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Go song by song or choose a playlist

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Jul 1, 2014 ... Tupac - Ambitionz Az A Ridah. by Praylu. 4:44. Play next; Play now. 2Pac Hit Em Up LYRICS!!!!! by Jaysean. 5:13. Play next; Play now. 2pac - I Ain't Mad At Cha. by WestCoastRyda. 5:37. Play next; Play now. 2pac - Starin' Through My Rear View (Music Video).

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Angie Thomas speaks at the Texas Book Festival in Austin

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Angie Thomas speaks at the Texas Book Festival in Austin

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*I haven't listened to the whole interview so I'm not sure its spoiler free!

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CLOSE

At the corner of Chicago and Linwood in Detroit stands a black Jesus clothed in a white robe adorned with a red heart and gold rays, and his arms outstretched on both sides.

The statue was first erected 60 years ago at Sacred Heart Major Seminary but serves as one of the most iconic landmarks of 1967's unrest.

That's the year unknown suspects painted the once-white Jesus black, as a riot ensued just a few blocks away on 12th and Clairmount.

Dan Gallio, spokesman for Sacred Heart, said handwritten notes by a former seminary director say three unidentified black men were seen by seminary staff painting Jesus' face, hands and feet on July 23, 1967 - the first day of the civil disobedience. The director described the paint color as brown, but others have referred to it as black.

Gallio said some community members believed a black Jesus showed more solidarity with the black families living in the Boston-Edison Historic District.

Black residents wanted to be fairly represented at a time when racial tensions were high, he said. During the unrest of 1967, black demonstrators expressed outrage with discrimination in jobs, education and housing.

"The general feeling is that they weren't there to deface the statue," Gallio said. "It was more so representation of ethnic pride. It wasn't done haphazardly."

Craig Marion re-grouts a slate walkway surrounding the grotto. He is now Fr. Craig Marion, ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit on June 3, 2017. (Photo: Sacred Heart Major Seminary)

Darrell Stewart, a longtime Boston Edison resident, grew up about four blocks away from the black Jesus statue. He said Boston Edison was diverse in 1967 but most neighborhoods surrounding it were predominately black.

Residents, Stewart said, were fed up with everything in America favoring the white race and wanted a black Jesus.

"The projections that America had was that everything good was white," said Stewart, 63. " When you look at it, it's like you're really not acknowledging us as a race or human being. Something had to change because it couldn't continue to be that way."

Some residents and priests also speculated the painting of black Jesus served as a signal to rioters that the statue should be left unharmed, Gallio said.

The seminary decided to leave the black paint on the statue. That decision proved controversial with some neighbors insisting Jesus should be white, Gallio said.

Gallio said old news articles told stories of a white woman who reportedly protested as the black men painted the statue. However, they escorted her back home, saying the streets were too dangerous to be out, Gallio said.

On the night of Sept. 14, 1967, someone painted Jesus white again.

Sacred Heart officials never found the person responsible but decided three days later to paint it black permanently.

Monsignor Todd Lajiness, rector at Sacred Heart, said the seminary was adamant about not allowing Jesus to become a "painting pawn."

Seminarian Patrick Setto scrapes away paint prior to repairing the statue's features. He is now Fr. Patrick Setto, ordained a priest for the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle on July 1, 2017. As a hobby, Setto has been repairing religious statues since his teenage years. (Photo: Sacred Heart Major Seminary)

Today, it is a staple in this neighborhood comprised of modest two-story brick homes and mansions built between 1905 and 1925. Lajiness said the residents remain passionate about the black Jesus.

"This is what Jesus would want us to see is the beauty of each person and the beauty of each ethnicity and race," Lajiness said.

There is also a biblical aspect to the darker skin on Jesus.

Seminarians paint the feet black on the Jesus statue at Sacred Heart Major Seminary. (Photo: Sacred Heart Major Seminary)

Bob Bruttell, who was a student at the seminary during the riots, said churches have depicted Jesus as a white European when many Christians believe he was a darker-skinned Middle Eastern man.

"It very well could have been somebody who understood that having a white Jesus was a mistake both symbolically and historically," Bruttell said. "In these really racialized circumstances that we live in, many people are Christians who worship a Jesus that is depicted in ways that are more convenient and conventional to white folks."

Over the years, the Jesus statue has gone through various restorations and chipped paint fixes, Gallio said. When work is being done on the statue, passerby will often stop to ask out of concern if the seminary is changing its color, he said.

"It's really the only positive symbol of a very difficult time," Gallio said. "It's become an icon of multiracial harmony."

nterry@detroitnews.com

(313) 222-6793

Twitter: @NicquelTerry

Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/2ujCmoo

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Black Jesus statue one of most iconic '67 landmarks

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CLOSE At the corner of Chicago and Linwood in Detroit stands a black Jesus clothed in a white robe adorned with a red heart and gold rays, and his arms outstretched on both sides. The statue was first erected 60 years ago at Sacred Heart Major Seminary but serves as one of the most iconic landmarks of 1967's unrest.

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Between sobs and gasps, Sequita Thompson struggled Monday to recount her terror eight days ago when gunfire rocketed through her backyard.

"Call 911!" Thompson cried to her husband as she crawled out of the living room with her 7-year-old granddaughter in tow. Her husband told her he called police moments earlier after hearing someone tapping at the back window and calling to get in.

"Why didn't you shoot him in the arm? Shoot him in the legs? Send in dogs? Send in a Taser? Why? Why?" Thompson said Monday at a news conference held by black community leaders, officials from the NAACP. "Justice! I want justice for my baby! I want justice for Stephon Clark. Please give us justice!"

Police quickly released officer videos of the shooting, as well as radio transmissions. During several tense standoffs with police - including one that blocked Interstate 5 and another that prevented fans from getting to a Sacramento Kings basketball game - they praised officers for showing restraint and preventing an escalation of tensions.

Alice Huffman, president of the NAACP California-Hawaii chapter, described the response as a model she said the organization hopes will become the "new normal" for handling of controversial police shootings. On Monday, she urged local prosecutors and the U.S. Justice Department to support an outside, independent investigation.

Sacramento's mayor and police chief have urged residents to withhold judgment until the investigation is complete. But the shooting is increasingly becoming a national crusade.

A mass turnout of mourners is expected at the City Council chambers on Tuesday, while the Rev. Al Sharpton intends to deliver the eulogy Thursday at Clark's funeral. Black Lives Matter demonstrators intend to camp outside the county prosecutor's office from Tuesday through Thursday to demand criminal charges against the two officers who shot Clark.

Before their game Sunday, Sacramento Kings and Boston Celtics players wore T-shirts bearing Clark's name. The black shirts had the words "Accountability. We Are One" emblazoned on the front and "#StephonClark" on the back.

Sacramento police already had changed some internal policies following earlier incidents in which officers killed African Americans. The city has equipped most officers with body cameras and enacted a policy to release those videos after the fatal police shooting in 2016 of Joseph Mann, a mentally ill man whom officers tried to run down with their cruiser.

African Americans make up about 14% of Sacramento's population and about 4% of the city's police officers. Some blacks say they don't trust police and fear officers will harm them.

A woman who lives down the street from where Clark was shot described the South Sacramento neighborhood as "rough" and said police in the area are "aggressive" - speeding down its tree-lined streets with little regard for residents. Most of the homes have security doors; there is a heavy presence of fenced-in yard dogs and dilapidated vehicles.

Personal fear dominated her descriptions of the community, and she refused to give her name. She keeps her dog inside and escorts her 16-year-old son to tutoring because he is dark skinned, so police can "see someone of lighter skin walking with him at night."

Down the street, another woman who also declined to be identified said that in 2012, someone broke a window in her home and stole her jewelry. "As long as you stay inside your house, you're good," she said through her screen door.

A few houses down, Gino Casis worked on his front lawn. He described himself as an ardent supporter of police but "to kill people is bad."

The incident that ended Clark's life began when Sacramento officers responded around 9:15 p.m. to a call that a 6-foot-1 man wearing a black hoodie and dark pants was breaking into vehicles, authorities said. The caller said the man had broken car windows and was hiding in a backyard, according to the Sacramento Police Department.

A Sheriff's Department helicopter circling overhead spotted a man in a backyard and directed police toward him, authorities said. Deputies told officers that the man had picked up a "toolbar" and broken a window to a home.

The man then was seen running south, toward the front of the house, where he stopped and was looking into another car, police said. Officers ordered the man to stop and show his hands, but that he ran. They chased him to the backyard, where, authorities say, he turned and advanced toward the officers "while holding an object which was extended in front of him."

"The officers believed the suspect was pointing a firearm at them. Fearing for their safety, the officers fired their duty weapons, striking the suspect multiple times," the Police Department said in a statement.

Clark was pronounced dead at the scene.

One issue that has received scrutiny is a moment in police videos when an officer is heard saying, "Hey, mute," before the sound cuts off.

Sacramento's police chief said the muting issue is part of the investigation, adding that "it builds suspicion."

Clark's family has hired as its lawyer civil rights litigator Ben Crump, whose client list has included the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.

Leaning on Crump for support, Clark family members on Monday made the first of what he warned must be a long travail of public appearances to keep a national spotlight fixed on Clark's slaying. They wept as Thompson cried for justice. Later, Clark's older brother, Stevante, jumped into the center of the press circle to lead loud chants of his brother's name. A woman in the audience wailed.

In preparation for federal litigation against Sacramento, Crump said Monday that Clark's family has requested an independent autopsy.

"No family should have to endure this pain and suffering as they try to seek answers for an execution of their loved one, who was only holding a cellphone," Crump said.

