Latest news with #racialJustice
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Remains of 19 Black Americans returned to New Orleans nearly 150 years later
The remains of 19 Black Americans whose skulls were taken to Leipzig, Germany, in the 1880s to perform "racial pseudoscience" experiments, were brought to New Orleans to be properly memorialized, a repatriation committee said Thursday. Dillard University, the City of New Orleans and University Medical Center will hold a New Orleans-style jazz funeral on Saturday morning for the 13 men, four women and two unidentified people, according to Dr. Monique Guillory, the president of the historically Black Louisiana university. "They were people with names," Guillory said at a press conference on Thursday. "They were people with stories and histories. Some of them had families -- mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, human beings -- not specimens, not numbers." MORE: Pope Leo XIV's family tree shows Black roots in New Orleans Dr. Eva Baham, chair of Dillard University's Cultural Repatriation Committee, said during the press conference that the University of Leipzig reached out to the City of New Orleans in 2023 and offered to repatriate the remains. The Cultural Repatriation Committee formed in 2024 and looked through public records to identify exactly who the people were and establish a genealogy, according to Baham. The group has not been able to identify any descendants at this point, she noted. Baham's team located the people's death records in the archives of Charity Hospital. The medical institution served people of all races from 1736 until it was shuttered due to severe damage from Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to a statement from Dillard University. University Medical Center New Orleans opened in its place in 2015 and was the major funder of the project, Baham said. MORE: Twin sisters buy former plantation to preserve and protect Black history Of the 19 people, 17 of them died in December 1871 and two died in January 1872, their ages ranging from 15 to 70 years old, according Baham. Many of them were not born in Louisiana but came from states like Kentucky and Tennessee. The committee discovered that 10 of the 19 people were in New Orleans for less than six years, Baham noted. "We have people who were here in New Orleans from one hour in 1871, one day, a week, two months," Baham said at the news conference. "I just want to remind you that the Civil War had ended in 1865, so we have 10 of these individuals who had arrived here after the American Civil War." MORE: $9.4 billion plastics facility to be built on slave burial grounds, report says The names of the 17 people that the committee was able to identify include Adam Grant, 50; Isaak Bell, 70; Hiram Smith, 23; William Pierson, 43; Henry Williams, 55; John Brown, 48; Hiram Malone, 21; William Roberts, 23; Alice Brown, 15; Prescilla Hatchet, 19; Marie Louise, 55; Mahala [no listed last name], 70; Samuel Prince, 40; John Tolman, 23; Henry Allen, 17; Moses Willis, 23; and Henry Anderson, 23. "We can't rewrite history," Charlotte Parent, vice president of business development at University Medical Center, said at the press conference. "The times were what the times were at the time, but we can always look back and figure out ways that we can embrace and make things as right as we can, and this is one of those opportunities for us to do that." Remains of 19 Black Americans returned to New Orleans nearly 150 years later originally appeared on
Forbes
5 days ago
- General
- Forbes
Attitudes Toward The Police Five Years After George Floyd's Death
Lost in much of the news coverage of the 5th anniversary of George Floyd's death were reports on how Americans, especially black Americans, view their local police now. News reports focused on reforms of police practices and possible actions by the Trump administration. Yet the passage of time has affected opinions of both blacks and whites. Gallup has a large reservoir of polls that ask people about racial attitudes generally and about views of local police. In their averaging of four polls from 2024, Gallup found that blacks' confidence in their local police force now stands at 64%, nine points above the low of 55% in 2022. Black confidence was still significantly below white confidence, at 77%. In another question, slightly more than two-thirds of blacks, 67%, said local police treat people like them fairly. This response was also up nearly 10 points from 2022, when 58% gave that response. Polling organizations conducted a significant number of new polls after George Floyd's death in 2020. Americans generally saw his death at the hands of police officer Derek Chauvin as murder, and the polls showed that large numbers of whites and nonwhites said his killing was not an isolated incident. After Chauvin's trial, a CBS News/YouGov poll in 2021 found that 75% of those surveyed thought that the jury had reached the right verdict in convicting him. In polls taken at the time, blacks reported they had had more negative interactions with police than their white