56 h. ago Chicago civil rights leader Jesse Jackson hospitalized for rare neurological disorder

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is in the hospital with a rare neurological disorder

Politics

64 h. ago Reverend Jesse Jackson suddenly hospitalised as family asks for prayers

Reverend Jesse Jackson has been suddenly hospitalised and is under observation by doctors

Politics

69 h. ago Civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson hospitalized in Chicago

Jackson, 84, has a neurodegenerative condition called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Politics

4 d. ago ‘Harlem has always been evolving’: inside the Studio Museum’s $160m new home

The iconic museum, which was founded in 1968, has been rehoused in 82,000-sq-ft building providing a new destination for Black art in New York CityCall it the second Harlem renaissance. On Manhattan’s 125th Street, where a statue of Adam Clayton Powell Jr strides onwards and upwards, and a sign marks the spot where a freed Nelson Mandela dropped by, there is bustle and buzz.The celebrated Apollo Theater is in the midst of a major renovation. The National Black Theatre is preparing to move into a $80m arts complex spanning a city block. In September the National Urban League opened a $250m building containing its headquarters, affordable housing and retail space with New York’s first civil rights museum to come. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago A new start after 60: I found my feet in midlife, became a park ranger at 85 – and retired happily at 100

At 104, Betty Reid Soskin has had the most extraordinary life, from protest singing to civil rights activism to meeting the Obamas. She reflects on what it takes to stay strong and keep goingBetty Reid Soskin was 92 when she first went viral and became, in effect, a rock star of the National Park Service. She was the oldest full-time national park ranger in the US – this was back in 2013; she’d become a ranger at 85 – but she had been furloughed along with 800,000 other federal employees during the government shutdown. News channels flocked to interview her. She was aggrieved not to be working, she told them; she had a job to do.“In a funny way, I suppose that started lots of things,” Soskin says. Her memoir, Sign My Name to Freedom, was published in 2018, and a documentary about her work, No Time to Waste, was released in 2020. Another film is in the works. Barack Obama called her “profoundly inspiring”. Annie Leibovitz photographed her. Glamour magazine named her woman of the year...

Politics

8 d. ago US skips human rights review by UN body as countries appeal for its return next year

The United States on Friday snubbed a U.N. body charged with keeping tabs on the human rights records of all its member countries, on orders of the Trump administration — which has turned its back on the Human Rights Council

Politics

8 d. ago Cornell University settles with Trump administration to restore $250m in funds

Upstate New York institution is the fifth university under government investigation to bow to White House demandsCornell University announced a settlement with the Trump administration on Friday, becoming the fifth university under investigation by the US government to do so.The agreement will see more than $250m in federal research funding restored. In exchange, the university will share admissions data with the government, pay $30m and invest $30m more in research programs benefiting farmers – a reflection of the university’s longstanding record of agricultural research. The university also agreed to continued to “evaluate the campus climate”, particularly for Jewish students and affirmed the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws, which views diversity initiatives as unlawful race-based discrimination. Continue reading...

Politics

8 d. ago Cornell University announces deal with Trump administration to restore withheld federal funding

Cornell University has agreed to pay $60 million and accept the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights laws in order to restore federal funding and end investigations into the Ivy League school

Economics

9 d. ago ‘Am I allowed my fantasies?’ Joan Baez ponders lifelong pacifism in Trump

Last year, the acclaimed singer and civil rights activist Joan Baez published her debut poetry collection. Today, she shares a fiery new work exclusively with ‘The Independent’ that takes aim at the Trump administration and wrestles with her lifelong dedication to pacifism

Politics

1 week ago Which of our warnings came true in the first year after Trump’s second election?

From military-level force in cities to tens of thousands of federal workers fired by the Trump administration, effects have been felt at every levelLast year, as Donald Trump’s campaign promises and policy proposals became increasingly clear, the Guardian published a series called The Stakes to outline the impact the administration would likely have on the country. The stories were broken down by subject matter – spanning civil rights, health, immigration and cities.Much of what was covered in the series has played out on American streets and inside homes since Trump was inaugurated in January. From military-level force used in urban centers, to tens of thousands of federal workers fired by the administration, the effects have been felt at every level. Continue reading...