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As outrage over Stephon Clark's killing grows, his grandmother asks: 'Why? Why?'

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At a Monday news conference, Sequita Thompson called for justice in last week's police slaying of her grandson Stephon Clark, who was unarmed. Sacramento officers said they believed the 23-year-old, who was black, pointed a weapon at them before they fired 20 shots at him in Thompson's backyard.

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Angie Thomas talks about her inspiration

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Angie Thomas talks about her inspiration

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The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - On the Inspiration Behind the Book

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"It was as though I had seen it in a movie. Maybe because I had seen it in a movie. Maybe because the movies made after a brown boy gets shot in the back get more attention than the shootings themselves"

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Zai Sadler - For Brown Boys ( Austin Poetry Slam 9.23.2014)

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About Oscar Grant, the last day of his life, and his shooting by a transit cop

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Fruitvale Station -- Official Trailer 2013 -- Regal Cinemas [HD]

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https://www.thoughtco.com/shooting-death-of-oscar-grant-721526

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A digital photostory curated by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

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Between 1966 and 1976, like no other ideology before, the Black Power movement built an immense legacy that continues to shape the contemporary American landscape.

Black Power's reach extended to all racial and ethnic groups. Progressive Asians, Latinos, whites, and American Indians were an integral part of the movement. On the West Coast, one of the first groups to emulate the Black Panthers were the Brown Berets, a Chicano group with close to ninety chapters and five thousand members.

The Rainbow Coalition consisted of the Black Panther Party, the Puerto Rican Young Lords Organization, and the white groups Young Patriots and Rising Up Angry.
Rainbow Coalition unity press conference in Chicago in honor of Martin Luther King, April 4, 1969.

The Black Power movement has had a tremendous impact on race, politics, criminal justice, culture, and education. To understand American society today, one must come to terms with the movement's achievements and shortcomings.

Curator
Sylviane A. Diouf, PhD
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library

Photographers
Luis Arevalo
Bill Boyarsky
Darryl Cowherd
Risasi Zachariah Dais
Detroit News
Linn Ehrlich
Carlos Flores
Bob Fitch
Ilka Hartmann
Chester Higgins Jr.
Stephen Shames
Neil Kenlock
Margaret Randall
Rising Up Angry Staff Photographers
Robert Wade

In each instance, we have tried to make sure that we have secured all necessary rights. If you believe that we have made a mistake, please contact us so that we can correct the oversight.

The story featured may in some cases have been created by an independent third party and may not always represent the views of the institutions, listed below, who have supplied the content.

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Between 1966 and 1976, like no other ideology before, the Black Power movement built an immense legacy that continues to shape the contemporary American landscape. Black Power's reach extended to all racial and ethnic groups. Progressive Asians, Latinos, whites, and American Indians were an integral part of the movement.

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Here's a short read: an interview that talks about a big New Yorker profile of the organization in 2016

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Before Black Lives Matter was a hashtag, before it was a slogan chanted by protesters in cities across the country, before it was a national movement, it was a Facebook post by an Oakland-based activist named Alicia Garza. She wrote it after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. It read in part: "I continue to be surprised at how little black lives matter, and I will continue that. Stop giving up on black life." She ended by saying, "Black people, I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."

NPR's Kelly McEvers spoke with Jelani Cobb, who recently wrote an article in the New Yorker about Black Lives Matter, how the movement started and where it stands today. He talks about how those three words were later adopted as a rallying cry by protesters from around the country who came to Ferguson, Mo. after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer.

Interview Highlights
On tensions about who speaks for the movement
"I think there's been a conflict that's played itself out publicly in terms of the people who founded the idea or came up with the name and the people who really did the pivotal work on the ground in Ferguson. In some ways, it's an entity that has two births. It's conceived after one tragedy and really comes to fruition after another. And we've talked about the Internet and social media and the ways that those things have really revolutionized and changed the way social activism happens. In some ways that's a plus, but it can be a really big liability as well because a good bit of the conflict between the various factions of Black Lives Matter has played itself out in public and on social media...

"A little more recently, Alicia Garza was going to come to St. Louis to give a speech at Webster University, and a great deal of social media chatter erupted about this and whether or not she had any place coming there, and whether it was more appropriate to think of the people who were in St. Louis and Ferguson as the founders. When I spoke to Alicia Garza about it, she said that she got death threats and threats of violence, and she wound up canceling the talk. That became kind of a crucial moment in the history of this organization where a person who is organizing about African-Americans and their lives is really not giving a talk because of threats to her own."
On how earlier ideas of leadership don't necessarily work for this movement
"We associate whole blocks of history with W.E.B. Du Bois or Booker T. Washington or Malcolm X or Dr. King. Entire constellations of history are distilled down to two individuals, almost always male. There's been a certain kind of fatigue, and Black Lives Matter represents that. They find a more horizontal ethic of leadership to be more important, and they find inspiration from Ella Baker, who was one of the most central figures of the civil rights movement in - partly due to her belief in kind of grassroots and local leadership in her aversion to the spotlight. Her story wasn't as well known. And so they have kind of resurrected her idea that it's better to have 10,000 candles than a single spotlight."
On who Black Lives Matter represents
"Movements tend to pick up where the last one left off. When people look back at the civil rights movement, one of the most glaring shortcomings that emerges is in many ways the marginalization of women within the movement or things like Bayard Rustin, who was the pivotal organizer of the March on Washington, but also faced discrimination as a gay black man. Those are the things that Black Lives Matter look at and say, we want to not replicate those things. We want to not replicate the errors of the past."
On the effects of having a diffuse organization
"When I talked with Alicia Garza, she was very clear about making a distinction between Black Lives Matter the organization and Black Lives Matter as a movement. But it's been almost kind of like a franchising effect. The fact that there's a low barrier to entry has been useful when there are people who have never participated in a political protest before and they're willing to come out and say, 'OK, I can be part of this Black Lives Matter thing, and I agree with, you know, what's happening here.' At the same time, it makes it a little bit more difficult to have a kind of discipline within the ranks. And then you have a third element, which is the tendency of people to refer to any statement by a disgruntled black person as...connected to Black Lives Matter."
On where Black Lives Matter could go from here
"I don't think it's easy to predict these things. But one of the things that I think we ought to take note of is the circumstances that allow Black Lives Matter to flourish. One is the existence of a black presidency and these sorts of egregious racial problems continuing in the context of a black presidency, which contributed to a climate of frustration. And we're in the last year of the Obama presidency, and so that will change. In addition to that, precisely because we're in an election year, we've seen the movement to be able to leverage influence and - helping to shape and push the direction in which these two candidates on the Democratic side, at least, are moving. I don't think that necessarily will happen after the presidential election. Or at least it's not as easily achieved."
On the distance between the political process and everyday realities
"It's not necessarily that the black president is not doing more, because I don't think it all lays at President Obama's feet. I think it's the frustration of having both of these circumstances coexist, that you can be represented at the most powerful level of electoral politics and you can have incidents like the death of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman. Those two things are fully capable of coexisting."

The full interview with Cobb can be found here.

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Jelani Cobb On His Epic 'New Yorker' Piece On Black Lives Matter

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Before Black Lives Matter was a hashtag, before it was a slogan chanted by protesters in cities across the country, before it was a national movement, it was a Facebook post by an Oakland-based activist named Alicia Garza. She wrote it after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

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Angela Davis, Stokely Carmichael & the birth of a movement, seen from Swedish journalists

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The internet is loaded with productions like this with varying takes on the book. I think this one makes for an interesting preview.

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Explore a movement through hashtags

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Tweets by Blklivesmatter

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Concerning the trial of officers who beat Rodney King, their acquittal, and the urban uprising that followed

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Here's a look back at seven key moments from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when Angelenos saw protesters take to the streets in anger over the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial.

THE VERDICT
After seven days of deliberations, four white LAPD officers -- Sgt. Stacey Koon and officers Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell and Timothy Wind -- were acquitted on April 29, 1992, of almost all charges in the beating of Rodney King. The jury was deadlocked on one assault count involving Powell.

ABC7 photographer Stephen Coleman was outside the Simi Valley courthouse, where an angry crowd gathered after the verdicts were read. Soon after, an angry Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley denounced the verdict as "senseless," declaring, "The jury's verdict will never blind the world to what we saw on the videotape."

FLORENCE AND NORMANDIE
Violence erupted in South Central L.A. following the verdict. Residents exploded in anger, burning and looting stores by the hundreds and attacking non-black passers-by. When a truck tried to get through the intersection of Florence and Normandie avenues, rioters pulled driver Reginald Denny out of the vehicle, brutally beating him.

Bobby Green, a black truck driver watching the violence unfold on television, saw Denny being attacked and quickly headed to the scene. He and others helped push Denny back into his truck's cab, and then Green drove him to the hospital, saving his life. Later, despite threats and insults from the community, he testified against Denny's attackers.

FIRST AME CHURCH
Thousands of people gathered at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles on the first night of the riots.

"We encourage you to express your outrage and your anger verbally," Bradley told the crowd that night. "We don't want you to resort to violence. That would only destroy every positive thing that we have been doing."

KOREANS PROTECT BUSINESSES
Koreans armed themselves to defend businesses being looted during the riots. Cameras were rolling when shots were fired between rioters and Koreans, who were positioned at storefronts and rooftops.

Koreatown was one of the hardest hit single areas in the riots. Adding to the tension between African Americans and Korean Americans was the killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins by grocer Soon Ja Du - only two weeks after the Rodney King beating. Many say it underscored the resentment felt toward the Korean American shop owners and made them a target.

