The Who We Are Project

In Their Own Words: The Reagan Administration on Public Higher Education Free and low-cost, federally funded higher education expanded in the United States during Lincoln’s presidency and had broad public support until the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement. As students began to demand civil rights for students of color on college campuses and universities began expanding benefits to underserved students, conservatives began to work to cut funding for public education. “At a time when higher education had begun to diversify its student body and expand opportunity for marginalized communities, conservatives made the case for college education as a private endeavor for the individual rather than a public good that benefits society.” –Washington Post Reagan Advisor, Roger Freeman argued, “We are in danger of producing an educated proletariat. … That’s dynamite! We have to be selective on who we allow [to go to college]. If not, we will have a large number of highly trained and unemployed people,” he added, claiming such conditions had created fascism in Germany. During his time as governor of California, Reagan cut funding to UC schools, and began charging students tuition and fees to attend, effectively incorporating the privatization of education into the conservative platform for decades to come. Sources: . https://lnkd.in/g9WUmeJ8

The Racist Impact of the U.S. Government’s Response to Hurricane Katrina Today marks 19 years since Hurricane Katrina touched down in New Orleans, Louisiana and surrounding areas. The storm brought with it severe winds, heavy rainfall, and a massive weather surge that overwhelmed poorly maintained levees and flood protection systems. It was one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history. Over 1,390 people died and the mortality rate among Black residents impacted by the storm was 4x higher than for white residents. Elderly people were hit particularly hard. Many of the hardest-hit communities were predominantly Black and low-income, facing not only the destruction of their homes but also the neglect of a government response. In the aftermath of the storm, tens of thousands of people were left without food, water, and electricity and struggled to survive. News outlets around the country portrayed desperate people seeking out food and emergency supplies in abandoned stores as looters and thugs. Meanwhile, in at least one instance, white vigilantes and police shot at innocent Black people just seeking food and shelter. No one was ever held accountable. In the year following the storm, over 175,000 Black people left New Orleans when government and insurance officials continued to let them down in response to the storm’s devastation. An AP investigation found that 75% of insurance claims filed with the state of Indiana were on behalf of white homeowners. Many Black homeowners weren’t made aware they could seek state help. From the disproportionate impact of failed infrastructure policies, to the increased vulnerability to climate crisis impacts, to the racist allocation of aid both during the storm and in the years after its havoc, it is clear systemic racism continues to have a lasting impact on Black people in this country. Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: https://lnkd.in/gMz5JpcG https://lnkd.in/gEvi9A6h

What was COINTELPRO? COINTELPRO, short for Counter Intelligence Program, was an undercover United States FBI operation launched in 1956 by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. The program surveyed and infiltrated several movement groups of the era, aiming to discredit and disrupt many political organizations critical of the U.S. at the time. Initially targeting supposed “communist” organizations, COINTELPRO expanded its operations to target several different civil rights organizations including the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the American Indian Movement. The FBI employed various covert tactics: hiring informants to spy on movement leaders, intentionally sowing discord among group factions, harassing movement leaders and their families, and violating their privacy in a variety of ways. Ultimately they were willing to resort to murder to accomplish their goals. The program operated under the guise of protecting national security and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover worked hard to publicly malign movement leaders throughout his tenure, calling King “the most dangerous man in America” and claiming the Black Panther Party "without question, represents the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” to justify their actions. The FBI's activities included spreading false information, forging documents, planting false media stories, and using undercover agents to disrupt meetings and incite violence. Examples include the FBI’s harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King. Agents sent message to King suggesting he commit suicide, and made phone called to Scott-King playing explicit recording of of her husband’s affairs. And in December, 1969, the FBI joined the Chicago Police Department in a planned “raid” that resulted in the assassination of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. COINTELPRO remained largely hidden from the public and even most government officials until 1971. The program was exposed by a group of activists who broke into an FBI office in Pennsylvania in an attempt to uncover FBI surveillance techniques. The group sent the stolen files to various media outlets and political officials, exposing the depths of FBI intervention in the civil rights movement. The revelations led to widespread public outrage. Public outrage led to significant reforms, including the creation of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities in 1975. Despite these reforms, the FBI’s COINTELPRO deeply impacted the American public’s trust in government institutions in ways that can still be felt today. Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway

Remembering Emmett Till Today marks the solemn anniversary of Emmett Till’s murder. Till was a 14-year-old Black boy from Chicago visiting his family in Money, Mississippi, in the summer of 1955. After a 21-year-old white woman, Carolyn Bryant, accused Till of grabbing her and publicly threatening her in a convenience store, a mob of white men (including Bryant’s husband Roy and his brother J.W. Milam) broke into his family’s home, abducted Till, tortured him for several days, murdered him, and then dumped his body in the nearby Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till’s body surfaced and was recovered. It was returned to his mother, Mamie Till, who insisted on an open casket at his funeral, saying, “Let the people see what they did to my boy.” Tens of thousands of people attended the funeral and images of his mutilated face sparked international outrage. Still, in September of 1955, an all-white jury found Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam “not guilty” despite eye-witness accounts of the slaying. In 1956, the pair publicly admitted to the killing but were not held to account. In 2007, at age 72, Carolyn Bryant admitted she made the whole story up. She was never brought to justice. Today, a memorial marker stands along a roadside in Glendora, Mississippi, where it is believed Till’s body was found. It has been replaced five times due to vandalism. Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: https://lnkd.in/gKbQxZx9 https://lnkd.in/gaas8sCx https://lnkd.in/gY2pFR7m

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedoms of others." - Nelson Mandela

