Blog

Today is what used to be called “Election Day,” but is better known this year as the last day to vote. Under conditions more inimical to voting than the country has seen in generations, voters have shown their resilience and determination to cast...

In the wake of the uprisings this past summer, public surveys show that Americans have a greater appreciation of the reality and extent of what is sometimes called “systemic racism,” or the ways in which institutional arrangements and societal...

By Emnet Almedom and Eli MooreSept. 30, 2020 This blog post is accompanied by a set of safety and guidance resources at the bottom of the page for protestors mobilizing both in-person and online.Since May of this year, people have taken to the...

July 27, 2020By Karen BarkeyEarlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made the momentous decision to convert the Hagia Sophia Museum into a mosque. The Hagia Sophia was built in the time of Justinian, the sixth century Byzantine...

June 19, 2020By john a. powellToday we're observing the anniversary of Juneteenth—the day in 1865 when enslaved Africans in Texas learned that their enslavement was formally over. Yet they would exist in a world not quite enslaved, and not quite free...

I’ve lived in and traveled to all corners of the country talking to people about race for many years. One question that many people new to understanding racism are asking is, “What’s wrong with saying all lives matter?” Sometimes the question is...

A global protest movement focused on racial inequality has opened the window of opportunity to address systemic and structural racial inequality, and the aperture seems wider than at any point since perhaps Reconstruction. Already the protest...

Once again, a brother lies dead in the street Once again, he screams, “I can’t breathe” with no relief Once again, policemen stand idly by Once again, a man in blue condemns a Black man to die Once again, Black lives really don’t matter Once again, a...

June 2, 2020By john a. powellI’m writing firstly to express my sincere condolences to the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the many others who have been killed in recent months at the hands of police and related violence...

Like you, I've been inundated these last few days with painful images of police abuse, heartbroken families, and growing protests. This is our national ritual—a black American like George Floyd, Tamir Rice or Breonna Taylor is killed at the hands of...

Many of the problems we live with today can be distilled down to a lack of belonging. And at the center of a lack of belonging sits a failure to build society from a place of love.

April 10, 2020Click for a full-size mapNew data revealing a correlation between air pollution and death from the coronavirus means that California's San Joaquin Valley which includes Fresno and Bakersfield may be at particular risk. The Harvard...

April 8, 2020By Gerald LenoirThe ongoing coronavirus pandemic poses a serious challenge not only to our health and economic well-being, but also to our society's basic structures of social cohesion and even our democracy. But the pandemic alone is...

Feb. 28, 2020By Sara GrossmanWe know it better than anyone: Californians of all backgrounds and communities are doing extraordinary things with even the barest of resources. But can you imagine what our neighborhoods could look like with all the...