President-elect Joe Biden has included working toward racial equity in his administration’s agenda. They outline how he will expand opportunities for Black folk and other people of color. Specifically, his Build Back Better document includes a 20-page report titled, The Biden Plan to Build Back Better by Advancing Racial Equity Across the American Economy. It is a comprehensive blueprint, highlighting several potential programs. Some of the initiatives require legislation. T

“Because of the racial inequities we have built into our essential systems, they have become combustion engines of misery. The virus flows freely in high-risk areas like holding cells, police encounters, low-wage workplaces, and public transit. The pistons of residential segregation, generational poverty, and targeted disinvestment along racial lines apply pressure … We can only defeat this pandemic by accepting those essential truths, and making the choices to shut down the

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent President-elect Joe Biden has announced members of his White House senior staff, including naming former Congressional Black Caucus Chair and Louisiana Rep. Cedric Richmond as senior advisor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. Richmond deftly led the Biden campaign to victory, signing on with the former vice president when the Democratic field of contenders remained wide. Richmond

By Gary H. Gibbons, M.D., Director National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute and Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., Director National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities COVID-19 has killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S., and the death toll continues to rise at a rate of about 1,000 per day. We know, however, that families and communities don’t count their losses in thousands or hundreds; they count them one-by-one – a father, a teacher, a sister, a friend, a nur

Part 5 of a 5-Part Series on the Lack of Accountability in Government in Mount Vernon by Former Mayor André Wallace Before we wrap up this 5-part series, we should spend a little time going over what we’ve covered so far. In Part 1, we discovered how the abuse of power by elected officials can and does corrupt OUR government and, unfortunately, how the guilty bystanders who watch them do it and say nothing are equally to blame but often not punished. We found out that many

Now that the 2020 election is over, people have been celebrating in the streets across America. But as we survey the rubble that is left of an America battered by the last four years under a Trump administration, we see there is a lot of work to be done. Children are still in cages along our southern borders. Police murders of innocent people of color are still rampant. Conservative politicians refusing to wear masks during the COVID-19 pandemic and yelling “My body, my choic

This hasn’t been a normal year, and it isn’t going to be a normal Thanksgiving. Instead of looking forward to family and feasting, many of us are listening to health officials begging us to avoid large gatherings, and we’re weighing the risks against our deeply felt desire to be with our loved ones. Let’s be honest. 2020 has been a brutal year. Many are grieving the loss of loved ones. Many have lost jobs and businesses and the security they bring our families. Students and e

I was frightened of monsters when I was a child. Not so sure why, but my brother, who loved to plague me, used to tell me they were lurking under my bed. I shook, and I shivered, and I cried for fear that one of those dreaded monsters would rise from under the bed to strangle me. I don’t know what got me over my fear of monsters. Perhaps I realized that my brother got perverse pleasure by mocking me. In any case, one day, he told me that there was a monster under my bed, and