This week the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) presented oral argument in Shelby County, Alabama v. Holder, a case challenging a core provision of the Voting Rights Act known as Section 5. The provision requires jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to have voting changes reviewed by the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to ensure that they are nondiscriminatory.

Over the past decade, in actual dollars the racial wealth gap has doubled. In 1993 the median net worth of white households was 10 times greater than the median net worth of black household. Now, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the white-black ratio has increased to 16 to 1!

By The Editors
It’s deeply ironic that amidst the considerations of Black History Month and of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, some conservative pundits and legislators continue to be obsessed, at least, rhetorically speaking, with legislatively repealing the 14th Amendment.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Because I was often mistaken for Egyptian, I had my own brushes with police hostility, especially from the plainclothes officers, who seemed to be everywhere.

By The Editors
Some New York State legislators want to roll back democracy by reinstituting prison-based gerrymandering.

By TaRessa Stovall
“Black Children and Families are Facing the Worst Crises Since Slavery,” was the campaign tagline when the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) launched its Black Community Crusade for Children (BCCC) nearly 20 years ago. The focus then, as now, was fighting child poverty.

Dana Holland was wrongfully convicted of two separate crimes that occurred two weeks apart in 1993 on the south side of Chicago. As a result of erroneous eyewitness identification and deceitful forensic analysis, Holland was found guilty and sentenced to a combined 118 years in prison for rape in one case and armed robbery and attempted murder in the other.