counterparts. But one finding in the polling was especially intriguing. More blacks than whites (41% to 33%) in a June 2020 Monmouth University poll said they or a family member had had an experience where a police officer helped keep them safe in a potentially dangerous situation. Many reforms targeting police misconduct have enjoyed widespread public support. Large majorities have endorsed body camera requirements and a ban on chokeholds, for example. But whites and blacks did not endorse defunding the police, as the results of an Ipsos/USA Today poll showed. Support for reforming the police was 51%, while 19% opposed this, and nearly three in ten, (29%), neither supported nor opposed it. But support for defunding the police was 18% (14% among whites and 28% among blacks), while 11% supported abolishing the police (9% and 22%). Low levels of support for defunding the police may explain why support for the Black Lives Matter movement and its campaign to defund the police has been consistently lower than support for the police as a whole and local police. Over the years the Harris/Harvard Center for American Political Studies has asked about police and Black Lives Matter favorability. In their new mid-May poll, 66% of registered voters had a favorable opinion of the police (22% unfavorable), with the positive response trailing only that of the top-rated institution, the military, at 77%. But in seven polls taken in 2024, support for Black Lives Matter among registered voters was around 45%. It never reached a majority. (Harvard/Harris has not asked about Black Lives Matter in 2025). What makes the new Gallup finding and that of other polls of an uptick in police favorability among blacks important is that we have seen this pattern before. Pollsters do not regularly track reactions to individuals killed by police, but occasional polls frequently show opinion of the police returning to the level of polls taken immediately after such an instance. A 1997 Public Opinion Quarterly article 'Racial Differences in Attitudes toward the Police' by Stephen A. Tuch and Ronald Weitzer showed this pattern beginning with the killing of Eulia Love, a black woman killed by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 1979 through the beating of a black man Rodney King by the LAPD in 1991. A series of polls taken by Quinnipiac University in New York City after the deaths there of Amandou Diallo by New York City police officers in 1999 and Sean Bell in 2006 shows the same pattern of a steep drop but a gradual return to more positive attitudes. Between 2016 and 2020, the Pew Research Center showed a sharp drop in views that police were doing an excellent or good job on conduct such as using the right amount of force, but then recorded an uptick in 2023. Reforms of police misconduct are necessary, but most Americans and especially most black Americans tell pollsters they need and want police in their neighborhoods and communities, and a considerable number of them say the police have helped them.
The Guardian
6 days ago
- Lifestyle
- The Guardian
‘Emotion and history through color': the activism of Tomashi Jackson's art
While the Black artist Tomashi Jackson was pursuing her MFA from the Yale School of Art in the 2010s, she had a revelation about how our perception of color works. While studying color theory, she had gone back to the basics, rereading foundational texts from her art education – Jackson realized that the way these books talked about color resembled how Americans talk about race. 'I was seeing a lot of similarities in the way color phenomena is described as compulsory,' she said in an interview, 'as against one's will, and potentially discomforting or panic-inducing. Concepts of color are experienced as chromatic, and they are also social.' These insights into color theory occurred within larger explorations Jackson was making at the time into what she called 'the machinery that was surrounding me' – that would include the education system, the way public space is conceived of in America, and larger historical narratives around racial justice. Jackson's particular way of synthesizing all of these ideas into striking works of art can currently be experienced at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, for the artist's mid-career survey Across the Universe. Going back to 2023, this major show has toured Denver, Philadelphia and Boston, landing now in Houston for almost an entire year. The paintings and mixed media pieces in Across the Universe tend to be built around large chunks of bright primary colors, overlaid with intricate networks of texture and soft-focus human faces. The striking works radiate energy and exuberance, bringing to mind such disparate artistic practices as urban muralism and abstract expressionism. Jackson's bold use of color has been a hard-won, lifelong process – she recalls grappling with color for as long as she can remember. 'Trying to understand how color responds to itself has been a lifelong fascination of mine,' she said. 