite!: Strategies to transform our food system (Oakland: Food First Books).

Alonso-Fradejas, A., Borras Jr, S. M., Holmes, T., Holt-Giménez, E., & Robbins, M. J. (2015). Food sovereignty: convergence and contradictions, conditions and challenges. Third World Quarterly, 36(3), 431-448.

Patel, Raj. (2009). Food sovereignty. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36:3, 663-706
Further reading
Andrée P, Ayres J, Bosia MJ, Mássicotte MJ. (eds.) (2014). Globalization and food sovereignty: global and local change in the new politics of food (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).

Carolan, Michael. (2014). "Getting to the core of food security and food sovereignty: Relationality with limits?" Dialogues in Human Geography 4, no. 2, pp. 218-220.

Holt-Giménez, E. (2009). From food crisis to food sovereignty: the challenge of social movements. Monthly Review, 61(3), 142.

Shiva, Vandana (1997). Biopiracy: The plunder of nature and knowledge (Cambridge: South End Press).

Wittman, Hannah (ed.) (2011). Food sovereignty: reconnecting food, nature & community (Oxford: Pambazuka Press).

Zurayk, R. (2016). The Arab Uprisings through an Agrarian Lens. In Kadri. A. (ed). Development Challenges and Solutions after the Arab Spring. Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 139-152.
Questions:
Why has the food sovereignty movement been characterised as a southern cause in particular?

Does food sovereignty represent the views of farmers in the global South?

What contradictions are inherent within the idea of the people's food sovereignty?

Can food sovereignty be more than a rallying cry?

[1] See the article forum organised around Lucy Jarosz' publication 'Comparing food security and food sovereignty discourses' in Dialogues in Human Geography July 2014(4), 168-181.

[2] Hospes, O. (2014) "Food sovereignty: the debate, the deadlock, and a suggested detour." Agriculture and Human Values 31, no. 1, pp. 119-130.

[3] Nyéléni Declaration (2007). Accessible at: http://nyeleni.org/spip.php?article290

[4] Edelman, M., 2014. Food sovereignty: Forgotten genealogies and future regulatory challenges. Journal of Peasant Studies, 41(6), pp.959-978.

[5] See for example Knezevic, I., (2014) ' Free Markets for All: Transition Economies and the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy' in Andrée et al. (Eds) Globalization and Food Sovereignty: Global and Local Change in the New Politics of Food, Studies in Comparative Political Economy & Public Policy, London, University of Toronto Press.

[6] See for example Louis, E. (2015) 'We Plant Only Cotton to Maximize Our Earnings': The Paradox of Food Sovereignty in Rural Telengana, India, The Professional Geographer, 67(4), pp. 586-594, Agarwal, B. (2014) 'Food sovereignty, food security and democratic choice: critical contradictions, difficult conciliations', The Journal of Peasant Studies 41(6), pp. 1247-1268.

[7] Hopma, J. and Woods, M., (2014) Political geographies of 'food security'and 'food sovereignty', Geography Compass, 8(11), pp.773-784.
Submitted by Justa Hopma

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Food Sovereignty is a term that refers to both a movement and an idea (Wittman et al., 2010) however, as with most political concepts, it is essentially contested. This contested nature stems partly from the conviction of many of its transnational advocates that food sovereignty needs to be defined

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JVS aims to engage, encourage and empower people to achieve social, cultural and economic integration in the Greater Kansas City metro area.