Why Reparations Matter Now

As funders and as a nation, we must examine the debt owed to the enslaved Africans and their descendants whose forced labor fueled the global economy for centuries and generated the wealth that built this country. The call for economic reparations for Black Americans has gone unanswered for centuries. Today, California can answer the call and atone for the unjust enrichment of this state from slavery together with the systematic and multi-generational exclusion of Black Americans from economic and social opportunities.

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Akilah Shaheed
November Election Facts

During the general election, your vote selects the final candidate for a given elective office and determines which ballot propositions pass or fail. California Black Power Network has provided a November election facts sheet located below:

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Akilah Shaheed
White Supremacy Culture

The Sum of Us is a brilliant analysis of how we arrived here: divided and self-destructing, materially rich but spiritually starved and vastly unequal. McGhee marshals economic and sociological research to paint an irrefutable story of racism’s costs, but at the heart of the book are the humble stories of people yearning to be part of a better America, including white supremacy’s collateral victims: white people themselves. With startling empathy, this heartfelt message from a Black woman to a multiracial America leaves us with a new vision for a future in which we finally realize that life can be more than zero-sum.

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Akilah Shaheed
White Supremacy Culture – Still Here

This article is an update of the original White Supremacy Culture article published in 1999. While I wrote the words on the pages that became the White Supremacy Culture article all those years ago, I want to make it clear that I do not consider the original article or the website that is an extension of the article, my work. I feel a sense of stewardship rather than of ownership.

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Akilah Shaheed
Why Grassroots Action Is the Most Likely Path to Systemic Change

This article is the first article of Community Strategies for Systemic Change, a series that is being co-produced by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and NPQ. In the series, urban and rural grassroots leaders from across the United States share how their communities are developing and implementing strategies—grounded in local places, cultures, and histories—to shift power and achieve systemic change.

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Akilah Shaheed