'There's so much that translates about emotion and history through color. We who have grown up looking at paintings in our communities are all invited to consider what color means.' The striking visual choices that are present in Jackson's art intersect with her deep research into the ongoing struggle over civil rights for Black people in America. Her pieces often bear titles referencing court cases and other historic developments for Black Americans, such as the 2016 work Dajerria All Alone (Bolling v. Sharpe (District of Columbia)) (McKinney Pool Party). Titled for a court case argued by Thurgood Marshall that helped desegregate public schools in the United States, the piece is covered in ephemera from Marshall's lengthy battle to integrate schools; it also recognizes the 2018 assault of 15-year-old Dajerria Becton by a police officer during a Texas pool party, offering images related to her life. 'I felt like my responsibility was to discuss public narratives,' Jackson said. 'I was trying to find ways to make a contribution to our history, since so much has already been done.' As a part of her engagement with the historical record, Jackson frequently uses reclaimed materials, such as brown paper bags, bits and pieces from democratic elections, and even gauze – it's a practice that dates back to the years while Jackson was in art school and pursuing her bachelor's degree. 'While I was in this highly competitive art school environment, I was given this huge bolt of gauze that had been salvaged from an old Johnson & Johnson factory. I decided that I would make all my work using that.' The use of these materials dovetailed with Jackson's choice to step away from using any color at all, as she processed her feelings around pigments. As Jackson recounted, when she first attended Cooper Union in 2005, she abandoned all use of color, instead first grappling with the material reality of objects as they were. 'I didn't feel like I had an instinctually responsive relationship that made me feel like I understood what I was doing with color,' she said. 'So for a number of years I didn't allow myself to use any color. I started to try to figure out how to work with materials as I found them and not impose anything through adding color.' These inquiries eventually brought Jackson to consider the relationship between cultural memories and the everyday disposable items that will remain in the earth for hundreds of thousands of years. 'When I left Cooper Union and came up to Massachusetts, I focused on what I had learned about collective memory and waste management,' she said. 'What is the nature of collective memory that's been passed on for millennia? What relationship does that have with plastics and Styrofoams that are presented for public use as disposable, but that ultimately outlive us all?' One of the pieces that distinguishes this iteration of Across the Universe from previous versions is the inclusion of the major work Minute by Minute. A reference to The Doobie Brothers' 1978 album of the same name, the mixed media piece includes family photographic prints, a hand-crafted walnut awning, and pieces of marble. It is in part a tribute to Jackson's late mother, Aver Marie Burroughs, who used to listen to the album with the artist. Jackson's mother gave the artist her compact disc of the album when Jackson moved from Los Angeles to the Bay Area to pursue artistic studies, and it's now one of the few concrete items that Jackson has in memory of her mother. The show also features video of Jackson's drag king alter ego, Tommy Tonight, whom she has previously embodied in order to perform the Doobie Brothers' Minute by Minute in a tribute to her mother. 'I now understand that he emerged out of grief for my mother's illness and eventual passing,' she said. 'Our last iteration of the show allowed me to learn more about the history of drag performance as art historically born of grief – a celebration of grief. So that character has a whole video room unto himself.' For Jackson, Across the Universe is a homecoming of sorts – although she spent the majority of her childhood in southern California, she was born in Houston and traces her family history through the migration story from Texas to the west coast. Having a mid-career full-circle moment is both the culmination of one story and the start of another one. 'I was conceived in 3rd Ward of Houston and born there, and I was later taken to southern California and raised there with my maternal family. It feels like a miracle that Contemporary Arts Museum Houston has agreed to host this show. It's literally been a lifelong dream.' Tomashi Jackson: Across the Universe is on show at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston from 30 May to 29 March 2026
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
The end of federal oversight and calls to pardon George Floyd's convicted killer could undermine police reforms, Minneapolis leaders warn
