by Black Kos Editor, Justice Putnam
“… But I was born into
A sonic boom of recognition
And a silent fear of remorse.
A mushroom crowd
Walking in atomic heels
Crying hydro-electric tears
Pumping Bourbon blood
With bias plied hearts.
There were Catholics
There were Atheists
There were Protestant politicians
Burning black flesh
On Southern barbecues
While a quiet
But effective
Northern bigotry
Butchered more lions
Dressed in African velvet… “
- Justice Putnam
from “Born with Sin”
"Overall, there's not a lot of evidence that, at least in the long term, kids get their prejudice from their parents," said Charles Stangor, who runs the Laboratory for the Study of Social Stereotyping and Prejudice at the University of Maryland. "I would call it more of a community effect than a parental effect. The community fosters tolerance or prejudice."
-- SPLC Intelligence Report
Sonia Scherr
A Jap's a Jap. It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen or not. I don't want any of them. Racial affiliations are not severed by migration. The Japanese race is an enemy race and while many second - and third-generation Japanese born on United States soil, possessed of United States citizenship, have become 'Americanized,' the racial strains are undiluted.
Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt
Many factors kept Chicanos in a marginal status. The geographical isolation of employment sites, particularly in railroading, agriculture, and agriculturally related industry, often reduced opportunities for Chicanos to gain familiarity with U.S. society through personal contact. Chicanos also encountered various forms of segregation. These included maintenance of separate Anglo and Mexican public schools, restrictive covenants on residential property, segregated restaurants, separate "white" and "colored" sections in theaters, and special "colored" days in segregated swimming pools.
-- Jose Pitti, Ph.D., Professor of History and Ethnic Studies California State University, Sacramento
Antonia Castaneda, Ph.D. Stanford University
Carlos Cortes, Professor of History University of California, Riverside
A History of Mexican Americans in California
I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
-- George Wallace
A witness identified Robert Chambliss, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, as the man who placed the bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. He was arrested and charged with murder and possessing a box of 122 sticks of dynamite without a permit. On 8th October, 1963, Chambliss was found not guilty of murder and received a hundred-dollar fine and a six-month jail sentence for having the dynamite.
-- About the 1963 Birmingham Bombing
Petitioners demanded of an employer that it hire Negroes at one of its grocery stores, as white clerks quit or were transferred, until the proportion of Negro clerks to white clerks approximated the proportion of Negro to white customers, which was then about 50%. A California state court enjoined petitioners from picketing the employer's stores to enforce this specific demand for selective hiring on a racial basis. For violation of the injunction, petitioners were found guilty of contempt and were sentenced to fine and imprisonment. The policy of California is against discrimination on the basis of color.
Held: the injunction did not violate petitioners' right of freedom of speech as guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 339 U. S. 461-469.
1. The Constitution does not demand that the element of communication in picketing prevail over the mischief furthered by its use to compel employment on the basis of racial discrimination contrary to the State's policy. Pp. 339 U. S. 463-464.
2. Industrial picketing is something more than free speech, since it involves patrol of a particular locality and since the very presence of a picket line may induce action of one kind or another, quite irrespective of the nature of the ideas which are being disseminated. Pp. 339 U. S. 464-465.
3. The Due Process Clause cannot be construed as precluding California from securing respect for its policy against involuntary employment on racial lines by prohibiting systematic picketing that would subvert such policy. Pp. 339 U. S. 465-466.
4. The fact that the policy of the State is expressed by its courts, rather than by its legislature, is immaterial so far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned. Pp. 339 U. S. 466-469.
5. A State may direct its law against what it deems the evil as it actually exists without covering the whole field of possible abuses, and it may do so though the forbidden act does not differ in kind from those that are allowed. P. 339 U. S. 468.
-- U.S. Supreme Court
Hughes v. Superior Court, 339 U.S. 460 (1950)
Hughes v. Superior Court of California
for Contra Costa County
I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.
Ishmael Reed
We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community... Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.
-- Cesar Chavez
No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
-- Nelson Mandela
Long Walk To Freedom
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Godfrey Wade, a Jamaican-born veteran, has been in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for nearly five months. His attorney says an emergency stay of removal was denied, but an appeal is pending.
….
Wade came to the U.S. lawfully in 1975 as a teenager. He enlisted in the Army, served overseas, and was honorably discharged. "That was his foundation, and he took pride in it and made us believe in the U.S. Army," said his daughter Emmanuela Wade.
He lived as a lawful permanent resident for decades, working as a chef, tennis coach, and fashion designer. "He's dipped his hands in everything that makes America good," Emmanuela said.
