Back to School Special: Who First Challenged School Segregation in Mississippi?

As elementary and high school students in Mississippi head back to school this month, they may not consider themselves lucky, but they are…

Perspective, Story Behind The StoryKatherine MitchellAugust 9, 2022Brown v. Board of Education, desegregated public schools, segregation, Mississippi Asian population, Jeu Gong Lum, Asian Americans, Chinese immigrant, Delta, grocery stores, Jim Crow, Katherine Gong Lum, Berda Lum Chan

What Did Rosa Parks Do? More Than Sitting Down on a Bus and Being Arrested

On Dec. 1, 1955, a 43-year old bespectacled, decorous-looking, married seamstress wearing a neat suit was arrested on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks had violated racial segregation laws, which then governed all aspects of daily life in the Deep South, by refusing to give up her seat to a White man and move to the back of the bus with other Black riders.

Perspective, Story Behind The StoryKatherine MitchellDecember 7, 2020Black women, black victims, Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, NAACP, NAACP youth council, back of bus, bus boycott, sexual assault, Recy Taylor, gang rape, Montgomery bus boycott, Jim Crow

Payback for Pain and Loss: Reparations for Relatives of Lynching Victims?

In the U.S., reparations have had a rocky, uneven history. After World War II, in which American Indians served in great numbers and in key roles, Congress approved financial compensation of about $1.3 billion for 178 tribes. But much of it ended up in government-controlled trusts.