More than 2,000 Korean families were affected, according to the Korean-American coalition, and nearly half the total dollar loss incurred during the riots were to Korean-American businesses.

NATIONAL GUARD
As Mayor Tom Bradley declared a state of emergency, Gov. Pete Wilson called in National Guard troops to South Central L.A.

"I never thought I would do this in my Marine Corps career, never. I mean, protecting American soil from Americans themselves," one Marine told ABC7 on camera.

EDWARD JAMES OLMOS
Actor Edward James Olmos called for the public to help sweep the streets of L.A. While ABC7's Marc Brown interviewed a group of young people, Olmos said to them on air, "Ask him if he could join me tomorrow by picking up a broom. I'm going to be out on the streets tomorrow of Los Angeles starting the cleanup."

The next day, Olmos led a group of people chanting "stop the violence" and began sweeping the streets.

"This is the images that our children should be seeing of us trying desperately hard, children and people of all different colors coming out here to help clean this place up," Olmos said.

RODNEY KING
On the third day of the riot, Rodney King made an emotional plea for peace, appearing before TV cameras to ask in a trembling voice, "Can we all get along?"

Three months after their acquittals in criminal court, LAPD Sgt. Stacey Koon and Officers Laurence Powell, Theodore Briseno and Timothy Wind were indicted on federal charges of violating King's civil rights, and Koon and Powell were eventually convicted and sentenced to 2.5 years in prison.

The city of Los Angeles paid King $3.8 million for medical bills, pain and suffering sustained as a result of the beating.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Here's a look back at seven key moments from the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when Angelenos saw protesters take to the streets in anger over the verdict in the Rodney King beating trial. THE VERDICT After seven days of deliberations, four white LAPD officers -- Sgt.

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A poem

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Harlem by Langston Hughes | Poetry Foundation

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Huey P. Newton was an African-American activist best known for founding the militant Black Panther Party with Bobby Seale in 1966. Learn more about his career and tumultuous life at Biography.com.

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Theme song (full)

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The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air Theme Song (Full)

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Mothers of the Movement speak to the DNC, 2016

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Mothers of the Movement speak to the DNC, 2016

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The mothers of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Mike Brown, Hadiya Pendleton, Dontré Hamilton and Sandra Bland address the Democratic National Convention

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Full speech: 'Mothers of the Movement' address 2016 DNC

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The Atlantic article about the history of gun control, its intersection with race, the Black Panther Party...

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The Atlantic article about the history of gun control, its intersection with race, the Black Panther Party...

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A heads up that this is long, complex, takes a bit to process...

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The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership-and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers-the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement. In the battle over gun rights in America, both sides have distorted history and the law, and there's no resolution in sight.

AP

The eighth-grade studentsgathering on the west lawn of the state capitol in Sacramento were planning to lunch on fried chicken with California's new governor, Ronald Reagan, and then tour the granite building constructed a century earlier to resemble the nation's Capitol. But the festivities were interrupted by the arrival of 30 young black men and women carrying .357 Magnums, 12-gauge shotguns, and .45-caliber pistols.

The 24 men and six women climbed the capitol steps, and one man, Bobby Seale, began to read from a prepared statement. "The American people in general and the black people in particular," he announced, must

take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping the black people disarmed and powerless Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black people The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.

Seale then turned to the others. "All right, brothers, come on. We're going inside." He opened the door, and the radicals walked straight into the state's most important government building, loaded guns in hand. No metal detectors stood in their way.

It was May 2, 1967, and the Black Panthers' invasion of the California statehouse launched the modern gun-rights movement.

* * *

The text ofthe Second Amendment is maddeningly ambiguous. It merely says, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Yet to each side in the gun debate, those words are absolutely clear.

Gun-rights supporters believe the amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms and outlaws most gun control. Hard-line gun-rights advocates portray even modest gun laws as infringements on that right and oppose widely popular proposals-such as background checks for all gun purchasers-on the ground that any gun-control measure, no matter how seemingly reasonable, puts us on the slippery slope toward total civilian disarmament.

This attitude was displayed on the side of the National Rifle Association's former headquarters: THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. The first clause of the Second Amendment, the part about "a well regulated Militia," was conveniently omitted. To the gun lobby, the Second Amendment is all rights and no regulation.

Although decades of electoral defeats have moderated the gun-control movement's stated goals, advocates still deny that individual Americans have any constitutional right to own guns. The Second Amendment, in their view, protects only state militias. Too politically weak to force disarmament on the nation, gun-control hard-liners support any new law that has a chance to be enacted, however unlikely that law is to reduce gun violence. For them, the Second Amendment is all regulation and no rights.

While the two sides disagree on the meaning of the Second Amendment, they share a similar view of the right to bear arms: both see such a right as fundamentally inconsistent with gun control, and believe we must choose one or the other. Gun rights and gun control, however, have lived together since the birth of the country. Americans have always had the right to keep and bear arms as a matter of state constitutional law. Today, 43 of the 50 state constitutions clearly protect an individual's right to own guns, apart from militia service.

Yet we've also always had gun control. The Founding Fathers instituted gun laws so intrusive that, were they running for office today, the NRA would not endorse them. While they did not care to completely disarm the citizenry, the founding generation denied gun ownership to many people: not only slaves and free blacks, but law-abiding white men who refused to swear loyalty to the Revolution.

For those men who were allowed to own guns, the Founders had their own version of the "individual mandate" that has proved so controversial in President Obama's health-care-reform law: they required the purchase of guns. A 1792 federal law mandated every eligible man to purchase a military-style gun and ammunition for his service in the citizen militia. Such men had to report for frequent musters-where their guns would be inspected and, yes, registered on public rolls.

* * *

Opposition to gun control was what drove the black militants to visit the California capitol with loaded weapons in hand. The Black Panther Party had been formed six months earlier, in Oakland, by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. Like many young African Americans, Newton and Seale were frustrated with the failed promise of the civil-rights movement. Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were legal landmarks, but they had yet to deliver equal opportunity. In Newton and Seale's view, the only tangible outcome of the civil-rights movement had been more violence and oppression, much of it committed by the very entity meant to protect and serve the public: the police.

Inspired by the teachings of Malcolm X, Newton and Seale decided to fight back. Before he was assassinated in 1965, Malcolm X had preached against Martin Luther King Jr.'s brand of nonviolent resistance. Because the government was "either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property" of blacks, he said, they had to defend themselves "by whatever means necessary." Malcolm X illustrated the idea for Ebony magazine by posing for photographs in suit and tie, peering out a window with an M-1 carbine semiautomatic in hand. Malcolm X and the Panthers described their right to use guns in self-defense in constitutional terms. "Article number two of the constitutional amendments," Malcolm X argued, "provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun."

Guns became central to the Panthers' identity, as they taught their early recruits that "the gun is the only thing that will free us-gain us our liberation." They bought some of their first guns with earnings from selling copies of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book to students at the University of California at Berkeley. In time, the Panther arsenal included machine guns; an assortment of rifles, handguns, explosives, and grenade launchers; and "boxes and boxes of ammunition," recalled Elaine Brown, one of the party's first female members, in her 1992 memoir. Some of this matériel came from the federal government: one member claimed he had connections at Camp Pendleton, in Southern California, who would sell the Panthers anything for the right price. One Panther bragged that, if they wanted, they could have bought an M48 tank and driven it right up the freeway.

Along with providing classes on black nationalism and socialism, Newton made sure recruits learned how to clean, handle, and shoot guns. Their instructors were sympathetic black veterans, recently home from Vietnam. For their "righteous revolutionary struggle," the Panthers were trained, as well as armed, however indirectly, by the U.S. government.

Civil-rights activists, even those committed to nonviolent resistance, had long appreciated the value of guns for self-protection. Martin Luther King Jr. applied for a permit to carry a concealed firearm in 1956, after his house was bombed. His application was denied, but from then on, armed supporters guarded his home. One adviser, Glenn Smiley, described the King home as "an arsenal." William Worthy, a black reporter who covered the civil-rights movement, almost sat on a loaded gun in a living-room armchair during a visit to King's parsonage.

The Panthers, however, took it to an extreme, carrying their guns in public, displaying them for everyone-especially the police-to see. Newton had discovered, during classes at San Francisco Law School, that California law allowed people to carry guns in public so long as they were visible, and not pointed at anyone in a threatening way.

In February of 1967, Oakland police officers stopped a car carrying Newton, Seale, and several other Panthers with rifles and handguns. When one officer asked to see one of the guns, Newton refused. "I don't have to give you anything but my identification, name, and address," he insisted. This, too, he had learned in law school.

"Who in the hell do you think you are?" an officer responded.

"Who in the hell do you think you are?," Newton replied indignantly. He told the officer that he and his friends had a legal right to have their firearms.

Newton got out of the car, still holding his rifle.

"What are you going to do with that gun?" asked one of the stunned policemen.

"What are you going to do with your gun?," Newton replied.

By this time, the scene had drawn a crowd of onlookers. An officer told the bystanders to move on, but Newton shouted at them to stay. California law, he yelled, gave civilians a right to observe a police officer making an arrest, so long as they didn't interfere. Newton played it up for the crowd. In a loud voice, he told the police officers, "If you try to shoot at me or if you try to take this gun, I'm going to shoot back at you, swine." Although normally a black man with Newton's attitude would quickly find himself handcuffed in the back of a police car, enough people had gathered on the street to discourage the officers from doing anything rash. Because they hadn't committed any crime, the Panthers were allowed to go on their way.