It's been almost five years since the world watched George Floyd beg for his life as a White police officer in Minneapolis knelt on the Black father's neck for more than 9 minutes. After a bystander's video of Floyd's death sparked nationwide calls for an end to police impunity and brutality, the officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired. A state jury ultimately convicted him of murder, and he pleaded guilty to federal civil rights violations, netting him more than two decades in prison. Meanwhile, leaders in Minneapolis – in separate partnerships with the US Justice Department and state officials – began implementing policing reforms to try to prevent any such tragedy from happening again. Those federal efforts came to an abrupt halt Wednesday as the Trump administration announced it would end its oversight of policing reforms through court-authorized consent decrees in cities including Minneapolis, Phoenix and Louisville, Kentucky. The move complicates the path toward ensuring more fair policing in Minneapolis, leaders there told CNN, just as some activists and lawmakers on the political right are urging President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin, a campaign that some also see as chipping away at gains toward racial justice. When asked outright in March if he was considering pardoning Chauvin, Trump told White House reporters, 'No, I haven't even heard about it,' and his administration since then has not signaled he's interested in pursuing the matter. Still, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP firebrand from Georgia, wrote last week on social media: 'I strongly support Derek Chauvin being pardoned and released from prison.' Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro launched a pardon campaign in March to encourage Trump to do the same, in part with a nod from White House confidant and billionaire Elon Musk. Greene also resurfaced, without evidence, the argument refuted by medical officials and rejected by a state jury of Chauvin's peers that 'Floyd died of a drug overdose.' 'Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in front of the whole world,' Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told CNN this week, noting his office 'proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chauvin asphyxiated Floyd.' 'The only conceivable purpose' of a pardon, Ellison added, 'would be to express yet more disrespect for George Floyd and more disrespect for the rule of law.' For Floyd's brother, Terrence, calls to pardon Chauvin are like 'reinjuring … reopening a wound,' he told CNN in March. 'This is the fifth year, we were supposed to see progress,' Terrence Floyd said. 'So many things was promised to us as a people – not just to Black and Brown people, but as a people – and now they're backpedaling.' Practically, a Trump pardon likely would mean little more than a change of address for Chauvin because it only would apply to his 21-year sentence on the federal charges, which the ex-officer has been serving in a federal prison in Texas concurrently with his 22 ½ year state sentence. 'A pardon of Chauvin's federal conviction would return him to Minnesota to serve the rest of his sentence in state prison,' Ellison said. But the mounting discussions of a pardon and the Trump administration's months-long delay of consent decree proceedings have had leaders in Minnesota preparing for the end of federal oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department – and considering how to maintain momentum for reform, even without support from Washington. A Justice Department report in 2023 linked directly to Floyd's death found 'systemic problems' at the city agency, including racial discrimination, excessive and unlawful use of force, First Amendment violations and a lack of officer accountability. That same year, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the city of Minneapolis reached an agreement in state court to address race-based policing and bring 'transformational changes' to the city's police department. The deal centers on changing the culture of the city's police by creating 'clear, effective policies' and providing strong accountability and oversight. The agreement, in part, 'require(s) officers to de-escalate,' 'prohibit(s) officers from using force to punish or retaliate' and limits how they can use stun guns, chemical irritants and force. It also mandates the city and the police agency 'conduct thorough investigations of police misconduct.' Then, weeks before Trump's inauguration this January, the Minneapolis City Council approved a separate consent decree with the federal government that also would have mandated major reforms. Just days into Trump's second term, however, his administration announced it would halt federal oversight of police reforms, and in late April, Trump signed an executive order mandating his Justice Department to 'review all ongoing Federal consent decrees … and modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.' Minneapolis' mayor has pledged police reforms will still be enacted despite Wednesday's announcement by the Trump administration. 'We're doing it anyway. We will implement every reform outlined in the consent decree because accountability isn't optional,' said Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat who's had the job since 2018. 