The Emancipator

Culture | Frances Kai-Hwa Wang

JustUs for Vincent: Finding home between the Vincent Chin case and COVID-19

First, I heard from the high schoolers at Chinese School that all their parents were stocking up on rice and bottled water. Then, I heard about the fights breaking out in the California Costcos. Don’t mess with Asian aunties.

Culture | Mika Kennedy
JustUs for Vincent: This is a Vincent Chin essay
His death was a flashpoint for pan-Asian, pan-ethnic organizing, rallying, rebellion. He is a reminder that no one is safe unless we all are.

Culture | Curtis Chin
JustUs for Vincent: Beyond Vincent
The early ‘80s were a tough time for my hometown of Detroit. The once-mighty U.S. auto industry had fallen and couldn’t get up.

Culture | Bryan Thao Worra
JustUs for Vincent: Ypsilanti, 1982
Eating a Baby Ruth in June / When a picture of Vincent Chin / Flashed onscreen with a discussion / Of murder, Japan and the Motor City.

Culture | May-lee Chai
JustUs for Vincent: Remembering Vincent: The unsilenced
I remember when Vincent Chin was murdered in the summer of 1982. I was horrified that two White men had beaten Vincent to death in public in front of witnesses. It showed me the kind of power White men had in America. They could kill a Chinese man with impunity.

VIDEO | NICK BATES
Is Love a Luxury or a Necessity?
From bell hooks to Martin Luther King Jr. to Howard Thurman — Nick Bates breaks down how to cultivate a love ethic in three steps.

Culture | Deborah D. Douglas and Mia Henry
Quiz: What’s your resistance style?
A display at the entrance of the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, offers six ways to resist. Let’s look at a few scenarios to reveal your resistance style.

Culture | Mia Henry
6 ways to resist
It’s important for us to understand and recognize these strategies in action and how Black people have used them throughout history — yes, even during slavery — to secure their freedom.

Throughline | Kellie Carter Jackson
Lincoln gets way too much credit for freeing enslaved Black people
For decades, historians have argued for the agency of Black Americans in securing their own liberation during the Civil War.

Video | Kellie Carter Jackson
Lincoln didn’t free the enslaved. They freed themselves.
Time and time again, Lincoln is touted by his most well-known monikers, "The Great Emancipator" or "Savior of the Union."

BOOKS | NIA T. EVANS
We cannot repair what we refuse to remember
With startling clarity and relevance, Gayle introduces readers to a community of Black citizens who — within a nation they helped to build — were stripped of political equality in the 1970s.

Throughline | Kimberly Atkins Stohr
The Black church and its cornerstone connection to the health of a people
The church, as it is for many aspects of the Black American experience, is a cornerstone of the Juneteenth story.

Throughline | Jeffrey Boutwell
The link between freedom and golf’s biggest event, the U.S. Open
Known to few is a historical connection between freedom, the club, and one of America’s most important documents, the Emancipation Proclamation.

Health | Amanda J. Calhoun
We know Black people get killed by the police. Now, let’s talk about brutality in the hospital
Yale physician on what we can do about medical racism — the violence we can’t record.

WEALTH GAP | Frederick F. Wherry
Where credit scores come from and why they don’t quite add up — but can
Without a credit score, Boni was stuck. Everything he was doing with his money would have been fine if the credit-reporting companies knew about it. They did not.

CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEM | Xavier de Souza Briggs and Lora-Ellen McKinney
Impunity is a kill switch for racial progress
Until our institutions start taking accountability seriously, addressing racial injustice won’t happen fast enough.

Education | Carissa Chen
How elite views cultivated in Harvard’s early days fed ideas about school segregation
University profited from enslaved family of Darby Vassall, who helped transform public education for Black Boston students.

Health | Michelle A. Williams
The right to an abortion can be saved
4 things we can do right now at the federal, state, and community level to protect women’s right to choose, says Harvard public health dean

video | Kimberly Atkins Stohr
We can solve the racial wealth gap
The origins of the racial wealth gap began with the enslavement of Black people but they have been perpetuated and continued for hundreds of years.