advocates – Page 2 – WUVS 103.7 The Beat

Advocates remain hopeful about justice for Michael Brown and police accountability

The 2014 fatal police shooting of 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown sparked a movement that saw the emergence of Black Lives Matter and a national call for police accountability. However, for those seeking justice for Brown’s death and the end of racial police violence, the fight continues 10 years later. Although Brown’s parents, Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr., were awarded $1.5 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit settlement from the city of Ferguson, Missouri, the U.S. Department of Justice and St. […]

August 10, 2024

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‘This can be his legacy’: Advocates call for Biden to create reparations commission in final months

Racial justice advocates are frustrated yet hopeful after meeting with White House officials earlier this week in an attempt to compel President Joe Biden, in his final months in office, to take executive actions on creating a pair of U.S. commissions on reparations and racial healing. The Monday meeting was hosted by the White House Domestic Policy Council after U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., requested that officials meet with leading racial justice activists who have worked closely with Congressional Black […]

August 9, 2024

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Black advocates call out Trump’s criminal justice contradictions

NEW YORK (AP) — As Donald Trump lambasted the guilty verdict of his hush money trial this week, he stood inside a Manhattan courthouse that was the site of one of the most notorious examples of injustice in recent New York history. And he had a part in that. It’s the same courthouse where five Black and Latino youths were wrongly convicted 34 years ago in the beating and rape of a white female jogger. The former president famously took out a newspaper ad […]

June 1, 2024

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For 4/20, advocates call on Biden and Harris to go further on marijuana policy

As millions of people around the globe celebrate the cannabis holiday known as 4/20, advocates are calling on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to do more on the federal level to redress the legal and societal harms of marijuana prohibition, and its disproportionate impact on Black and brown communities. “It is a moral imperative that marijuana be decriminalized and descheduled,” read a letter addressed to Biden and Harris from the Marijuana Justice Coalition, which is comprised of […]

April 20, 2024

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US Rep. Jasmine Crockett warns anti-abortion advocates that Viagra could be next

U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, is warning anti-abortion advocates looking to ban an abortion drug to err on the side of caution because other popular drugs like Viagra could soon be on the chopping block. “The fact that Viagra is a drug that is actually more dangerous [than mifepristone] and it’s not being challenged [in court], I want those that think that this fight isn’t their fight to think about what could happen,” Crockett told theGrio. Crockett cautioned, “It could […]

April 16, 2024

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Advocates push for privacy laws to protect women seeking abortions from criminalization

Rights advocates are pushing for privacy laws to protect pregnant women from being surveilled and criminalized for receiving abortion care. Jon McCray Jones, a policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union, told theGrio that women who live in states that outlaw abortions can be surveilled and criminalized for getting an abortion in states that have legalized the procedure. Alexis McGill Johnson (center), president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, advocates for safe and legal abortion during New York City’s Pride […]

March 12, 2024

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Federal prison deaths report draws scrutiny from prison advocates

Prison advocates are calling attention to a scathing report from the Justice Department that details how mismanagement at federal prisons contributed to deaths of hundreds of inmates within the past decade. The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report on the Federal Bureau of Prisons released earlier this month found that 344 inmates died, the majority due to suicide or homicide, in federal institutions between 2014 and 2021. Other deaths were categorized as accidental or unknown, many of which involved […]

February 27, 2024

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Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove advocates for reproductive rights in a post-Roe era

U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., is advocating for reproductive rights and ways to combat “reproductive oppression” following the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v. Wade. “While many of us are focusing on how to fix the Supreme Court and reverse the Dobbs decision, many young women are struggling to give birth because they’re homeless or living in shelters or they are being mistreated in hospitals,” she said. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Calif., speaks during a […]

February 23, 2024

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New maps in Wisconsin will allow democracy to ‘work better’ for Black and working Americans, say advocates

Advocates and Democrats are celebrating after Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers signed new legislative maps into law, ending more than a decade of Republican control of the state’s electoral process. Katie Rosenberg, the Democratic mayor of Wausau, told theGrio it is a “really big moment, adding, “The governor always holds himself to a high moral standard and he knows that signing this bill was the right thing to do.” Mandela Barnes, former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, told theGrio it feels like […]

February 20, 2024