EDISTO ISLAND, S.C. (AP) - As a cool sea breeze wafted across a 17th century South Carolina plantation that once grew prized sea island cotton, workers this week carefully disassembled, measured, and numbered wooden planks from a dilapidated antebellum slave cabin.
Once one of about two dozen on slave row at Point of Pines Plantation, the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture plans to ship the cabin north, and place it on display at the new museum when it opens on Washington's National Mall in two years.
"The reason we collect a cabin like this is (that) it allows you to...
In the wake of the May 17, 1954, Brown v. Board of Education decision, school districts made strides to end racial segregation in public schools. But after meeting the clear goals of court-ordered desegregation, many schools slipped back into race and class segregation trends even with a growing diversity in student enrollment, according to several new reports from the Civil Rights Project at UCLA, which is exploring increasing school segregation trends in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States.
The Civil Rights Project study released May 9, Losing Ground: School Segregation in Massachusetts,...
WASHINGTON (AP) - Citing problems exposed by the Boston Marathon bombings, senators weighing amendments to a sweeping immigration bill agreed Tuesday to boost security provisions around student visas.
The Senate Judiciary Committee agreed by voice vote to an amendment by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa meant to ensure that border patrol agents at U.S. ports of entry have access to information on the status of student visas.
The committee action follows recent revelations that a student from Kazakhstan accused of hiding evidence for one of the Boston bombing suspects returned to the U.S...
WASHINGTON (AP) – In roughly 75 hours of arguments at the Supreme Court since October, only one African-American lawyer appeared before the justices, and for just over 11 minutes.
The numbers were marginally better for Hispanic lawyers. Four of them argued for a total of 1 hour, 45 minutes.
Women showed better representation with just over 17 percent of the arguments before the justices.
In an era when three women, a Hispanic and an African-American sit on the court and white men constitute a bare majority of the nine justices, the court is more diverse than the lawyers who argue before it....
Roughly 20 percent of all black and Hispanic households are without checking or saving accounts, essentially leaving them completely shut out of the burgeoning American banking system.
At a time when a growing segment of citizens use online banking, some even depositing paychecks using their cellphone camera, many minorities are still subjected to a “kick them while their down system” where it costs them money to get money.
Typically, most check cashing agencies charge a minimum of $6 to cash a check, and without bank issued credit cards, most of those same victims have to turn to payday...
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - Sgt. 1st Class Naida Hosan is not a Muslim - she's a Catholic. But her name sounded Islamic to fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and they taunted her, calling her "Sgt. Hussein" and asking what God she prayed to.
So before deploying to Afghanistan last year for her second war tour, she legally changed her name - to Nadia Christian Nova.
This did not solve her problems.
Instead, matters escalated. Nova complained to her superiors about constant anti-Muslim slurs and jokes. She says they responded with a series of reprisals intended to drive her out of the Army, leading her to...
One teacher won’t be getting a “Happy Teacher’s Day” card this year: In April, a 61-year-old Texas educator denied claims she ever fondled a 7-year-old black student because, stating in her own defense, she “doesn’t like black students because she was prejudiced.”
For the rest of the nation’s educators, the entire week of May 6-12 is set aside each year – including National Teacher Day, May 7 - as “National Teacher Appreciation Week.”
While there is no question that, with the changing demographics, educational institutions need to hire more teachers of color to meet the demands of an...
Sectarian Violence Explodes Against Muslims In Myanmar
OKKAN, Myanmar (AP) — They slept terrified in the fields, watching their homes burn through the night. And when they returned on Wednesday, nothing was left but smoldering ash and debris.
One day after hundreds of Buddhists armed with bricks stormed a clutch of Muslim villages in the closest explosion of sectarian violence yet to Myanmar's main city, Yangon, newly displaced Muslims combed through the wasteland of their wrecked lives. Unable to go home, they faced an uncertain future — too fearful of more attacks even to leave.
"We ran...
