With a whole month, there is a lot to keep up with.
Robert F Smith has a news website. Good website. I guess he is tired of answering interview questions.
We are keeping an eye on the McDonald’s boycott announced by The People’s Union. Announced boycott of McDonald’s with the support of the Black Franchisee organization.
Roland Martin – Really good discussion of McDonald’s franchising model. Macdonald’s makes it’s money from real estate.
Joy Reid was on The Breakfast Club (The Breakfast Club) to describe her firing from MSNBC.
We are going through Monroe Work’s phenomenal Negro Yearbooks. (Tuskegee University). You have to read 1913, 1932 and 1945. Enlightening.
Since we posted a data set on Lynching in the United States we also read about Ida B Wells, Emmett Till and Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner.
We are keeping an eye on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC is an independent federal agency. If they stop enforcement and data collection, they are done. The EEOC is a true marker of the Trump Administration’s view of civil rights. Our concern is that the EEOC will cease to function. No racial discrimination cases, no data, and no people.
We also have two old articles we are reading…
What We Mean When We Say ‘Race Is a Social Construct’ — Ta-Nehisi Coates (The Atlantic)
Uprooted (The Great Migration) — Jill Lepore(The New Yorker)
Both are highly recommended
We are way in over our head on new books
Abundance — Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. The hot book in Democratic circles. Basically Democrats need to build more stuff and show that government works.
Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream — David Leonhardt
Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America — Candacy Taylor (Abrams)
She also has a good website called Taylor Made Culture.
Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance — Alvin Hall (HarperCollins)
The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy (Oxford University Press)