The people who'd witnessed the scene were dumbstruck. Not even Bobby Seale could believe it. Right then, he said, he knew that Newton was the "baddest motherfucker in the world." Newton's message was clear: "The gun is where it's at and about and in." After the February incident, the Panthers began a regular practice of policing the police. Thanks to an army of new recruits inspired to join up when they heard about Newton's bravado, groups of armed Panthers would drive around following police cars. When the police stopped a black person, the Panthers would stand off to the side and shout out legal advice.

Don Mulford, a conservative Republican state assemblyman from Alameda County, which includes Oakland, was determined to end the Panthers' police patrols. To disarm the Panthers, he proposed a law that would prohibit the carrying of a loaded weapon in any California city. When Newton found out about this, he told Seale, "You know what we're going to do? We're going to the Capitol." Seale was incredulous. "The Capitol?" Newton explained: "Mulford's there, and they're trying to pass a law against our guns, and we're going to the Capitol steps." Newton's plan was to take a select group of Panthers "loaded down to the gills," to send a message to California lawmakers about the group's opposition to any new gun control.

ThePanthers' methodsprovoked an immediate backlash. The day of their statehouse protest, lawmakers said the incident would speed enactment of Mulford's gun-control proposal. Mulford himself pledged to make his bill even tougher, and he added a provision barring anyone but law enforcement from bringing a loaded firearm into the state capitol.

Republicans in California eagerly supported increased gun control. Governor Reagan told reporters that afternoon that he saw "no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons." He called guns a "ridiculous way to solve problems that have to be solved among people of good will." In a later press conference, Reagan said he didn't "know of any sportsman who leaves his home with a gun to go out into the field to hunt or for target shooting who carries that gun loaded." The Mulford Act, he said, "would work no hardship on the honest citizen."

The fear inspired by black people with guns also led the United States Congress to consider new gun restrictions, after the summer of 1967 brought what the historian Harvard Sitkoff called the "most intense and destructive wave of racial violence the nation had ever witnessed." Devastating riots engulfed Detroit and Newark. Police and National Guardsmen who tried to help restore order were greeted with sniper fire.

A 1968 federal report blamed the unrest at least partly on the easy availability of guns. Because rioters used guns to keep law enforcement at bay, the report's authors asserted that a recent spike in firearms sales and permit applications was "directly related to the actuality and prospect of civil disorders." They drew "the firm conclusion that effective firearms controls are an essential contribution to domestic peace and tranquility."

Political will in Congress reached the critical point around this time. In April of 1968, James Earl Ray, a virulent racist, used a Remington Gamemaster deer rifle to kill Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. King's assassination-and the sniper fire faced by police trying to quell the resulting riots-gave gun-control advocates a vivid argument. Two months later, a man wielding a .22-caliber Iver Johnson Cadet revolver shot Robert F. Kennedy in Los Angeles. The very next day, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, the first federal gun-control law in 30 years. Months later, the Gun Control Act of 1968 amended and enlarged it.

Together, these laws greatly expanded the federal licensing system for gun dealers and clarified which people-including anyone previously convicted of a felony, the mentally ill, illegal-drug users, and minors-were not allowed to own firearms. More controversially, the laws restricted importation of "Saturday Night Specials"-the small, cheap, poor-quality handguns so named by Detroit police for their association with urban crime, which spiked on weekends. Because these inexpensive pistols were popular in minority communities, one critic said the new federal gun legislation "was passed not to control guns but to control blacks."

* * *

Indisputably, for muchof American history, gun-control measures, like many other laws, were used to oppress African Americans. The South had long prohibited blacks, both slave and free, from owning guns. In the North, however, at the end of the Civil War, the Union army allowed soldiers of any color to take home their rifles. Even blacks who hadn't served could buy guns in the North, amid the glut of firearms produced for the war. President Lincoln had promised a "new birth of freedom," but many blacks knew that white Southerners were not going to go along easily with such a vision. As one freedman in Louisiana recalled, "I would say to every colored soldier, 'Bring your gun home.'"

After losing the Civil War, Southern states quickly adopted the Black Codes, laws designed to reestablish white supremacy by dictating what the freedmen could and couldn't do. One common provision barred blacks from possessing firearms. To enforce the gun ban, white men riding in posses began terrorizing black communities. In January 1866, Harper's Weekly reported that in Mississippi, such groups had "seized every gun and pistol found in the hands of the (so called) freedmen" in parts of the state. The most infamous of these disarmament posses, of course, was the Ku Klux Klan.

* * *

In response to the Black Codes and the mounting atrocities against blacks in the former Confederacy, the North sought to reaffirm the freedmen's constitutional rights, including their right to possess guns. General Daniel E. Sickles, the commanding Union officer enforcing Reconstruction in South Carolina, ordered in January 1866 that "the constitutional rights of all loyal and well-disposed inhabitants to bear arms will not be infringed." When South Carolinians ignored Sickles's order and others like it, Congress passed the Freedmen's Bureau Act of July 1866, which assured ex-slaves the "full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings concerning personal liberty ... including the constitutional right to bear arms."

That same year, Congress passed the nation's first Civil Rights Act, which defined the freedmen as United States citizens and made it a federal offense to deprive them of their rights on the basis of race. Senator James Nye, a supporter of both laws, told his colleagues that the freedmen now had an "equal right to protection, and to keep and bear arms for self-defense." President Andrew Johnson vetoed both laws. Congress overrode the vetoes and eventually made Johnson the first president to be impeached.

One prosecutor in the impeachment trial, Representative John Bingham of Ohio, thought that the only way to protect the freedmen's rights was to amend the Constitution. Southern attempts to deny blacks equal rights, he said, were turning the Constitution-"a sublime and beautiful scripture-into a horrid charter of wrong." In December of 1865, Bingham had proposed what would become the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Among its provisions was a guarantee that all citizens would be secure in their fundamental rights:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The key phrase, in Bingham's view, was privileges or immunities of citizens -and those "privileges or immunities," he said, were "chiefly defined in the first eight amendments to the Constitution." Jacob Howard of Michigan, the principal sponsor of Bingham's amendment in the Senate, reminded his colleagues that these amendments guaranteed "the freedom of speech and of the press," "the right to be exempt from unreasonable searches and seizures," and "the right to keep and bear arms."

Whether or not the Founding Fathers thought the Second Amendment was primarily about state militias, the men behind the Fourteenth Amendment-America's most sacred and significant civil-rights law-clearly believed that the right of individuals to have guns for self-defense was an essential element of citizenship. As the Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar has observed, "Between 1775 and 1866 the poster boy of arms morphed from the Concord minuteman to the Carolina freedman."

The Fourteenth Amendment illustrates a common dynamic in America's gun culture: extremism stirs a strong reaction. The aggressive Southern effort to disarm the freedmen prompted a constitutional amendment to better protect their rights. A hundred years later, the Black Panthers' brazen insistence on the right to bear arms led whites, including conservative Republicans, to support new gun control. Then the pendulum swung back. The gun-control laws of the late 1960s, designed to restrict the use of guns by urban black leftist radicals, fueled the rise of the present-day gun-rights movement-one that, in an ironic reversal, is predominantly white, rural, and politically conservative.

Today, the NRA is the unquestioned leader in the fight against gun control. Yet the organization didn't always oppose gun regulation. Founded in 1871 by George Wingate and William Church-the latter a former reporter for a newspaper now known for hostility to gun rights, The New York Times -the group first set out to improve American soldiers' marksmanship. Wingate and Church had fought for the North in the Civil War and been shocked by the poor shooting skills of city-bred Union soldiers.

In the 1920s and '30s, the NRA was at the forefront of legislative efforts to enact gun control. The organization's president at the time was Karl T. Frederick, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated lawyer known as "the best shot in America"-a title he earned by winning three gold medals in pistol-shooting at the 1920 Summer Olympic Games. As a special consultant to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, Frederick helped draft the Uniform Firearms Act, a model of state-level gun-control legislation. (Since the turn of the century, lawyers and public officials had increasingly sought to standardize the patchwork of state laws. The new measure imposed more order-and, in most cases, far more restrictions.)

Frederick's model law had three basic elements. The first required that no one carry a concealed handgun in public without a permit from the local police. A permit would be granted only to a "suitable" person with a "proper reason for carrying" a firearm. Second, the law required gun dealers to report to law enforcement every sale of a handgun, in essence creating a registry of small arms. Finally, the law imposed a two-day waiting period on handgun sales.

The NRA today condemns every one of these provisions as a burdensome and ineffective infringement on the right to bear arms. Frederick, however, said in 1934 that he did "not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses." The NRA's executive vice president at the time, Milton A. Reckord, told a congressional committee that his organization was "absolutely favorable to reasonable legislation." According to Frederick, the NRA "sponsored" the Uniform Firearms Act and promoted it nationwide. Highlighting the political strength of the NRA even back then, a 1932 Virginia Law Review article reported that laws requiring a license to carry a concealed weapon were already "in effect in practically every jurisdiction."

When Congress was considering the first significant federal gun law of the 20th century-the National Firearms Act of 1934, which imposed a steep tax and registration requirements on "gangster guns" like machine guns and sawed-off shotguns-the NRA endorsed the law. Karl Frederick and the NRA did not blindly support gun control; indeed, they successfully pushed to have similar prohibitive taxes on handguns stripped from the final bill, arguing that people needed such weapons to protect their homes. Yet the organization stood firmly behind what Frederick called "reasonable, sensible, and fair legislation."

