By Maya King TALLAHASSEE—Residents of Florida’s capital city are confused and offended by the way their city has been recently portrayed in the public sphere. Both President Trump and his disciple, gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis, have described Tallahassee as “dangerous” and “corrupt,” citing a recent crime spike in Leon County. Those who actually live in…
More Are Casting Absentee Ballots. Is It Too Late For Me?
By Alexandria Frank It’s Election Day and while some people are searching for the nearest polling station, many are belatedly scrambling to figure out how absentee ballots work. Absentee ballots are used by those who cannot go to the polls on Election Day and need their ballot mailed to them. If you haven’t requested one…
Turning Up at the Polls, Come Rain or Shine. Does Weather Really Affect Voter Turnout?
By Anaya Ray Ever decide to change your entire plans for the day because of the weather? Extreme cold or hot weather or even snow can have a major impact on one’s day-to-day activities. Those activities apparently include going to vote. In the past, Election Day turnout was greatly affected by the weather, specifically rain….
Are Voter ID Laws the New Poll Tax?
By Jessica O’Donnell WASHINGTON — As more states move to pass strict voter ID laws, cries of voter suppression have grown louder. But that’s not really new: Voter suppression in the U.S. is as old as the nation itself. From the beginning, white women and enslaved black people were barred from the polls. After the…
A Hard Head Makes for a Soft Bottom. Is spanking kids truly an effective parenting method?
By Judayah Murray For many years, there has been a fierce debate over whether or not whipping a child for discipline should actually be considered child abuse. Many people spank their children as a way to teach them right from wrong. And they believe it works, too. Twenty-year-old Terrence Lanham admits that he was in…
She Disguised Herself as a Man to Join the U.S. Army
By Alexa Imani Spencer Cathay Williams is history’s only known female Buffalo Soldier, according to the National Park Service. In 1866, she enlisted in the United States Army under the pseudonym “William Cathay,” becoming the first known black woman to enlist in the Army and the only documented African-American woman to serve as a soldier…
Snatching Faces and Equality for All Races
BLACK HISTORY: Activists of the Past and Present By Judayah Murray Jackie Aina, a popular beauty YouTuber, is stepping up in the world and emerging as an important voice in the black community. Using her platforms of over 2 million subscribers on YouTube, 829,000 followers on Instagram and 280,000 followers on Twitter, Aina regularly distributes…
Freedom’s Journal and the Birth of the Black Press
By Maya King Decades before Frederick Douglass published The North Star and more than a century prior to John H. Johnson’s Jet and Ebony magazines, freedmen Samuel Cornish and John B. Russwurm established Freedom’s Journal. Founded in 1827, the newspaper was the first to be written and published by black Americans, thus giving birth to…