'Our independent monitor has lauded the meaningful progress we've made under the state settlement agreement, and the public can count on clear, measurable proof that our reforms are moving forward.' 'While the Department of Justice walks away from their federal consent decree nearly five years from the murder of George Floyd, our Department and the state court consent decree isn't going anywhere,' Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said Wednesday. 'Under the state agreement, the City and MPD must make transformational changes to address race-based policing. The tremendous amount of work that lies ahead for the City, including MPD, cannot be understated. And our Department will be here every step of the way.' Still, Frey's assurances must be backed by consistent action, something that even with good intentions could be a challenge without federal supervision, longtime advocates for policing reform in Minneapolis told CNN. Communities United Against Police Brutality spent years going door-to-door teaching city residents about the importance of a consent decree to govern policing reforms and gathering testimony about their encounters with the police department – all with the aim of informing better policies, said the president of the 25-year-old group, Michelle Gross. Now, the organization stands ready to sue on behalf of the community to keep the federal consent decree, Gross told CNN. 'It's really important that that we don't just say, 'Well, you know, that was a nice experiment. Let's move on,'' she said. 'You effect cultural change by laying out your expectations, rewarding the good behavior and addressing the bad behavior through discipline and other means.' What's more, for a community that's only just starting to heal five years after Floyd's death, pardoning Chauvin and backtracking on policing reforms would be like 'pouring salt in the wound,' Gross said. 'I'm distressed that the current administration believes that police need to somehow be 'unleashed,'' she said, quoting from the title of Trump's executive action on policing: 'Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.' 'Law enforcement does have a function … and it's a necessary job,' Gross said. 'But trampling on people's rights is not necessary to do that job, and we shouldn't tolerate it as a country.'
CNN
21-05-2025
- Politics
- CNN
The end of federal oversight and calls to pardon George Floyd's convicted killer could undermine police reforms, Minneapolis leaders warn
It's been almost five years since the world watched George Floyd beg for his life as a White police officer in Minneapolis knelt on the Black father's neck for more than 9 minutes. After a bystander's video of Floyd's death sparked nationwide calls for an end to police impunity and brutality, the officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired. A state jury ultimately convicted him of murder, and he pleaded guilty to federal civil rights violations, netting him more than two decades in prison. Meanwhile, leaders in Minneapolis – in separate partnerships with the US Justice Department and state officials – began implementing policing reforms to try to prevent any such tragedy from happening again. Those federal efforts came to an abrupt halt Wednesday as the Trump administration announced it would end its oversight of policing reforms through court-authorized consent decrees in cities including Minneapolis, Phoenix and Louisville, Kentucky. The move complicates the path toward ensuring more fair policing in Minneapolis, leaders there told CNN, just as some activists and lawmakers on the political right are urging President Donald Trump to pardon Chauvin, a campaign that some also see as chipping away at gains toward racial justice. When asked outright in March if he was considering pardoning Chauvin, Trump told White House reporters, 'No, I haven't even heard about it,' and his administration since then has not signaled he's interested in pursuing the matter. Still, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the GOP firebrand from Georgia, wrote last week on social media: 'I strongly support Derek Chauvin being pardoned and released from prison.' Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro launched a pardon campaign in March to encourage Trump to do the same, in part with a nod from White House confidant and billionaire Elon Musk. Greene also resurfaced, without evidence, the argument refuted by medical officials and rejected by a state jury of Chauvin's peers that 'Floyd died of a drug overdose.' 'Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd in front of the whole world,' Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison told CNN this week, noting his office 'proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Chauvin asphyxiated Floyd.' 'The only conceivable purpose' of a pardon, Ellison added, 'would be to express yet more disrespect for George Floyd and more disrespect for the rule of law.' For Floyd's brother, Terrence, calls to pardon Chauvin are like 'reinjuring … reopening a wound,' he told CNN in March. 