One thing conspicuously missing from Frederick's comments about gun control was the Second Amendment. When asked during his testimony on the National Firearms Act whether the proposed law violated "any constitutional provision," he responded, "I have not given it any study from that point of view." In other words, the president of the NRA hadn't even considered whether the most far-reaching federal gun-control legislation in history conflicted with the Second Amendment. Preserving the ability of law-abiding people to have guns, Frederick would write elsewhere, "lies in an enlightened public sentiment and in intelligent legislative action. It is not to be found in the Constitution."

In the 1960s, the NRA once again supported the push for new federal gun laws. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald, who had bought his gun through a mail-order ad in the NRA's American Rifleman magazine, Franklin Orth, then the NRA's executive vice president, testified in favor of banning mail-order rifle sales. "We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States." Orth and the NRA didn't favor stricter proposals, like national gun registration, but when the final version of the Gun Control Act was adopted in 1968, Orth stood behind the legislation. While certain features of the law, he said, "appear unduly restrictive and unjustified in their application to law-abiding citizens, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with."

* * *

A growing group ofrank-and-file NRA members disagreed. In an era of rising crime rates, fewer people were buying guns for hunting, and more were buying them for protection. The NRA leadership didn't fully grasp the importance of this shift. In 1976, Maxwell Rich, the executive vice president, announced that the NRA would sell its building in Washington, D.C., and relocate the headquarters to Colorado Springs, retreating from political lobbying and expanding its outdoor and environmental activities.

Rich's plan sparked outrage among the new breed of staunch, hard-line gun-rights advocates. The dissidents were led by a bald, blue-eyed bulldog of a man named Harlon Carter, who ran the NRA's recently formed lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. In May 1977, Carter and his allies staged a coup at the annual membership meeting. Elected the new executive vice president, Carter would transform the NRA into a lobbying powerhouse committed to a more aggressive view of what the Second Amendment promises to citizens.

The new NRA was not only responding to the wave of gun-control laws enacted to disarm black radicals; it also shared some of the Panthers' views about firearms. Both groups valued guns primarily as a means of self-defense. Both thought people had a right to carry guns in public places, where a person was easily victimized, and not just in the privacy of the home. They also shared a profound mistrust of law enforcement. (For years, the NRA has demonized government agents, like those in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency that enforces gun laws, as "jack-booted government thugs." Wayne LaPierre, the current executive vice president, warned members in 1995 that anyone who wears a badge has "the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens.") For both the Panthers in 1967 and the new NRA after 1977, law-enforcement officers were too often representatives of an uncaring government bent on disarming ordinary citizens.

A sign of the NRA's new determination to influence electoral politics was the 1980 decision to endorse, for the first time in the organization's 100 years, a presidential candidate. Their chosen candidate was none other than Ronald Reagan, who more than a decade earlier had endorsed Don Mulford's law to disarm the Black Panthers-a law that had helped give Reagan's California one of the strictest gun-control regimes in the nation. Reagan's views had changed considerably since then, and the NRA evidently had forgiven his previous support of vigorous gun control.

* * *

In 2008, in a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the government cannot ever completely disarm the citizenry. In District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court clearly held, for the first time, that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a gun. In an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court declared unconstitutional several provisions of the District's unusually strict gun-control law, including its ban on handguns and its prohibition of the use of long guns for self-defense. Indeed, under D.C.'s law, you could own a shotgun, but you could not use it to defend yourself against a rapist climbing through your bedroom window.

Gun-rights groups trumpeted the ruling as the crowning achievement of the modern gun-rights movement and predicted certain victory in their war to end gun control. Their opponents criticized the Court's opinion as right-wing judicial activism that would call into question most forms of gun control and lead inevitably to more victims of gun violence.

So far, at least, neither side's predictions have come true. The courts have been inundated with lawsuits challenging nearly every type of gun regulation; in the three years since the Supreme Court's decision, lower courts have issued more than 200 rulings on the constitutionality of gun control. In a disappointment to the gun-rights community, nearly all laws have been upheld.

The lower courts consistently point to one paragraph in particular from the Heller decision. Nothing in the opinion, Scalia wrote, should

be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.

This paragraph from the pen of Justice Scalia, the foremost proponent of constitutional originalism, was astounding. True, the Founders imposed gun control, but they had no laws resembling Scalia's list of Second Amendment exceptions. They had no laws banning guns in sensitive places, or laws prohibiting the mentally ill from possessing guns, or laws requiring commercial gun dealers to be licensed. Such restrictions are products of the 20th century. Justice Scalia, in other words, embraced a living Constitution. In this, Heller is a fine reflection of the ironies and contradictions-and the selective use of the past-that run throughout America's long history with guns.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

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The Ku Klux Klan, Ronald Reagan, and, for most of its history, the NRA all worked to control guns. The Founding Fathers? They required gun ownership-and regulated it. And no group has more fiercely advocated the right to bear loaded weapons in public than the Black Panthers-the true pioneers of the modern pro-gun movement.

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Writing, photos, podcasts by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

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EMMETT TILL PROJECT Commemorating the 60th anniversary of the 1955 murder and trial of Emmett Louis Till

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A Coretta Scott King and Printz honor book now in paperback. A Wreath for Emmett Till is "A moving elegy," says The Bulletin.In 1955 people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.

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A book about Emmett Till's death and the court case around it

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A book about Emmett Till's death and the court case around it

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Revised and updated with new information, this Jane Adams award winner is an in-depth examination of the Emmett Till murder case, a catalyst of the Civil Rights Movement. The kidnapping and violent murder of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 was and is a uniquely American tragedy.

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live performance in Chicago

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Marvin Gaye : What's Going On - What's Happening Brother (Live 1972)

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The photograph of Emmett Till's body

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100 Photographs | The Most Influential Images of All Time

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How The Horrific Photograph Of Emmett Till Helped Energize The Civil Rights Movement

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The controversial photograph of Till's corpse inpsired the early civil rights movement

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Short video with Dr. Leonard Moore, UT History Prof

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Short video with Dr. Leonard Moore, UT History Prof

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Moore's History of the Black Power Movement

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Tupac album that inspired the title of the book

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More about the movement and hastag

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Say Her Name Vigil In Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed By The Police, May 20th 2015, Union Square, NY The African American Policy Forum Photos by Mia Fermindoza

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You know, this is just a small reference in the novel, but it won't hurt you to know more about Jodeci.

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In 2015, there is one question at the crux of any Jodeci interview, and as soon as the group arrived at The FADER's New York office in March, I knew I wasn't going to get a definitive answer. Jodeci is comprised of two sets of brothers-Cedric and Joel Hailey (also known as K-Ci and JoJo) and Donald and Dalvin Degrate (also known as DeVante Swing and Mr. Dalvin)-but only half of either pairing, just K-Ci and Mr. Dalvin, had shown up. As they sat across from me, being tended to by a makeup artist, I wondered the very thing I had asked myself countless times over the years: what happened?

K-Ci was wearing head-to-toe black, including the leather bike jacket, backwards cap, and Timberland Super Boots signature to the Jodeci look; he looked like he'd wandered off set from a video shoot. Though he and Mr. Dalvin were both wearing sunglasses indoors, Dalvin looked far more pedestrian: hatless in a forest green peacoat, dark fitted denim, and a pair of Lebron James' signature model Nikes. In the YouTube video of the radio show they'd recorded earlier that morning, it appears that JoJo, who decided to sit this afternoon's proceedings out, looks every bit the grandfather he'd told the radio crew he relishes being, unashamed of his graying sideburns. Devante, who K-Ci and Dalvin tell me is home in L.A. and doesn't travel this far due to an anxiety for flying, can be seen in some more recent pictures on internet sporting a giant tattoo on the right side of his face.

Jodeci were once known as the "bad boys of R&B," notable particularly because they were actually boys at the time, breaking out as teenagers in 1991 with their debut album and its title ballad, "Forever My Lady." Natives of North Carolina, they were discovered by Heavy D, who overheard their demo when an A&R at Uptown was in the process of passing on them. Heavy D introduced Jodeci to Uptown founder Andre Harrell, who signed them after they sang in his office, and handed them off to his then-protégé Puff Daddy, who outfitted the group in dark shades and coordinating leather ensembles. The look, along with the streetwise soul found in songs like "Cry 4 U" and "Feenin" (as well as a few run-ins with the law) made them the antithesis to good-guy personas of then-peaking R&B superstars Boyz II Men. Devante, who along with Mr. Dalvin held down production duties for the group, founded the Swing Mob, a collective responsible for the discovery of musical geniuses like Timbaland, Missy Elliott, and Static Major.

As a group, Jodeci would go on to release three critically-acclaimed album in the '90s, before disappearing from the limelight. K-Ci and JoJo splintered off as a duo in 1997, producing hit single"All My Life" and, eventually, five albums, but adoring fans never let go of their Jodeci obsession. And some 20 years after their vanishing, artists from Raheem DeVaughn to Justin Bieber continue to express a deep admiration. Drake's tapped old Jodeci songs for samples on more than one occasion. In March, the group released The Past, The Present, The Future, the first Jodeci album in two decades. To celebrate its release, we talked about why Jodeci was put on pause all those years ago, and why it's finally time to start again.

Do you ever feel like you get pigeonholed as being a certain type of artist, because when people think about Jodeci, they think about the leather, the black clothes, the 'thugs' of R&B? MR. DALVIN: Not to discredit anybody but that's the ignorance of not knowing. You see a guy with his pants hanging down, he's got a skully, and you scared cause he's black. People have a lifestyle with culture. Jodeci, as many records as we've sold, we've never been invited to the Grammys. Is it because we're too black or what? We stay true to ourselves. We ain't try to conform or reform ourselves to what was standard of R&B [was]. We stuck by our guns.

