Tennessee Rep. Justin Pearson never guessed he'd be expelled for leading a gun control protest on the House floor after a deadly school shooting. Nor did he predict that he'd be propelled into the national spotlight, placing his state at the forefront of the conversation on gun regulations.
From 1998 to 2004, pro-democracy activist Htein Lin was jailed for challenging the military dictatorship in his home country of Myanmar (formerly Burma) in Southeast Asia. Prior to his imprisonment, Lin acted in films and with a theater troupe. While behind bars, he continued to organize performance artworks with his fellow prisoners.
In an effort to prepare against chemical, biological and radiological attacks in the New York subway, the New York Police Department has announced plans to release harmless gases into the city’s streets and subway stations to better understand the pathways of airborne contaminants. Officials will use more than 200 sensors, set up throughout all five boroughs, to track these benign gases as they disperse.
You enter a narrow corridor where backlit Plexiglas panels offer three compelling narratives about whiteness and blindness: Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment and hard labor in Robben Island’s limestone quarry under a blinding sun; Bill Gates’ purchase of the Bettmann and United Press International archives, consisting of 17 million images, and their subsequent burial deep underground in a limestone vault for the sake of preservation, after Gates’s company C
A group of Chicago youth staged a “die-in’ at City Hall to demand that the city defund police and fund marginalized communities instead. The youth, all members of #NoCopAcademy, also announced that the organization is suing Mayor Rahm Emanuel for withholding critical emails regarding construction of the proposed $95 million building for a Police and Fire training center in West Garfield Park.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, 1948) was drafted in an effort to advance human rights on a global level. Article 26 (2) of the UDHR (1949) states that education is intended to develop humanity and increase the respect for human rights, as well as to promote tolerance among nations and maintenance of peace. Yet, the UDHR does not appear to be promoted or recognized.
Caucus-goers in Des Moines will arrive to a disturbing sight on Monday, with dozens of chain-link cages appearing to hold migrant children cropping up across the city overnight.
" Rich is a fighter. The entrepreneur, abolitionist and mother of six boys has spent the last two decades campaigning for the release of her husband, Rob G. Rich, who is serving a 60-year sentence for a robbery they both committed in the early 90s in a moment of desperation.
The Mirror Casket project is a sculpture, performance, and visual call to action designed and orchestrated by a collaborative of St. Louis community artists in response to the shooting death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 in Ferguson, MO.
In September 1971, after years of mistreatment and months of simmering tensions, more than 1,200 of the 2,200 inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility in upstate New York took control of the prison in protest of its substandard conditions and openly racist corrections officers.
A new exhibition titled “Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures” will debut at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) to examine Afrofuturist expression and culture as it relates to music, activism, art, and more.
CLEVELAND, Ohio – Dana Schutz, the acclaimed New York artist who trained at the Cleveland Institute of Art, famously stirred controversy at the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art with “Open Casket,’’ her painting depicting Emmett Till’s body in its coffin.
Till, a black 14-year-old, was murdered and mutilated by white men in Mississippi in 1955 after having been falsely accused of flirting with a white woman.
Charged with participating in demonstrations against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Soudabeh Ardavan was held for eight years (1981-1989) in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison. She found sanity and solace through the forbidden activities of drawing and painting, secretly producing paint from flower petals and tea, using brushes made from toothpicks and human hair.
"It appears that Banksy has struck again, this time painting the brick wall of the former Reading Prison in Berkshire, England, where Oscar Wilde was jailed for two years over his “indecent” affair with Lord Alfred Douglas.
In 1988, rap group the N.W.A from Compton, California released their second album, “Straight Outta Compton”. Without any radio play or media coverage, the album still managed to become an underground hit, and the notorious rap group successfully introduced socially conscious gangsta rap into the mainstream.
"A Night of Philosophy and Ideas is a thinker’s lollapalooza. The free, 12-hour weekend lyceum at the Brooklyn Public Library includes spirited debate, live music, theater, performance art pieces, and film screenings. At any given hour, five or six different events will be taking place simultaneously. Visitors are encouraged to come and go as the spirit moves them.
2020 was the year of when protest music blared everywhere. For a long period, Black people struggled against police brutality and in the uproar of George Floyd's murder, BLM protests instantly swept over the country. Of the many protest music that was released that year, trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire wrote a song that would spearhead raging sentiments towards racial injustice beyond just jazz.
April 19th, 2020
Taylor, TX – On April 19th at 4 pm, around 70 human rights defenders in cars circled the T. Don Hutto Residential Center operated by CoreCivic in Taylor, honking and displaying signs urging ICE and local officials to release people from cages before COVID-19 turns prisons into death camps. This comes after news of the first detained immigrants in Texas testing positive for the novel coronavirus on Monday.
The Protest Mask Project was co-organized by Maggie Thompson and Jaida Grey Eagle. During the George Floyd protests, the artists' studio, Makwa Studio, created hundreds of masks to give to protestors in the city of Minneapolis where the demonstrations began.
Visions from the Inside is a project enlisting 15 artists from across the country to create a piece of art based off letters from women in detention. The initiative, a collaboration between CultureStrike, Mariposas Sin Fronteras and End Family Detention, illuminates the horrific realities of life inside some for-profit detention facilities in the U.S., as well as the resilient spirit that keeps the inmates going.
Heroin sold in the northeast, specifically in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey tends to come in little glassine baggies. The art comes from the individual and unique "stamp" on said baggie sold to a user.
This action took place on the Saturday after the 2020 US election when Joe Biden was named the president elect. While many were celebrating, the Stonewall Protests led up to march and remind ourselves + others that our fight was still far from over, and that the Democratic party is not a savior of marginalized populations. There were moments of celebration during the march, we paused in Soho and had a dance circle.
Marisela Escobedo was 52 when she was shot dead on a sidewalk outside of the Government Palace of Chihuahua City, northern Mexico. She had set up camp in one of Mexico’s most dangerous cities – a place where people won’t leave their homes at night to protest day and night against corruption and impunity in her daughter’s murder case.
"Formerly incarcerated people, activists and family members of people detained on Rikers Island released dozens of white balloons into the air from the base of the Rikers Island Bridge.
The balloons, each one representing someone who had died at Rikers, transversed the heavily guarded bridge that separates the island from mainland Queens, disappearing out of sight.
Khalil Bandib is a Berkeley-based, award-winning editorial cartoonist with a unique perspective. He critiques a myriad of topics, from racism and homophobia to foreign policy and the Patriot Act. Bandib was born in North Africa under a French colonist regime; he brings a non-Eurocentric perspective not typically visible in large corporate media.