'This is the fifth year, we were supposed to see progress,' Terrence Floyd said. 'So many things was promised to us as a people – not just to Black and Brown people, but as a people – and now they're backpedaling.' Practically, a Trump pardon likely would mean little more than a change of address for Chauvin because it only would apply to his 21-year sentence on the federal charges, which the ex-officer has been serving in a federal prison in Texas concurrently with his 22 ½ year state sentence. 'A pardon of Chauvin's federal conviction would return him to Minnesota to serve the rest of his sentence in state prison,' Ellison said. But the mounting discussions of a pardon and the Trump administration's months-long delay of consent decree proceedings have had leaders in Minnesota preparing for the end of federal oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department – and considering how to maintain momentum for reform, even without support from Washington. A Justice Department report in 2023 linked directly to Floyd's death found 'systemic problems' at the city agency, including racial discrimination, excessive and unlawful use of force, First Amendment violations and a lack of officer accountability. That same year, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the city of Minneapolis reached an agreement in state court to address race-based policing and bring 'transformational changes' to the city's police department. The deal centers on changing the culture of the city's police by creating 'clear, effective policies' and providing strong accountability and oversight. The agreement, in part, 'require(s) officers to de-escalate,' 'prohibit(s) officers from using force to punish or retaliate' and limits how they can use stun guns, chemical irritants and force. It also mandates the city and the police agency 'conduct thorough investigations of police misconduct.' Then, weeks before Trump's inauguration this January, the Minneapolis City Council approved a separate consent decree with the federal government that also would have mandated major reforms. Just days into Trump's second term, however, his administration announced it would halt federal oversight of police reforms, and in late April, Trump signed an executive order mandating his Justice Department to 'review all ongoing Federal consent decrees … and modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.' Minneapolis' mayor has pledged police reforms will still be enacted despite Wednesday's announcement by the Trump administration. 'We're doing it anyway. We will implement every reform outlined in the consent decree because accountability isn't optional,' said Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat who's had the job since 2018. 'Our independent monitor has lauded the meaningful progress we've made under the state settlement agreement, and the public can count on clear, measurable proof that our reforms are moving forward.' 'While the Department of Justice walks away from their federal consent decree nearly five years from the murder of George Floyd, our Department and the state court consent decree isn't going anywhere,' Minnesota Department of Human Rights Commissioner Rebecca Lucero said Wednesday. 'Under the state agreement, the City and MPD must make transformational changes to address race-based policing. The tremendous amount of work that lies ahead for the City, including MPD, cannot be understated. And our Department will be here every step of the way.' Still, Frey's assurances must be backed by consistent action, something that even with good intentions could be a challenge without federal supervision, longtime advocates for policing reform in Minneapolis told CNN. Communities United Against Police Brutality spent years going door-to-door teaching city residents about the importance of a consent decree to govern policing reforms and gathering testimony about their encounters with the police department – all with the aim of informing better policies, said the president of the 25-year-old group, Michelle Gross. Now, the organization stands ready to sue on behalf of the community to keep the federal consent decree, Gross told CNN. 'It's really important that that we don't just say, 'Well, you know, that was a nice experiment. Let's move on,'' she said. 'You effect cultural change by laying out your expectations, rewarding the good behavior and addressing the bad behavior through discipline and other means.' What's more, for a community that's only just starting to heal five years after Floyd's death, pardoning Chauvin and backtracking on policing reforms would be like 'pouring salt in the wound,' Gross said. 'I'm distressed that the current administration believes that police need to somehow be 'unleashed,'' she said, quoting from the title of Trump's executive action on policing: 'Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens.' 'Law enforcement does have a function … and it's a necessary job,' Gross said. 'But trampling on people's rights is not necessary to do that job, and we shouldn't tolerate it as a country.'