I remember an interview with an R&B singer in the early 2000s where he complained that labels thought his music was "too black" to market. Did y'all encounter resistance like that? K-CI: We never got that because we came into the game with the soulful, black or whatever you wanna call it [sound]. It's a shame man. I'm not racist but how can you say a white singer is being labeled as the most soulful singer out right now? You know who I'm talking about, right? The man who did something with Mary [J. Blige]. DALVIN: Sam Smith. K-CI: When I heard that, I was like, Yeah, it's time [for Jodeci to come back].

Do all the current Jodeci references reach you? Like when Kanye West was announcing that Kim Kardashian was pregnant and he sang "Forever My Lady?" DALVIN: Is that right?

He had a concert, and that was the announcement. Him singing "So you're having my baby," was him telling the world that Kim was pregnant. K-CI: A rapper singing to his lady on stage, supposed to be all hardcore and he's singing Jodeci! Everyone can relate to it. It's cool.

Jodeci's history and legacy is cemented. So what does it mean for you to be coming out with music right now? DALVIN: We're going to weather the storm as long as we want to. A lot of artists, I find, they just release music, release music until they get the right one, the right single. It gets oversaturated, people are tired of you. We don't just put songs out to put songs out, we don't just make albums just to make albums. Take your time, that's what we do. Methodically sit down. We got bodies of work that will mean something.

Do we call this a reunion? No, because we never broke up. That was the misconception people had. Jodeci never broke up. We just stopped putting out records. We went through a transitional period where the business changed, music changed, and we just stepped back.

I'm a little younger. So for me, I remember there was Jodeci, and then there wasn't. DALVIN: The last thing we released was "Get On Up." You know, hip-hop became a dominant force in radio. Everything was rap, rap, rap. R&B started fading to the back. We just left it at that. But we stayed relevant because every artist, anybody from Usher to Justin Bieber was saying 'Jodeci this' and 'Jodeci that.' And Drake. Artists that are really relevant kept the name alive.

How long have you guys been making music for this latest project? DALVIN: We've been making music forever. We never stopped.

You guys never stopped making music together? DALVIN: Never stopped making music together since day one. We got hundreds of songs we recorded. But for this project we took time and created new songs. It's not like we dug way back into 1982 and brought some of that older music out.

As far as when Jodeci stopped releasing music, was that a conscious decision, was there an actual conversation about it? DALVIN: Hip-hop was dominating the radio and we saw some of our favorite R&B artists getting pushed to the side. We did the merger with Wu-Tang and we stayed relevant for a long time. Then it was like, let's just let the hip-hop era come through.

Did the label have anything to say about it? DALVIN: Whenever there's money involved they're like, 'Don't stop, Let's bleed it dry!' At the end of the day, if you squeeze a lemon and all the juice is out, there's no more lemon left. Save the juice. Let it marinate. You don't need to try to force something.

Would there have been anyone who could have convinced ya'll to keep going? DALVIN: Not at the time.

Did you expect K-Ci and JoJo to work as a duo for so long? K-CI: Before Jodeci came out, years ago, it was Devante's idea that K-Ci and JoJo do a duet album. That's long before we had a record deal. 'When Jodeci blow up man, I think ya'll should do a Hailey brothers album.' So we did that. The first one was successful, and we came back and said D, you ready? He said 'Nah, do another one.' We did that one, came back and said D, you ready? 'Nah, I ain't ready yet.' Him and Dalvin, they wasn't ready yet, so we just kept on going till guys said 'Alright, now it's time.' Even me and JoJo [would] talk about putting K-Ci and JoJo to the side and get this thing going with Jodeci because we was ready for Jodeci. We was fans. So that's how that was.

We saw K-Ci and JoJo releasing music and even in a reality show. I wish Devante was here, because one of my bigger questions is what were Devante and Dalvin up to for those 20 years? DALVIN: Doing a lot of production. I worked with Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige-producing, writing, and understanding the business of the music. Preparing for Jodeci always.

So to keep up with you, we would've had to check the credits a little harder? DALVIN: You become successful in an outward appearance. Now, behind closed doors, let's be just as successful when you go to the bank. Let's be successful in things you want to achieve in life not only on the stage but off the stage. That's what becomes really important as you become wiser and older in the music business and about the flash and the fast cars, it's about getting your business straight and setting yourself up for the rest of your life. K-CI: We used to live that fast life, but we was young then. We didn't know, we didn't understand, we didn't care. The older you get you see the business part of it. In the beginning it was cars or trying to have a whole bunch of jewelry and girls and stuff, but we see now. Way back in the day though, that that was what it was about.

Would you say you weren't necessarily prepared to deal with the fame the first time around? DALVIN: Nobody is. You're 15, 16 years old and you're thrust into the stardom, there's no classes for that, there's no college for that. You go to college to learn how to be a scientist or a doctor, you go in the music business to get women and get girls. That's what your mentality is.

So what's the concept for the new album? DALVIN: Resurfacing, introducing our new audience. We got a lot of new fans that's coming to us vicariously through other artists. Letting them know what Jodeci is. 'My mom talked about Jodeci, or Usher talked about Jodeci. Let me go back and see, let me Google Jodeci.' It makes it kind of exciting for them to go back and do the history and bring them up to speed. "Every Moment" bridges the gap.

How did you determine that your comeback single would be a song about domestic violence? K-CI: We always like to do a song that means something, not just a song that you can just-we write songs that people can relate to. DALVIN: So you're having my baby," we were 16, 17 year olds singing songs like that. We were singing songs that weren't really standard for R&B. "Freek'n You," it wasn't really standard; "Come & Talk To Me." Though they may be simple at times, they were things that people were scared to say. We didn't follow a format that was R&B, we didn't follow the way R&B was looked at and we changed all that. Back in the day, Jodeci spearheaded the whole AIDS awareness amongst young people out here. Back in '95, we did a whole urban AIDS thing, because people didn't know about safe sex and all of that. We did the Lifebeat Tour Outreach Program and raised money for AIDS awareness.

When you listen the radio today, do you hear music you vibe with? K-CI: I don't listen to the radio that much. I like Chris Brown. He's really about the only one who's doing something right now, to me. I don't knock nobody, but it was just time for us. Radio does play R&B, but its really not R&B when you using that Auto-Tune. That's not real singing and that's what we do. We do real singing.

What's the best possible reception for Jodeci's music now? DALVIN: People that don't even know music, they understand that it's something different, something special. It feels like something more refreshing than turning on the radio and hearing one long song with all the voices sounding the same. The radio sounds like one long song all day. I don't even know who's who anymore. It's like eating fried chicken everyday, and one day somebody bring you rotisserie. It's still chicken. but it's a different chicken.

But real talent is coming back in. We went through a whole cycle, a whole decade where talent didn't even count anymore. If you have a nice ass-if you was a girl you just had to look decent or you're a dude and you take your shirt off, you have a 6 pack, that was enough. 'Ok, you can take good pictures? Come on. Can you sing?' Uh, well nah. 'Well, you alright, you look good.' We went through a decade of that. Talented people couldn't get a record deal to save their life. Let's go with real talent, something that's going to go for long money, not just a quick hit. Jodeci is long money.

Read full story

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This Is What Happened To Jodeci After 20 Years

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In 2015, there is one question at the crux of any Jodeci interview, and as soon as the group arrived at The FADER's New York office in March, I knew I wasn't going to get a definitive answer.

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How Do I Afford To Buy Sneakers? How To Be A Sneakerhead

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My ENTIRE Sneaker Collection https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyrTqtwh4bU The #1 Question I get, Enjoy & Thanks For Watching, Take A Minute and Hit That Thumps Up! Share The Video!

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"If I had a son he'd look like Trayvon. I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves"

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Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas's searing debut novel, The Hate U Give, about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty. The Hate U Give not only has in it some of the most profound and honest writing about the Black Lives Matter movement, but also sports a bold cover that speaks to the nature and the stories of those affected by police brutality and racial discrimination in America. The breathtaking cover and it's artist, Debra Cartwright, is nothing shy of extraordinary. Below learn more about the artist and inspiration behind The Hate U Give cover art.
Add The Hate U Give to your Goodreads shelf!
The Hate U Give Cover Art

"I am a huge fan of Debra Cartwright's, so when I found out she was doing the artwork for the cover I was ecstatic. There is so much I love about it. It's such a great depiction of Starr, right down to her natural hair and her sneakers. We don't see black girls on covers nearly as much as we should, and I am honored that we do see a black girl, in all of her beauty, on mine."- Angie Thomas

The Artist

"It was a dream project to illustrate the cover of The Hate U Give. The multidimensional character Starr fell right in line with my purpose: painting to combat negative media tropes of black women."-Debra Cartwright

At her core, Debra Cartwright is dedicated to spreading black girl magic. From flowers, to watercolor, to collage, to computers, she uses whichever medium necessary to make black women fall in love with themselves and to combat negative media tropes. Cartwright received her bachelor in Art History from University of Virginia then immediately attended Parsons School of design. Since then, she has impressively immersed myself in graphic design, web design, illustration, motion graphics and branding for top publications. Some of her clients include HBO Insecure, McDonalds, Condé Nast, People Magazine, and Essence. You can find her work at Debracartwright.com
Follow Debra Cartwright on Facebook * Instagram * Twitter
The Inspiration

"While reading the manuscript, I had remembered a bold piece of Debra's work that I had seen on Instagram. She has a striking sense of negative space and very timely imagery; I was excited to commission her to make a second piece for the back cover so we could play with black and white backgrounds. Debra knocked it out of the park and delivered powerful illustrations that leant themselves well to the book's potent message." - Jenna Stempel, Sr. Designer at HarperCollins

The inspiration behind the cover for The Hate U Give, much like the inspiration behind the story, stems from the Black Lives Matter movement. While the front jacket art tips its hat to protestors and activists holding up signs of racial equality, the back cover depicts a black hooded figure that reminds us all too much of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed 17 year old black boy who was gunned down by George Zimmerman in 2012. The murder of Trayvon Martin and is considered to be the inciting incident for the Black Lives Matter movement. As author Angie Thomas reminds us, it is rare to see images of black women and men depicted on the cover of well.... anything really. So celebrations are in order for this masterpiece!

