Tish James, the New York Attorney General, will be arraigned in Norfolk, Virginia, today on one count of bank fraud. Advocacy groups are at the courthouse in support of James to deliver a strong message against intimidating strong Black Women.
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.
For years, Los Angeles-based painter Mia Gardner has relied on side jobs and part-time work to keep her art career afloat. But lately, her biggest challenge hasn’t been finding inspiration — it’s finding affordable health insurance.
Elmer Fonza and his family were disappointed to learn that Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a reparations-focused bill by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood) on Oct. 13. That legislation would have established a process for victims of racially motivated eminent domain to seek restitution.
For 20 years, the Taste of Soul festival has brought food, music and community pride to Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. This year’s festival, held on Oct. 18, carried even deeper meaning for organizers and festivalgoers. The day before the celebration, the City of Los Angeles officially named the intersection of Crenshaw and Obama boulevards Danny J. Bakewell Sr. Square, honoring the civil rights leader, businessman and founder of Taste of Soul.
With the federal government shutdown grinding on, the nation’s economic picture is collapsing into silence and uncertainty. For the first time in decades, there is no official monthly employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — the same agency many now say can no longer be trusted after the White House moved to control its data release following a weak jobs report earlier this year. In the vacuum, private firms have stepped forward with independent analyses that show the country losing jobs and faith at the same time.
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California this week plans to notify Affordable Care Act marketplace enrollees that their costs could rise sharply next year unless Congress extends subsidies to help people buy health insurance.
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.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 1269 into law on Oct. 13.
They laughed about gas chambers. They mocked Black people as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people.” They joked about rape, slavery, and “fixing the showers” to suit the “Hitler aesthetic.” These weren’t anonymous extremists on the internet. They were rising Republican leaders — state chairs, vice chairs, campaign strategists, and even staffers with ties to Donald Trump’s administration — plotting their path to power while spewing messages of hate.
Community and civic leaders in Oakland gathered at Chinatown’s Wilma Chan Park on Oct. 16 for the unveiling of a new mural symbolizing unity, strength, and peace as hate crimes continue to rise across the Golden State.
On Oct. 7, members of the California Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), and Gov. Gavin Newsom briefed Black media across the state, urging support for Proposition 50 – The Election Rigging Response Act – ahead of the upcoming special election.
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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.
Assemblymembers Mia Bonta (D-Alameda) and Corey Jackson (D-Moreno Valley), members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), are celebrating the signing of two of their bills aimed at improving education outcomes — one reforming the student expulsion process, and the other strengthening the state’s early childhood education system.
Across America, families are being broken not by illness alone, but by the quiet cruelty of denial letters from insurance companies. Patients in crisis are told their care is not medically necessary. Others learn too late that their coverage has been canceled. The denials come swiftly, the appeals take months, and the system often feels rigged against the very people it was built to protect.
California, like much of the nation, is not producing enough nurses working at bedsides to meet the needs of an aging and diverse population, fueling a workforce crunch that risks endangering quality patient care. Nearly 60% of California counties, stretching between the borders with Mexico and Oregon, face a nursing shortage, according to state data.
In the first months of 2025, America’s safety net began to fray. From food banks to community health programs, thousands of nonprofits found their government funding delayed, frozen, or stripped away. The Urban Institute’s October 2025 report, How Government Funding Disruptions Affected Nonprofits in Early 2025, captures what those on the ground already knew. The country’s moral infrastructure is buckling under the weight of political choices and bureaucratic neglect.
When the Supreme Court began its 2025–26 term on Monday, legal observers, scholars, and advocates warned that the justices are again positioned to shape the country’s direction on equality, freedom, and democracy itself.
