In the fall of 2020, the National Urban League partnered with BET to launch a new initiative — National Black Voter Day. The day, part of BET’s #ReclaimYourVote campaign, was focused on increasing Black voter turnout at the ballot box in the United States. Black voter turnout has been relatively high in the US for decades. Pew Research Center surveys that examine voting patterns over the past 20 years show that a majority of Black voters turn out each election cycle, with 67% of eligible Black voters participating in the 2012 election. That number was higher than any other racial or ethnic group that year. But in 2016, during the presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, Black voter turnout dipped by 10%, resulting in a 20-year low (higher still than the percentage of eligible Asian-Americans and Hispanic-Americans who voted that year, but slightly lower than the percentage of eligible white Americans).

History is a tricky beast to nail down. The result of a mixture that’s equal parts objective science, subjective perspective, political power, and good old fashioned belief, history is a feat, the attempt of which leaves scholars and students alike with the same inevitable paradox: on one hand, an unwilling acceptance of the fact that we will never be able to recount with complete accuracy or objectivity exactly what happened; and on the other hand a grim understanding of the consequences of getting it too wrong or worse yet, not trying at all.

In the summer of 2020, AphroChic spoke with Janelle Jones on Instagram Live about Black Women's Equal Pay Day, economics, and racial inequality. Janelle is the first African American woman to serve as chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor and is currently the chief economist for Service Employees International Union. Here we present the edited conversation from two years ago in honor of Black Women's Equal Pay Day 2022, which takes place this year on September 21st. Black women are paid 58 cents for every dollar paid to white men and this day symbolically denotes how far into the year Black women must work to be paid what men were paid the previous year. 

“Strategy. Action. Walk into who you claim to be and lead.” Jill Scott’s reading of her poem, Agitation Definition #3 at the nationally televised, Juneteenth: A Global Celebration, was an urgent call to action. A rebuke of America’s so-called leaders — political and cultural — who seem to be failing us at every turn. She was demanding that those in a position to lead, do so. The fiery poem, ending with Scott’s defiant scream, “LEAD!”, evoked remembrances of Fannie Lou Hamer’s emphatic rallying cry, “We are sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Half a desperate plea and half a revolutionary command, the moment captured perfectly the emotions of a nation that genuinely wants to be better than it is, yet feels itself edging ever closer to something terrible.

Pride marks the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, multiple demonstrations as a result of police violence at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village. In the early hours of June 28, 1969, Stonewall patrons and community members clashed with police after officers stormed the bar, arresting, violating, and beating people as part of their routine raids on queer establishments. The escalation turned into two days of rebellion and protest, and what is considered to be one of the greatest movements in queer liberation.

Centuries are like decades. The first few years of one are mostly indistinguishable from the last few years of the one before. But eventually, new ideas and directions develop — often by recognizing the limitations of what came before — and slowly, an identity emerges. We are now firmly into the second decade of the 21st century. Despite several pivotal moments, this century has yet to fully define itself or honestly evaluate the problems that have developed with ideas, systems, and paradigms that have run their course — and we continue to suffer for it. The year 2020 was a masterclass in the shortcomings of our society in many areas that we consider permanent. But they all had beginnings, so they can have ends. Here are a few things we need to admit that we’ve outgrown in the 21st century.

There is an old saying that goes: when white people get a cold, Black people get the flu. And unfortunately, the coronavirus outbreak has proved this to be true. More than 100,000 Americans have lost their lives due to COVID-19. And 40 million workers have filed for unemployment benefits in the last 10 weeks as they continue to lose work hours or lose their jobs altogether, affecting their wages and access to health care.

The summer of 2020 marks an incredible moment in history, seeing the birth of one of the largest civil rights movements the world has ever known. After years of what seemed like an endless cycle of Black death and white apathy, something new has happened. Cries of support for Black lives have begun to come from places that were once deathly silent as the terrifying immunity with which the police could kill Black people was proven over and over, one video at at time. The outrage of a community used to suffering alone has been felt by others and together they are beginning to stand up, not in one city or one nation, but all over the world.

The world of Pan-Africanism in the 1960s was very different from the one into which the Trinidadian lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams first introduced the term in 1900. Not only had 60 years passed, but with them two World Wars that had depleted the empires of Europe, loosening the stranglehold they once held on much of the rest of the world. But the impact of time wasn’t felt by Europe alone. Pan-Africanism had made its share of strides in that time as well.

From it’s beginnings in London at the turn of the 20th century, through the first World War and the start of the New Negro Movement, Pan-Africanism became the primary descriptor under which a host of movements, philosophies and organizations were grouped and understood. By the second decade of the century, New York stood out as a beacon of Black life and a center for the emerging themes of Black culture.

In the first installment of this series, we explored questions pertaining to the nature of the African Diaspora. The concept as we currently understand it emerges from the much longer history of Pan-Africanism - a massive body of individuals, organizations, movements, thinkers, creatives and artists that worked on all levels across many nations to improve the lives and lots of Black people around the world.

It’s Hip Hop and street style. It’s Juneteenth in Harlem, the Caribbean Day Parade in Brooklyn and Carnevale everywhere. It’s all over Beyonce’s latest video. But what is the African Diaspora? It’s a common term for referring to the collection of cultures across the world that trace their roots back to the African continent.

Jeanine Hays and Bryan Mason sit down with friend, and filmmaker, Adepero Oduye to discuss radical creativity and her groundbreaking film, To Be Free, where Oduye transforms into the legendary Nina Simone.