More Work By Debra Cartwright

The Hate U Give is on sale February 27th, 2017! Pre-order your copy today! * Barnes & Noble * Target * Books-A-Million * Indie Bound
Add The Hate U Give to your Goodreads shelf! What did you think of Debra Cartwright's work? Tell us in the comments below!
Up Next: The Inspiration Behind The Hate U Give

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The Hate U Give Cover Art Strives To Give Black Girl Magic A Place In Publishing

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Inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, Angie Thomas's searing debut novel, The Hate U Give , about an ordinary girl in extraordinary circumstances addresses issues of racism and police violence with intelligence, heart, and unflinching honesty.

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UT Course taught by Dr. Moore: "The Black Power Movement"

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UT Course taught by Dr. Moore: "The Black Power Movement"

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2011 version

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Kendrick Lamar - Alright (Official Music Video)

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"Fix it Black Jesus" Podcast & Instagram

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"Fix it Black Jesus" Podcast & Instagram

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http://www.fixitblackjesus.com/
https://www.instagram.com/fixitblackjesus/

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"I'm tired of Marvin askin' me what's going on."

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Janelle Monáe - Q.U.E.E.N. feat. Erykah Badu [Official Video]

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New Crop of Young Adult Novels Explores Race and Police Brutality (Published 2017)

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A new generation of authors is embracing writing as activism, tackling issues like racial bias, police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement.

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#intertextuality

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Newspaper says the boy killed by someone,

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The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature

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The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature

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Opinion | The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature

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Books on sexual abuse, dysphoria, racism, gang life, domestic violence and school shootings.

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UTSA Professor calls police on black student with feet on chair

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UTSA Professor calls police on black student with feet on chair

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U. of Texas at San Antonio

In a viral video shared on Monday, a cluster of police officers can be seen huddling in the back of Anita Moss's classroom. A couple of officers appear to have a conversation with Moss, a senior lecturer, who points at a student sitting in a middle row. When approached by one officer, the student calmly stands and gathers her things. She and the officers walk out of the classroom, ending the minute-long video.

So this happened today in class, a girl had her feet up and the professor called the police after calling our class uncivil pic.twitter.com/spq0ShXiFU
- Apurva Rawal (@ApurvaYRawal) November 12, 2018

Apurva Rawal, a student who filmed the interaction at the University of Texas at San Antonio, described what happened in a series of tweets: The student, who was not talking or interrupting the lecture, had her feet up on the seat in front of her, he said. Moss, who took issue with this, stepped out to call the campus police, Rawal said. Moss had just lectured the class on how they were "uncivil" because some students were on their phones and not paying attention, Rawal said.

Moss did not respond to a voicemail or an email seeking comment.

The student responded on Twitter, saying that Moss had told her she needed to leave or she would be escorted out by police officers. "I never disobeyed the student code of conduct. Not once," she said. "A police report is being filed" at the moment, she said. "This is just the beginning." The student also thanked her classmates for standing up for her after she was ushered out. (Under Texas open-records laws, police departments generally have 10 days to release a report.)

This is me in Anita Moss' 2053 Bio classroom. Upon entering class I was told I needed to leave or would be escorted out by officers, I never disobeyed the student code of conduct. Not once. A police report is being filed atm, this is just the beginning. Thanks for your support! https://t.co/YUZGmwgFa7
- pistachio (@FavoritePaigeee) November 12, 2018

On Twitter the video spread quickly. San Antonio students, university alumni, and professors at other institutions chastised Moss for escalating a seemingly benign classroom disagreement. Why, they asked, did the police need to be called at all, especially when a black student was involved?

As a professor I was horrified that this happened to you. If you ever need a scientist in Michigan, I'm your woman.
- Julie Libarkin (@GeoEdResearch) November 13, 2018

It's a question the university will attempt to answer through two investigations. The university's Office of Equal Opportunity Services is investigating possible discrimination, President Taylor Eighmy said in a Monday-afternoon email to the campus. Howard Grimes, interim dean of the College of Sciences, is conducting another inquiry into the "academic management" of the classroom, Eighmy said.

"Beyond this particular incident," the president said, "I am very much aware that the circumstance represents another example of the work we need to do as an institution around issues of inclusivity and supporting our students of color."

In another email sent to the campus, on Tuesday night, Eighmy said Moss's classes would be taught by someone else for the rest of the semester. The affected student has been offered support services, he said.

Regardless of the outcome of the investigations, Eighmy said, the incident demonstrated to him that feelings of marginalization for some students - especially African-American students - are "real and profound." The university needs to hire more faculty, staff, and administrators of color, he said, as well as raise more awareness of how to report potential classroom discrimination.

The local chapter of La Raza Faculty and Administrators Association, a group that seeks to improve the status of Latinos in academe, said in a statement that this "ugly incident" should not be considered in isolation. Rather, the group said, the university needs to face its larger problems in recruiting and retaining black faculty members and academic and student-affairs leaders.

Hiring a vice president for inclusive excellence - a move the university recently announced - is long overdue, the association said. However, the burden of changing campus culture, supporting students of color, and hiring diverse faculty members cannot be placed on one person's shoulders, the association said.

Martina McGhee, a doctoral candidate at the university, echoed the association's concerns on Twitter. "I regularly hear about overt racism our black students are subjected to by faculty," McGhee said. Just yesterday, she said, a student told her that a professor was making derogatory jokes about black women in class. Just because people are experts in an academic field, said McGhee, who studies interdisciplinary learning and teaching, doesn't mean they're experts at teaching.

San Antonio's student body is about 53 percent Hispanic, 24 percent white, and less than 9 percent African-American, according to last year's figures. Vanessa A. Sansone, an assistant professor of higher education at the university, said campus "diversity" can take different forms. And when a campus is diverse in chiefly one or two respects, administrators can be reactive when incidents involving other minority groups occur. "I think that's sometimes where the blinders get put on," she said.
Innocuous Behavior
Black students have long called attention to biased treatment in higher education. In 2015, campus unrest brought widespread awareness to those issues with the hashtag #BlackOnCampus. That year, protests at the University of Missouri at Columbia sparked demonstrations by black students and activists across the country. From the demonstrations arose students' demands, cataloged at www.thedemands.org.

Many of the demands called attention to college and university police departments. Demands included cultural training for officers, allowing students to report incidents of police bias, and stricter guidelines on when and how an officer can make contact with a citizen.

And recently, instances of white people reporting black students to the campus police for innocuous behavior have spreads on social media.

In May a white graduate student at Yale University, Sarah Braasch, called the police on a black graduate student who'd fallen asleep in a common room. The police questioned Lolade Siyonbola for 15 minutes before determining she was, in fact, a Yale student. "I deserve to be here," Siyonbola says in a video of the incident. "I paid tuition like everybody else. I am not going to justify my existence here." Yale officials said they were "deeply troubled" by the incident, The Chronicle reported. The university held "listening sessions." And the police department added training programs to learn how to de-escalate tense situations and avoid implicit bias.

In July an employee at Smith College called the campus police on a black female student who is also a teaching assistant. Oumou Kanoute was eating lunch in a campus common room when someone reported her to the police for seeming to be "out of place."

"I did nothing wrong," Kanoute said in a Facebook post. "I wasn't making any noise or bothering anyone. All I did was be black."

Soon after the incident, the college retained a law firm to investigate. The firm reported that the caller had "provided a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" for contacting the police that day, but also that the campus police had responded to a number of "suspicious person" calls at Smith, only to discover that the person had a reason to be there. The firm issued several recommendations, which Smith said it is considering.

And in October a black graduate student at the Catholic University of America, Juán-Pabló González, videotaped an interaction with an attendant at the law library's circulation desk, Brittany McNurlin, who called the university's police department and complained about an "argumentative student." In the video, González asks McNurlin why she had called the police since he was just "asking questions" about the facility. "I've answered your questions," she says in the video. "You didn't appreciate my answer." Eventually, at least five officers showed up.

The university said in a statement that the desk attendant had followed protocol. When no librarian is available, the statement says, student employees are supposed to bring issues they are "unable to resolve" to the attention of the campus police.

Updated (11/14/2018, 9:50 a.m.) with an additional statement from the university's president.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.

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U. of Texas at San Antonio Investigates After Students Say Lecturer Called Police on Black Classmate

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In a viral video shared on Monday, a cluster of police officers can be seen huddling in the back of Anita Moss's classroom. A couple of officers appear to have a conversation with Moss, a senior lecturer, who points at a student sitting in a middle row.

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Toliver's response to that WSJ Unbearable Darkness article

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Toliver's response to that WSJ Unbearable Darkness article

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(You know her from the Luke Cage reading)

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On August 29, 2018, Steve Salerno wrote an article called The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature in the Wall Street Journal about the dangers of young adult literature that focuses on violence and oppression. He insinuated that various dystopic and truth-telling stories could be an underlying cause for the increase in "modern hopelessness," and he asked, "Are high rates of depression and suicide an organic outgrowth of life's legitimate trials-or are they a crisis manufactured, at least in part, by painting life as so much more trying than it is?" That is, the article asked whether talking about racism, patriarchy, sexual abuse, school shootings, gang life, etc. are contributing to the larger narrative of hopelessness in society.

