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Minnesota Freedom Fund Bails Out Those Who Can't Afford It

Bonita Gooch Jazzlyn Johnson

August 20, 2020 |

The Community Voice |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The Minnesota Freedom Fund spent its first four years as a modestly funded nonprofit that used donations to bail people out of jail, as a means of countering a cash bail system that critics see as unfair to people living in poverty and people of color. From 2016 to early 2020, it had a budget of $100,000 per year and bailed out 563 people. Protests against Minneapolis police misconduct produced a windfall of $30 million in donations. The fund has excess funds, beyond what's needed to bail out protesters, and faces some criticism that it has freed people accused of violence.

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Challenge of archiving the #MeToo movement

Colleen Walsh

August 11, 2020 |

The Harvard Gazette |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library’s digital services team gathered and archived all the virtual material they could find related to the #MeToo movement. The social media-driven movement is now represented in the library’s online archive that contains more than 32 million tweets, 1,100 webpages, and thousands of articles. The team created a largely automated system to capture the content, including 71 hashtags, and a steering committee of historians, lawyers, and data experts helped work through the challenges of capturing a digital footprint. The data has already been examined to study aspects of the movement.

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'An awakening': the George Floyd protests spur surge in Black voter registration

Megan Botel Isaiah Murtaugh

August 07, 2020 |

The Guardian |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

Advocacy organizations conducted voter outreach and registered new voters at Black Lives Matters protests on a scale not seen since the civil rights era. HeadCount, a voter-registration organization, created QR codes that anyone with a printer could put on protest signs. Other attendees could scan the codes with their smartphones to immediately register to vote. The group registered 14,898 new voters in June 2020, compared with 1,204 in June 2016. Political organizing at the summer’s protest events contributed to higher turnout in local and national elections, particularly among Black and Latino voters.

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19th Amendment: The six-week 'brawl' that won women the vote

Elaine Weiss

August 03, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Tennessee

Three generations of activists marched, protested, lobbied, and campaigned for more than seven decades to win the right to vote for American women. In 1920, national and local activists worked to convince Tennessee legislators to support the 19th amendment and become the 36th and final state needed to ratify it. Local suffragists were the most visible forces, lobbying their representatives to support the amendment, while national activists built alliances, identified legislators known to take bribes, and exerted political pressure at all levels of government, including among presidential candidates.

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The growing global movement to end outdoor advertising

Steve Rushton

August 03, 2020 |

Equal Times |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: France

There are 29 Resistance to Advertising Aggression (RAP) groups working in France to ban outdoor advertising such as billboards. The groups worked with the mayor in the city of Grenoble to cancel a contract for 326 outdoor ads. While not all contracts can be changed, RAPs are particularly focused on stopping digital signs because the energy required to run them is harmful to the environment. Groups in the United Kingdom, São Paulo, New Delhi, and Tehran have won campaigns to remove billboards and other outdoor ads, which research shows reinforce sexist and capitalist ideologies.

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The birth of the Black is Beautiful movement

Precious Adesina

August 03, 2020 |

BBC |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

The African Jazz-Art Society & Studios (AJASS) kickstarted the Black is Beautiful movement with 1960s fashion shows elevating Black models with dark skin and full bodies, who agreed to keep their hair natural year-round. As events increased and photographs spread, and famous Black women adopted their style, natural hair became more normalized. The founders recently released a song called We Will Breath to empower black people to “take back control of the narrative surrounding their lives.” The group continues to inspire Black entrepreneurs, such as Rihanna, and encourages people to support Black businesses.

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In Staten Island, A Burgeoning Youth-Led Movement For Social Justice Is Afoot

Chad Small

August 01, 2020 |

Gothamist |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Staten Island, New York

The Young Leaders of Staten Island (YSLI) was created in Staten Island to fight for social justice after young residents of the borough felt the local response to George Floyd's murder was not enough. YSLI mobilized hundreds of protesters to march in Staten Island's largest public protest of 1,800 people. The group has demanded justice through police reform and beyond, hosting voter registration and census completion drives. Their efforts have resulted in 125 people registering for the census and 85 people to vote.

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A.D.A. Now!

Laine Kaplan-Levenson

July 30, 2020 |

NPR |

Podcast |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States

Congress' passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act 30 years ago made life-changing advances for millions of people with all manner of disabilities. Beyond removing physical barriers and opening education, employment, and public accommodations, it also opened minds to see people with disabilities as fully human – a barrier that had existed historically. The protests and lobbying to put a civil rights lens on these barriers as discrimination got the law enacted, but social change is still a work in progress.

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Black voter mobilization efforts begin to bear fruit

Megan Botel Isaiah Murtaugh

July 29, 2020 |

Los Angeles Times |

Text |

Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

HeadCount, a voter mobilization group, held registration drives at concerts and other events and collaborated with celebrities, music industry leaders, and athletes to form March on Ballot Boxes (M.O.B.B.), an informal coalition harnessing the activism of the Black Lives Matters movement. They provided voter registration tools such as text messaging and QR codes, which protesters could print and display on their signs. They also partnered with Atlantic Records to launch ATL Votes, a digital registration campaign aimed at young voters. They registered over ten times as many new voters in 2020 than in 2016.

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Black Lives Matter Protests Rarely End in Violence – Especially in Appalachia

Chris Jones

July 23, 2020 |

100 Days in Appalachia |

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Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, West Virginia

Thirty-six people protesting police violence and racism held the first civil rights march in Terra Alta. Met by counter-protesters with guns who were expecting out-of-town agitators, the groups engaged in peaceful and respectful dialogue rather than conflict. Each side expressed their viewpoints and shared the personal experiences that helped form those views. While they did not agree on many topics, they both felt that social media and mainstream media portrayals of the two groups fueled misinformation and ill will. Instead, both sides saw each other as human beings rather than stereotypes and caricatures.

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