Portside

Enslaved people’s health was ignored from the country’s beginning, laying the groundwork for today’s health disparities

If the work of abolition is not only about stopping prisons, but also about imagining a future in which we win, then people cannot be released from prisons only to be put on the streets or to premature disability at the poultry factory.

There was slavery in Illinois for more than 100 years. Even after Illinois entered the Union, loopholes in its laws allowed the practice to continue, making the future Land of Lincoln a quasi-slave state. 

While many companies have trumpeted their support for the Black Lives Matter movement, others are beginning to face consumer pressure for not appearing to do enough.

To me, there’s never been a more clear-cut case for reparations than that of Haiti.

Reader Comments: Today's Movement - Make It Last; American Fascism; Carl Reiner and Black Lives Matter; Confederate Monuments; Defund the Military; Police Violence; Slavery in Illinois; Laundry Workers & COVID; Student Voting; Concert for Cuba; more

Illinois is what I would call a quasi-slave state. And what’s surprising to people is that it existed here within the law. It begins with the colonial slave laws that came from France (because Illinois was a French territory).

Emancipation is a marker of progress for white Americans, not black ones.

These bases are named after Confederate generals not because they personified either victory or freedom. They were named to reflect the politics of the viciously white racist South decades after the Civil War had ended.