July 16, 2020
On this day 158 years ago, Ida Bell Wells was born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi. She would go on to help found the NAACP, fight for women's right to vote despite the racism endemic to the suffrage movement, and, in 2020, be awarded a Pulitzer Prize special citation for her fearless documentation of lynchings in the late 1800s. I was reminded of Wells' birthday recently when reading an essay by Hanif Abdurraqib, in his book They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, about the death in police custody of Sandra Bland. Abdurraqib writes:
This is interesting to think about, when the police officer who killed George Floyd has been charged with second-degree murder while Breonna Taylor's killers still walk free. Posthumously awarding Ida B. Wells a Pulitzer is nice, but how do we begin to undo the racial and gender inequalities she dedicated her life to exposing? I don't know the answer, but appreciating her life on the day of her birth isn't a bad way to start. —Abigail Weinberg "I've given so much to this country that still doesn't want me here." BY FERNANDA ECHAVARRI
BY REBECCA LEBER
BY ABIGAIL WEINBERG
BY KIERA BUTLER
BY MAX J. ROSENTHAL The administration will proudly execute three men. Even as it covers up the deaths of 130,000. BY NATHALIE BAPTISTE
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