Who is an “American” and who gets to live in the United States? Attendees at the The Republican National Convention held signs that read “Mass Deportation Now.” Former President and current Republican nominee Donald J. Trump has remarked at the convention (and throughout this campaign), that President Biden “is letting millions of people from jails, from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions, drug dealers pour in.” During his 2018 presidency, Trump complained about immigration from Latin America and Africa, famously calling countries within those regions, “shithole countries.” The United States has a long history of racist policies related to citizenship and immigration. Here are just 5. The Naturalization Act of 1790 limited citizenship to white immigrants only. It also granted citizenship to white American citizens’ children born abroad. The Naturalization Act of 1870 limited citizenship to include newly freed Black people, but continued to limit citizenship to exclude all other non-white, non-Western European groups of immigrants. In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “Separate but Equal” was the law of the United States, and this policy assured that even if immigrants of color received citizenship, it would be separate and unequal citizenship. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 revoked the recognition of Indian tribes as sovereign nations. The 1924 Immigration Act or Johnson-Reed Act, including the Asian Exclusion Act and the National Origins Act prevented immigration from Asia and set quota on the number of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. The purpose of the act was to “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” U.S. Representative Albert Johnson, a eugenics advocate, and Senator David Reed were the two main architects of the act. They conceived the act as a bulwark against "a stream of alien blood"; it likewise found support among xenophobic and nativist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. The MAGA movement itself is a nativist movement that not-so-subtly defines “America” as A “white America” and “great” as a mythical time before “foreign” influence and equality for Black and brown people. Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: }}} https://lnkd.in/eWAJJRxW https://lnkd.in/gKZXf3US https://lnkd.in/dwxfDFVG https://lnkd.in/ggwqd5UN

The Racist History of the U.S. Student Debt Crisis Affordable higher education is increasingly becoming out of reach for the average American student. The average student loan debt has risen sharply since the 1990’s in the United States. 70 percent of students who receive a bachelor's degree have education debt by the time they graduate and 1 in 4 Americans has student loan debt. While wage increases have not kept pace. For Black people who owe a disproportionate amount, student loan debt is one factor in the continuously widening Black wealth gap. “The United States is an outlier in terms of its prohibitively large student debt, which stands at $1.75 trillion and amounts to roughly 7.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, and exorbitant college costs.” — Washington Post Free and low-cost, federally funded higher education expanded in the United States during Lincoln’s presidency and had broad public support until the 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement. As students began to demand civil rights for students of color on college campuses and universities began expanding benefits to underserved students, conservatives began to work to cut funding for public education. “At a time when higher education had begun to diversify its student body and expand opportunity for marginalized communities, conservatives made the case for college education as a private endeavor for the individual rather than a public good that benefits society.” –Washington Post Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: https://lnkd.in/gSMqhxNA https://lnkd.in/gEsKyc5v https://lnkd.in/g8bsFen https://lnkd.in/gt2S9rMT. https://lnkd.in/g9WUmeJ8

Why Are So Many White Americans Against “Welfare”? A 2008 study found that the number of white people who oppose government assistance is growing. Racial resentment and fear of losing their social standing were cited as the primary drivers for white people’s rejection of government aid. While conducting this recent study about opposition to welfare, Willer and Wetts showed the respondents graphs they had fabricated. The fictional data demonstrated white Americans becoming a minority or showed the income of white Americans decreasing as the incomes of people of color increased. "We find evidence that welfare backlash among white Americans is driven in part by feelings that the status of whites in America is under threat," Wetts told NPR. In reality, research shows that white people benefit most from government assistance programs in the U.S. As a result of these anti-assistance attitudes, the U.S. falls far behind other developed countries in social welfare programs. Written by Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: . https://lnkd.in/g_qCZZ8Q

California Could Vote to End It’s Last Trace of Slavery in November In 1850, California became the 31st state in the union, adopting the U.S. Constitution as law of land. Since its founding as a U.S. state, it has been a free state. But like much of the U.S., slavery is literally legal as long as it is imposed “ as punishment for a crime” as stated in the 13th amendment. The exception essentially legalized slavery for those who are incarcerated. This November, Californians will have an opportunity to change that. The California Legislative Black Caucus has proposed the “End Slavery in California Act,” part of a bigger package of reparations bills passed earlier this year. That one sentence “except as punishment for a crime” has incentivized everything from Jim Crow-era prison leasing to the modern-day school to prison pipeline. The United States has the highest incarceration rates of any independent democracy in the world. Written by Diana Cherry Graphic Design by Juliette Hemingway Sources: https://lnkd.in/g9hGTiyk

What is the “One Drop” Rule? At the National Association of Black Journalists, former President Trump remarked that Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black” recently. Suggesting, “all of the sudden she made a turn” and later posting a picture of Harris in a sari surrounded by her Indian family. The claims seem to be that Harris is not “Black enough.” Throughout U.S. history the racism behind that question has been clear. When Black people were enslaved, mixed-race children were often produced when slaveholders raped enslaved women. In many colonies and states, those children were automatically considered to be enslaved. After slavery ended, those who were “Black enough” could be segregated, excluded, and subject to Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. All that was needed was one drop of blood. The one-drop rule was a legal principle of racial classification that was prominent in the 20th-century United States. It asserted that any person with even one ancestor of Black ancestry ("one drop" of "black blood") is considered Black. Throughout history some societies have regarded one racial group as superior to others. The term “hypoescent” describes a culture with a racist belief that goes further and makes an automatic assignment of mixed race children to the inferior group. Throughout U.S. history, including today, mixed race children are often subjected to the same kind of racism as their so-called “single race” relatives. Written by Jeffery Robinson and Diana Cherry Designed by Juliette Hemingway Sources: }}} https://lnkd.in/gHMG9ZF5 https://lnkd.in/gvhdQaAM