Wade's path to deportation began on Sept. 13, 2025, when he was pulled over for failing to use a turn signal in Conyers. He was arrested for driving without a license. Soon after, ICE detained him due to a 2014 removal order stemming from a 2007 bounced check and a 2006 simple assault charge. According to his attorney, the assault involved a domestic argument where "a glass of milk was spilled and pots and pans were knocked to the floor. No physical violence was ever alleged." Wade paid the bounced check and related fines in full.
"Someone's old mistakes does not define who they are," Christian Wade said. "Understand the context. There's more to a story than just four words, and people need to see the humanity of the person."
Watkins added, "No one is perfect. He restituted the money. He has an amazing relationship with his children as well as his ex-wife."
Wade's attorney said the removal order was issued when Wade did not show up for a 2014 hearing he was never notified of. Court records show hearing notices sent to an address used by ICE were returned as undeliverable. Wade was unaware of the removal order until his arrest.
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On this day (Feb. 5) in 1994, Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist who killed NAACP leader Medgar Evers in 1963, was finally convicted of Evers’ murder. Now, 32 years later, the National Park Service is reportedly trying to rewrite a piece of that history. As reported by Mississippi Today, the Park Service plans to revise the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument visitors’ brochures.
The pamphlets have reportedly been temporarily removed to remove the word “racist” as a descriptor for Beckwith, an unnamed Park Service official told the outlet. Additionally, the edits will also include removing details of Evers lying in a pool of blood after he was shot in the back in the driveway of his home in northwest Jackson.
“It’s turning the assassination of Medgar Evers into something that is bloodless and had no impact. We can talk about him being a wonderful veteran, but not about what it cost him. He gave the last full measure of devotion, and now we want to ignore that,” Alan Spears, senior director for cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, told the outlet.
In the original brochures distributed to visitors, the monument shares details about the Evers’ shooting and Beckwith’s affiliation with two segregationist groups: the White Citizens’ Council, a group that “believed in the natural superiority of the Aryan race,” and the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, one of the nation’s most violent white supremacist groups.
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The traditional chief of a village in western Nigeria where jihadists massacred residents earlier this week has recounted a night of terror during which the attackers killed two of his sons and kidnapped his wife and three daughters.
Umar Bio Salihu, the 53-year-old chief of Woro, a small, Muslim-majority village in Kwara state, said that at about 5pm on Tuesday the gunmen “just came in and started shooting”.
“All those shops that are within the road, they burnt them … Some people have been burned inside their houses,” he told the Agence France-Presse news agency. “They killed two of (my sons) standing at the front of my house. They took away my second wife with some three (daughters). They are with them presently in the bush.”
Salihu survived by hiding in a house, then fled to the neighbouring town of Kaiama, where he has a home, after the attackers left. The attack lasted until 3am, he said. “When the day breaks, the corpses we see, it’s too much,” he said.
Woro, a village of several thousand people, sits near a forest region known as a hideout for jihadist fighters and armed gangs.
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Let’s stop pretending we weren’t warned.
Back in 2024, when the National Association of Black Journalists rolled out the stage and microphone for Donald Trump, rank-and-file members and leaders said exactly what would happen next.
Critics said you cannot platform a man who has built a political career on humiliating, targeting, and dehumanizing Black journalists and then pretend you are strengthening the profession. They said you cannot normalize authoritarian contempt and then be shocked when that contempt turns into policy and arrests. The event led to internal dissent, including the resignation of convention co-chair Karen Attiah, who stated she was not consulted about the decision and labeled the panel a colossal mistake.
Despite NABJ leadership’s defense that hosting major presidential candidates is standard practice, many members felt the move compromised the organization’s integrity and failed to hold Trump accountable for his history of hostility toward the Black press.
And now here we are.
Two Black journalists and two Black activists were arrested. In one weekend. Not harassed. Not shouted at. Not trolled online. Arrested.
NABJ responded with a strong statement condemning the arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, calling the situation an alarming escalation and reminding the public that the First Amendment is not optional and journalism is not a crime. The organization raised concerns about the selective targeting of Black and LGBTQIA journalists and called on federal authorities to explain the legal basis for the arrests.
NABJ did what responsible institutions do in moments like this. The statement was correct, constitutionally sound, and morally clear. But it was also historically insufficient. Because history makes statements like this feel both necessary and painfully familiar. Because for Black journalists, state outrage has rarely translated into state protection, and institutional statements have rarely stopped the racist machinery once it starts moving.
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