Authors/Essays

The insurrectionists who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th didn’t just defile our democracy – they defiled the very notion of American patriotism. In the days leading up to the attack, right-wing extremists called on “fellow patriots” to gather in Washington.

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The Civil Rights Division is expediting its review of federal hate crimes. From January 2021 through February 2023, we charged more than 70 defendants with federal hate crimes and secured convictions against more than 60 defendants.

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Rhetoric doesn’t fight wars, but it does start them. The world has witnessed this play out in real-time during the heinous Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Nazism found its way into the narrative. This intellectually dishonest pretext was leveraged to wage an unlawful, inhumane campaign that has evolved into a massive humanitarian crisis with the specter of a nuclear catastrophe in the background.

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In the nation's collective memory of the days following the 1954 landmark—unanimous—U.S. Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, a rallying cry for parental rights echoes.

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When Pastor Eric S.C. Manning heard there had been a shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., one of his first thoughts was of his friend, Rev. Clementa Pinckney.

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At least three members of the current U.S. Congress have promoted a conspiracy theory centered on a cabal of Satan-worshiping, cannibalistic, child abusers that includes Democratic politicians, Hollywood actors and business tycoons.

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We must view the battle for the design of the new, clean energy system through the same lens we use to view broader struggles for economic and civil rights. As environmental justice advocates have shown, the environmental racism faced in communities like my father's hometown (where I spent many of my childhood summers), Port Arthur, Texas, leads directly to poor health outcomes.

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An act of domestic terrorism forever changed our community on May 14th, 2022. A shooter opened fire at a supermarket in a predominately Black neighborhood several hours from where he lived. 

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Environmental justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection of environmental, health, employment, education, housing, transportation, energy, and civil rights laws.

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In June, I arrived in Washington, D.C., to represent ADL (Anti-Defamation League) at the National Urban League's annual conference. Standing at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial entrance on a balmy summer day amidst friends and partners, I was humbled.

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More than three and an half years after the mass shooting in El Paso, the perpetrator pled guilty in February 2023 to the murder of 23 people who were shopping at a Walmart on the morning of Saturday, August 4. 

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We have an opportunity to create an America that lives up to its constitutional ideals. Communities of color know we are all created equal, but for far too long, racial oppression and white supremacy systems have led our nation down the treacherous path we walk today.

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As Lyft commits to reaching 100 percent electric vehicles (EV) by the end of 2030, we also recognize the opportunities the emerging EV revolution presents for centering racial, economic, and environmental justice.

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Only twice has our nation’s Capitol building been under direct attack. The first came in 1814, when British redcoats marched into Washington, D.C., burning multiple federal buildings and setting fire to the White House and the Capitol. 

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Every day we are reminded that climate change is the single greatest threat facing humanity. While some choose to see this as a problem for future generations, the impacts of the climate crisis are already piling up for America's low-income families and people of color.

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For generations, the federal government sanctioned housing policies that allowed racial inequity to fester like an open wound and infect our systems. 

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