Events

1 week ago Joan Baez brutally roasts Trump’s government in Thanksgiving

Last year, the acclaimed singer and civil rights activist Joan Baez published her debut poetry collection. Today, she shares a fiery new work exclusively with ‘The Independent’ that takes aim at the Trump administration and wrestles with her lifelong dedication to pacifism

Politics

1 week ago Surge in antisemitism investigations at US universities after October 7 attacks, data shows

A report shared exclusively with the Guardian documents how a civil rights law has become a tool to impose ideological priorities on US schoolsUS government investigations into universities over antisemitism allegations surged following the 7 October 2023 attacks and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza, with more investigations open in the last two months of that year than in the two decades prior, according to a report published on Monday that was shared exclusively with the Guardian.The data, compiled by the Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors and relying on publicly available records, offers a detailed account of how landmark civil rights legislation – and particularly Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – has become a primary tool to restrict speech on campus. Continue reading...

Events

2 w. ago ‘It’s dark in the US right now. But I turn on a light, you know?’: Mavis Staples on Prince, Martin Luther King and her 75

As she releases a new album, the soul and gospel legend answers your questions on Stax Records, duetting with David Byrne and the fight for civil rightsCan you speak a bit about the array of songs and artists on your new record? What kind of message and lyrics do you want to sing at this point in your life? steve_bayleyThe first song I got for the album was Human Mind, written by Hozier and Allison Russell, and that really set the tone for the entire record. It starts: “I deal in love baby, in good words from above and I ain’t giving up.” I cried when I was trying to sing it for the first time. Then the next song was Beautiful Strangers by Kevin Morby. All the songs are part of me and what I’ve been singing about my whole life. There’s some about war, fighting, love some about hard times, like the farmer whose losing his farm. Things that are going on in the world today, so Sad and Beautiful World is the perfect title.I loved the documentary Summer of Soul. What was it like to play ...

Politics

3 w. ago Former paratrooper in 70s CLEARED of double murder on Bloody Sunday more than 50 years ago

Thirteen civil rights protesters were shot dead by soldiers in Londonderry on Bloody Sunday in what was one of the darkest days of what became known as the Troubles.

Events

3 w. ago British army veteran known as Soldier F not guilty of Bloody Sunday murders

Soldier F was on trial in relation to events in Derry in 1972 when Parachute regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protestersA British army veteran has been found not guilty of murder in relation to Bloody Sunday, when the Parachute regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters in Derry in 1972.Soldier F was on trial for two murders and five attempted murders during a defining event of Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago University of Virginia strikes deal to pause Trump administration investigations

The U.S. Justice Department has announced an agreement with the University of Virginia to pause civil rights investigations

Economics

3 w. ago Pregnant women report medical neglect in ICE detention, rights groups say

Women reported miscarriages, delayed care, being shackled, as well as held in solitary confinement, letter saysPregnant women have reported bleeding, miscarriages, being shackled and other instances of medical neglect while in US immigration custody, according to a group of prominent civil rights organizations.The groups – which include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and its Louisiana chapter, the National Immigration Project, Robert F Kennedy Human Rights, Sanctuary of the South and Sanctuary Now Abolition Project – sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Senate committees on Wednesday, describing interviews with more than a dozen women. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago ‘A glimpse of genius’: what do unpublished stories found in Harper Lee’s apartment tell us about the To Kill a Mockingbird author?

When she died, the writer left behind a cache of notebooks and manuscripts. Her biographer reveals what they tell us about her unlikely rise to literary stardomWhen To Kill a Mockingbird was published in the summer of 1960, it seemed to have sprung from nowhere, like an Alabamian Athena: a perfectly formed novel from an unknown southern writer without any evident precedent or antecedent. The book somehow managed to be both urgently of its time and instantly timeless, addressing the era’s most turbulent issues, from the civil rights movement to the sexual revolution, while also speaking in the register of the eternal, from the moral awakening of children and the abiding love of families to the frictions between the self and society.But no writer is without influences and aspirations: Harper Lee had, of course, come from somewhere and worked tremendously hard to become someone. It was only because she did not like talking about herself that her origins seemed so mysterious, and i...

Events