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Supreme Court case could grant Trump and Republicans power to trample Black voting rights for one-party rule, advocates warn

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in a case that could effectively kill the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and allow the Republican Party to redraw voting maps without existing protections from racial discrimination for Black communities across the country. “They can literally create a permanent one-party rule system without the Voting Rights Act in place–and doing it at the expense of Black communities and Black voters,” Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told theGrio. The […]

October 16, 2025

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Texas election map for 2026 are racially biased, voting-rights advocates say in lawsuit

Voting-rights advocates sued Tuesday to overturn a redistricting map drawn by Texas Republicans meant to favor the party in the 2026 midterm elections, saying it weakens the electoral influence of Black voters. The NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit in Texas. They accuse Texas legislative leaders of engaging in gerrymandering to prevent Black voters from electing candidates of their choice. “The state of Texas is only 40 percent white, but white voters control over 73 […]

August 27, 2025

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‘Insatiable hate’: Advocates warn of deaths amid Trump’s ‘bigoted’ travel ban against Black and brown countries

Advocates and elected officials forcefully condemned President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting a dozen Black and brown nations. Citing national security concerns, Trump’s Wednesday proclamation fully restricts or limits entry into the United States for nationals from Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., co-chairs of the House Haiti Caucus, slammed the administration’s “bigoted” travel ban as an “unambiguously xenophobic […]

June 6, 2025 1

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Trump’s HUD Secretary cuts a key fair housing rule; advocates warn of deeper segregation

Scott Turner, secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, has announced he is terminating the Affirmative Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule in an effort to cut “costly red tape.” AFFH, which was originally introduced by the Obama administration, required any state receiving federal funding to demonstrate they were taking steps to truly implement fair housing and eliminate discrimination, by answering a series of questions and assembling planning reports that showed concrete action. The rule was rescinded once […]

March 11, 2025

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Advocates decry expected executive order from Trump to gut Department of Education

President Donald Trump and White House officials are reportedly drafting an executive order that would essentially defund the U.S. Department of Education and begin the process of achieving a campaign promise to eliminate the federal agency altogether. According to The Washington Post, the upcoming order, which is expected to be signed later this month, seeks to dismantle the Education Department “from within” by ordering agency officials to “diminish itself.” By law, the Trump administration cannot unilaterally eliminate the department without […]

February 5, 2025

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Relief, defiance, anger: Families and advocates react to Biden’s death row commutations

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) — Victims’ families and others affected by crimes that resulted in federal death row convictions shared a range of emotions on Monday, from relief to anger, after President Joe Biden commuted dozens of the sentences. Biden converted the sentences of 37 federal death row inmates to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The inmates include people who were convicted in the slayings of police, military officers and federal prisoners and guards. Others were involved in deadly […]

December 24, 2024

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Advocates urge Biden to apologize for slavery and take other racial justice actions before leaving office

As lawmakers and advocates push President Joe Biden to issue more pardons in his final days in office after issuing a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter, activists are calling on the outgoing president to tackle a range of actions to advance racial justice before a Trump administration hostile to racial equity enters the White House. “We know that [Trump] going to try to reverse everything that would represent inclusion [and] people of color in the policies and programs and […]

December 4, 2024

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Health advocates in Africa worry Trump will reimpose abortion ‘gag rule’ governing US aid

EPWORTH, Zimbabwe (AP) — Carrying her infant daughter, 19-year-old Sithulisiwe Moyo waited two hours to get birth-control pills from a tent pitched in a poor settlement on the outskirts of Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare. The outreach clinic in Epworth provides Moyo with her best shot at achieving her dream of returning to school. “I am too young to be a baby-making machine,” she said. “At least this clinic helps me avoid another pregnancy.” But the free service funded by the U.S. […]

November 20, 2024

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Harris uniquely positioned to tackle gun violence in Black communities, advocates say

Gun violence is yet again at the forefront of the national consciousness following Wednesday’s deadly high school shooting in Winder, Georgia. The tragedy that struck Apalachee High School, where four people were killed and nine others injured, has renewed calls for stricter gun laws from Democrats and gun safety advocates. “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all,” Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said hours after Wednesday’s shooting at […]

September 6, 2024