To bolster his claim, he mentioned the inaugural Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature, held in Las Vegas, Nevada at the University of Las Vegas. He specifically mentions a track of presentations that nominally focused on "Rising up: Socially Relevant Text, Critical Literacy, and Identity," but ensured readers that "rising up" may not be the theme, when authors like Kekla Magoon, Chris Crutcher, and Laurie Halse Anderson, who write books that tackle difficult subjects, are present and discussed. Ultimately, Salerno decides that scholars, educators, librarians, and others should recommend books that make the world sound like it is a great place to be, instead of teaching or recommending books with difficult content. In other words, he advocates that we stop talking about the truth and embrace a false, but more utopian view of the world.

First, I think it should be clear that the nominal focus on "rising up" was actually the title of one presentation given on Thursday afternoon of the conference. With other sessions, like "Writing the Unwritten Rules of High School Sports through YAL," "Coming of Age Around the World: Engaging Global Perspectives through Postcolonial YA Literature," and my own presentation, "(Re)Writing the Future: Helping Students to Analyze the World through Science Fiction," there was much more information being presented than just topics concerning violence and social injustice. Second, I'd like to acknowledge the hard work of the ASU Now journalism team for writing the article from which Salerno probably grabbed his personal quotes from Drs. Alice Hays and James Blasingame.

Attribution of sources and accurateness of discussion aside, I think it is important to discuss the ways in which Salerno's privilege shows in the article. Of course, everyone does not like young adult literature, and some people have stated that the genre is too dark for some teens. However, there are many young people who are growing up in a world where they see darkness every day, whether we want them to or not. Only 21 weeks into 2018, there were 23 school shootings where someone was hurt or killed. Black girls are constantly penalized for wearing box braids, afros, or certain hair products. Homophobic bullying begins as early as the elementary school years. Thus, young people do not have to see violence and oppression in the books they read, they see it on an everyday basis, some more than others.

To say that we should ignore these topics and tell the youth that the world is a "hospitable place to be" is doing a disservice to young people because it assumes that they cannot handle the very real social issues they witness. It is assuming that we should lie to them and tell them that the world is filled with happiness, even though watching the news for five minutes will destroy that implausible fiction. Moreover, by explicitly naming "sexual abuse, dysphoria (I'm pretty sure he means sexual or gender identity, but...privilege), racism, domestic violence, gang life, schools shootings and other forbidding aspects of a world" as the issues we should silence, he is saying that the violence, oppression, and dangers that marginalized populations face in this world should be hidden from view. This is a privileged perspective, for he can choose to ignore these realities. Others cannot.

Suggesting that we hide Kekla Magoon's story that presents multiple perspectives on the murder of a fictional 16-year-old black boy is effectively saying that the lives of black girls and boys do not matter. It is saying that we should not #saytheirnames because that topic may be too difficult. To state that we should ignore Laurie Halse Anderson's memoir because she talks about assault, eating disorders, PTSD, and alcoholism is making a political statement. It's saying that young people who experience these things should keep it to themselves, lest it makes other people feel uncomfortable. Throwing away Chris Crutcher's novel because it narrates a story about dysfunctional families, foster families, and love is saying that we only want certain families and lives centered in stories. Just like speaking out, marching, and voting are political, so is silence and erasure.

Essentially, saying these stories are the causes for hopelessness and despair in the youth population of society is overlooking the fact that there are political, institutional, and individual aspects that created these stories. If young black girls and boys were not being killed by police, then I doubt that there would be multiple books about the topic written and published in the last few years. If sexual assault and patriarchy did not run rampant in society, then there would be no need for the #metoo movement, and there would be no need for books that discuss those topics. If all families were the same, then there would not be numerous family and community-based initiatives available, nor books written to show the heterogeneity of family and communal life.

The unbearable darkness of privilege shown through this article is one of many attempts to misdirect the real issue from the structural to the individual. It is a way of erasing, silencing, and hiding the voices of all people who do not experience the privileged life that Salerno wishes to highlight. It is an attempt to berate those of us who work with young people and see that many of them struggle every day, more than we ever did. It is a privilege to ignore the dark things that happen in our society. It is a privilege to only focus on the happy aspects of life all the time. It is a privilege to write about a conference that you did not attend. Sometimes, it's best to look past that privilege and see that although you may not need these stories, there are some people who do.

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The Unbearable Darkness Of White Privilege And Why The Wall Street Journal Needs To Leave Our Literature Alone

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On August 29, 2018, Steve Salerno wrote an article called The Unbearable Darkness of Young Adult Literature in the Wall Street Journal about the dangers of young adult literature that focuses on violence and oppression.

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When police arrived on the scene of a shooting over the weekend at a bar outside Chicago, witnesses say Jemel Roberson, a 26-year-old security guard who worked there, had already subdued the alleged assailant, pinning him to the ground.

Adam Harris, who was at Manny's Blue Bar in Robbins at the time of the incident on Sunday, told WGN-TV that Roberson was holding "somebody on the ground with his knee in his back, with his gun in his back" when officers from neighboring Midlothian got there early Sunday.

That's when Midlothian Police Chief Daniel Delaney said one of his officers "encountered a subject with a gun" and shot him, according to a statement given to the media.

But the "subject" was Roberson, not the suspect in the bar shooting.

Witnesses say Roberson was wearing his uniform, including a hat emblazoned with the word "security" and was holding a firearm he was licensed to carry.

Midlothian police confirmed that two officers responded to the scene at bar on Sunday and that one of them opened fire.

"Everybody was screaming out, 'Security!'" Harris told WGN. "And they still did their job, and saw a black man with a gun, and basically killed him."

Roberson was declared dead shortly after arriving at a hospital. Four others at the scene, including the suspected shooter, sustained non life-threatening injuries, police said.

Delaney said that the Cook County Sheriff's Office and the Robbins Police Department were investigating the shooting.

Roberson was the father of a nine-month-old son. "This was going to be my baby's first Christmas with his dad and now he's going to miss out on everything," Avontea Boose, the child's mother, told The Associated Press.

It is with great sadness that we inform you of the tragic passing of 2010 Lane Tech graduate and Lane Tech Basketball alumn, Jemel Roberson. We pass along our deepest condolences to the friends and family of Jemel. Jemel had a big smile and a bigger heart. You will be missed. pic.twitter.com/gpdrI6qQtc
- Lane Tech Basketball (@LaneTechHoops) November 12, 2018

Roberson was also a musician for churches in his community. "Every artist he's ever played for, every musician he's ever sat beside, we're all just broken because we have no answers," Rev. Patricia Hill told WGN.

She added Roberson had dreamed of being a police officer. "He was getting ready to train and do all that stuff, so the very people he wanted to be family with, took his life," Hill said.

Roberson's family filed a lawsuit on Monday against the Midlothian police department and the officer who shot him, seeking damages of $1 million.

A GoFundMe page has also been established to raise money for funeral costs. Family and friends held a vigil Monday evening at the nightclub where he was killed.

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Police Fatally Shoot Black Security Guard Who Detained Suspected Shooter

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When police arrived on the scene of a shooting over the weekend at a bar outside Chicago, witnesses say Jemel Roberson, a 26-year-old security guard who worked there, had already subdued the alleged assailant, pinning him to the ground.

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“Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”

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Find the full episode (and series) on HULU

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The sitcom "Black-ish" tackled a more serious issue on its episode "Hope" last night -- police brutality. And pundits from sites like the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly have applauded how the show stayed true to its brand of humor while tackling race relations in America.

EW writer Keertana Sastry wrote that "In one swoop, the series tackled police brutality with an incredible balance of depth and brevity that proves comedies can handle difficult subjects as long as they are done with a steady hand."

The Washington Post praised the ABC show for "staying true to its roots."

"'Hope,' which takes place entirely in the Johnson house, is exactly the type of multigenerational conversation that has made previous episodes of ' Blackish,' now in its second season, stand out amid the current sitcom line-up," writes Post scribe Bethonie Butler.

The episode centers around the youngest twins, Jack and Diane, and how their parents discuss and explain police brutality to them. The dad, Andre, played by Anthony Anderson, and the mom, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, along with their parents, all have different views on how to address race relations, as they watch a fake indictment case. Andre shares what he thinks is a realistic view on the world, while Rainbow wants to inspire hope in her young ones.

"They are not just children, they are black children and they need to know the world they are living in," Andre says in one scene.

"I just want to give them a little faith in the world," Rainbow says later on. "Help them hold on to their innocence and be kids a little while longer."

The official "Black-ish" Twitter account shared clips from the show's most crucial points and quotes -- serving as good starting points for debates at home, possibly among other families watching.

Fans on Twitter and social media also lauded the show for keeping true and yet educating its fans.

#blackish this is a serious topic and yet I am still able to laugh. I love this show!
- Reka Ricardo (@Ace_Club1) February 25, 2016

I love how #blackish uses each family member to show the different opinions the black community has on these tough topics...
- Sylvia Obell (@SylviaObell) February 25, 2016

Anderson also retweeted a lot of the kind words fans sent his way.

Ross did the same. "LOVE all around" she wrote last night.

"Black-ish" is a show on ABC, part of the ABC family, which includes ABC News.

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'Black-ish' Lauded for Police Brutality Episode

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The sitcom "Black-ish" tackled a more serious issue on its episode "Hope" last night -- police brutality. And pundits from sites like the Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly have applauded how the show stayed true to its brand of humor while tackling race relations in America.