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The Department of Justice is attempting to sabotage a reparations initiative that compensates victims of historic housing discrimination in Evanston, Illinois. For decades, Black residents of Evanston were subjected to redlining and other forms of housing discrimination, which prevented them from obtaining bank loans to purchase property. “Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century, housing has been the primary way that families have built wealth, and we are in a country where there is 10 times as much wealth in the white community as there is in the Black community. … [T]hat gap is a result, primarily, of this type of dispossession on the grounds of housing,” explains Howard University law professor Justin Hansford. Evanston’s reparations program, funded through donations and a local tax on recreational marijuana sales, grants Black residents and their descendants up to $25,000 for property down payments, mortgages, home repairs and other related fees. It is the first of its kind in any U.S. city and seen as a model for similar initiatives across the country and the world. “The effort to bring a lawsuit to stop this particular program is meant to send a message to programs in cities and states around the country that this is something that is dangerous or illegal,” says Hansford, who is helping Evanston city officials defend their reparations program from the DOJ’s claims that its race-based criteria are unconstitutional. “We want to make sure that everyone knows that it is constitutional to pursue reparations in the United States.”

From a synagogue’s 5K to Appalachia’s Hillbilly Days, shared celebrations pull strangers together.

A late-19th century campaign spearheaded by Foster’s brother sought to elevate him into the pantheon of American cultural heroes, even as his sympathies tended to lie with the pro-slavery South.

The Great White North is officially joining the European Song Contest for 2027.

In the 1990s, as now, culture war skirmishes played out in the media.

I get that Mercury is in retrograde, but please don’t get back with your ex.

Jim McMahan, Workers World. Seattle, WA – The Peoples Football Match was held outside FIFA’s Seattle Stadium on July 26 as Egypt and Iran played inside. The Peoples Match demanded solidarity with the courageous peoples of Iran, Palestine and Lebanon. Their war-torn countries are resisting U.S. and Israeli aggression. The Hands Off Iran Coalition, Bilal Seattle and […]