Black Lives Matter

The DOJ Will Investigate Alton Sterling’s Shooting

The Louisiana attorney general said he would fully cooperate with the federal investigation. WASHINGTON ― The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the shooting death of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man who was killed by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, early Tuesday morning. “The FBI’s New Orleans Division, the Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana have opened a civil rights investigation into the death of Alton Sterling,” said David Jacobs, a spokesman for the department. “The Justice Department will collect all available facts and evidence and conduct a…

Welcome to the arrest capital of the United States

When you cross into the New Orleans suburb of Gretna, Louisiana, over the Crescent City Connection bridge there is no sign that says, “Welcome to the Arrest Capital of the United States.” There is no cutout of a smiling cop telling you to be careful and not violate any local laws. There is no warning telling you that of all the large cities and mid-sized towns in the country, this is the one in which you are most likely to be arrested. In fact, it is. Nationally, Gretna is known as the place where, as Katrina’s flood waters stubbornly refused…

Black Man’s Fatal Encounter With Police Splits Mississippi City Known for Harmony

TUPELO, Miss. — The blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror of the Ford Focus. The man behind the wheel, a 37-year-old African-American, pulled over, opened the door and sprinted into the Mississippi night. Soon, a white police officer was giving chase on foot, accompanied by his police dog. The officer would eventually find and fatally shoot the man, Antwun Shumpert, here on the evening of June 18, plunging this small city — famous globally as the birthplace of Elvis Presley, but known regionally as a beacon of relatively progressive racial attitudes — into what has become a tragically common…

Black Lives Matter Activist Convicted of Felony Lynching: “It’s More Than Ironic, It’s Disgusting”

In Pasadena, California, Black Lives Matter organizer Jasmine Richards is facing four years in state prison after she was convicted of a rarely used statute in California law originally known as “felony lynching.” Under California’s penal code, “felony lynching” was defined as attempting to take a person out of police custody. Jasmine was arrested and charged with felony lynching last September, after police accused her of trying to de-arrest someone during a peace march at La Pintoresca Park in Pasadena on August 29, 2015. The arrest and jailing of a young black female activist on charges of felony lynching sparked…

Traveling While Black: I Was Racially Profiled and Locked Up in Israel

  • March 3, 2016
  • By:

Detroit activist and writer Kristian Davis Bailey was en route to a West Bank conference to talk about Black and Palestinian solidarity when Israeli police accused him of drug smuggling. Here, he reflects on the trauma of his arrest and insists that it’s nothing compared to what Palestinians face. For two months I have been silent about an unexpected and traumatic experience: my racial profiling, arrest and incarceration by the state of Israel in mid-December. I was on my way to Birzeit University in the West Bank to speak about the Black Lives Matter movement and the connections Black youth…

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