Category: African Americans

African Americans
Stefi Mar

New Social Security Rules Could Leave Black Retirees Further Behind

The country’s most dependable safety net is changing again, and this time, many fear it will fall hardest on the people who have always leaned on it the most. Across the nation, millions are bracing for the next wave of Social Security changes taking effect this fall and into 2026. What Washington calls modernization and reform, others see as a tightening noose around the necks of working people, especially Black Americans, who for generations have been shut out, shortchanged, and forced to survive on the margins of a promise that was never fully kept.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

The Walls Remember: Murals and the Unyielding Story of Black America

You can try to bury people. You can rewrite their history books, close their schools, and burn their libraries. You can pass laws that punish truth-tellers and silence teachers who dare speak the name of freedom. But you cannot silence color. You cannot silence the wall. Across this country, in cities both proud and scarred, the story of Black America refuses to die. It is written not in the ink of permission, but in the paint of defiance. It rises on concrete, brick, and steel. The murals speak where the history books fall silent.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

High Court Weighs Decision That Could Silence Black Voters Nationwide

The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a case that could decide the future of voting rights in America. At the heart of Louisiana v. Callais is whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which bars racial discrimination in voting, remains constitutional. The outcome could strip away one of the last remaining protections for Black voters since the Civil Rights Movement and embolden efforts already underway in states like North Carolina, where Republicans are pushing new gerrymandered maps that would silence voters and cement partisan control.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Democrats Tout State Races, but Party of Diversity Still Refuses to Invest in Black Media  

The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) announced ten key state legislative races to watch this November, touting the contests as pivotal for maintaining and expanding Democratic power in states such as Virginia, New Jersey, Minnesota, Mississippi, and Washington. Yet, even as the DLCC calls attention to its candidates and their communities, the party’s silence and neglect toward Black-owned media — particularly the historic Black Press of America — continues to speak louder than its press releases.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Pew Finds Just 6% of Journalists Are Black as Crisis Grows with Recent Firings

The dismissal of Karen Attiah from the Washington Post has become more than a personnel decision. It is a scarlet warning, a reminder of what has long haunted the American press: the Black voice is too often invited in only to be pushed out when it dares to speak of the nation’s truths.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Gov. Newsom Signs Two Bills Authored by Black Caucus Members


On Oct. 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills written by members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego) and Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles).

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Democrats Pour Millions into White Media, But Continue to Starve the Black Press

One could make the case that Democrats lost the 2024 election in part because they abandoned the Black Press—the voice of Black America. Black voters, the backbone of the party, walked away in numbers unseen in modern times. At the very moment when all Americans—Black, white, Latino, and others—are called to stand against authoritarianism, Democrats have shown not courage but cowardice, not gratitude but contempt for their own base.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Minority-Owned Businesses Shut Out as Loan Denials Soar

The doors of opportunity remain locked for too many. A new LendingTree analysis reveals that Black-owned businesses faced the highest rejection rate for financing in 2024, with 39% denied loans, lines of credit, or merchant cash advances. Hispanic-owned businesses followed at 29%. By contrast, just 18% of white-owned businesses were turned away.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Federal Budget Stalemate Threatens Health Subsidies: Black Californians Could Face Steep Insurance Hikes

As Congress scrambles to avoid a government shutdown, one critical issue at stake is the continuation of federal subsidies that make health insurance affordable for millions of Americans. If lawmakers fail to pass a budget or a temporary stopgap known as a Continuing Resolution (CR) by Sept. 30, enhanced premium tax credits (EPTCs) under the Affordable Care Act will expire at the end of this year.


African Americans
Stefi Mar

Meet Cecil Egbele, the News Observer’s Newest Reporter Telling Bakersfield’s Black Stories, One Voice at a Time

When I first walked the streets of Bakersfield as a California Local News Fellow with the Bakersfield News Observer, I wasn’t sure what to expect beyond what I had read online. The drive from the San Francisco Bay Area to Bakersfield left me in awe of the beauty of the place I will now call home, stunning landscapes of the Central Valley, vast farmlands, and a desert-like climate where the air grew warmer with every mile. Still, I wondered if my time here would be easy or filled with challenges. Only the weeks ahead would tell. What I did know, though, was that to truly settle in, I had to “dance” with the community by introducing myself – “Hi, I’m Cecil Egbele, your new Bakersfield reporter” — and asking one essential question: What stories matter to you?

African Americans
Stefi Mar

After Plunge, Black Students Enroll in Harvard

Black student enrollment at Harvard Law School has rebounded. The incoming J.D. Class of 2028 includes 46 Black students, nearly returning to the averages seen between 2020 and 2023. That recovery comes only one year after the number collapsed to 19, the lowest since the 1960s.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Acquitted Black Doctor Stands Tall Against Malicious Injustice: Canada’s Bias Revealed

For more than five years, Dr. Olumuyiwa Bamgbade carried the weight of lies that he should never have borne. He is a Black doctor, a healer by training, acquitted of false accusations that Canadian authorities and media were eager to trumpet but too arrogant, too complicit, to retract. The silence after his vindication was louder than the slander that preceded it. The cruelty is not simply in the malicious lies about him, but in the determination of a system to criminalize his very existence.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

The Black Press: Two Centuries of Truth— But Who Will Save It?

The Black Press is two years away from its 200th anniversary. Two centuries of carrying our story when others denied us a voice. Two centuries of fighting mobs, resisting Jim Crow, surviving fire, and standing against lies. And now, in its hour of need, as corporate America cuts ties and Washington turns away, the silence of Black America’s billionaires is as loud as the betrayals of history.

African Americans
Stefi Mar

Why Black people should be concerned about the Jeffrey Epstein case

The voices of victims in the Jeffrey Epstein case to “end secrecy” are loud outside of Capitol Hill. They’re telling their stories and demanding action from Congress. As the victims are speaking out, Democratic sponsored legislation is moving in the House that would release materials in the Epstein case in 30 days.