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Bakari Sellers Reflects on History and the Future
NNPA NEWSWIRE — Sellers notes how his life has been bookended by tragedy – the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre and the 2015 Charleston Massacre, where he lost a friend. “This is the Negro experience in America,” Sellers decided. “I want to tell the stories about the Black women who always sit on the front two rows of the church wearing their big hats, and when you hug them, you smell like Chanel all day long, and they use two sticks of butter in their pies. And the stories of the men who served in Vietnam and who sit in the barbershop all day without getting a haircut and talking about why Muhammad Ali would beat Mike Tyson and when Dr. King came through town.”
The post Bakari Sellers Reflects on History and the Future first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
@StacyBrownMedia
At 22, Bakari Sellers had already made history.
The son of civil rights icon Cleveland Sellers, Bakari stunned the political world by defeating a 26-year incumbent state representative to become the youngest member of the South Carolina state legislature.
With the improbable 2006 victory, Sellers became the youngest African American elected official.
Sellers earned an undergraduate degree from Morehouse College and a law degree from the University of South Carolina.
Like his father, Sellers has displayed a commitment to civil rights and addressing issues plaguing Black America like education, poverty, domestic violence, and childhood obesity.
He served on President Barack Obama’s South Carolina steering committee during Obama’s historic 2008 run for the oval office.
A lawyer, best-selling author, and CNN commentator, Sellers earned the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of South Carolina in 2014.
Reflecting on his still young and already successful life, Sellers refuses to take anything for granted.
He continues to draw inspiration from his father, Stokely Carmichael, and other civil rights champions as he seeks to push the dialogue about the vast racial inequalities for which Black leaders have fought and died.
“I think in the conversations we’re having across the country; people want to know how to talk to their kids about the issues of race. So, with young Brown kids, Black kids, they’ll get a sense of pride,” Sellers said during an interview with National Newspaper Publishers Association President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr.
“With white kids or others, they’ll read the book, and they’ll get a sense of understanding. We live in a country where we have an empathy deficit because we don’t know or understand the struggles of others. I think this book helps break it down for kids who are ages four to eight, if not younger, to understand and be prideful in who they are and where they come from,” Sellers continued during the interview that is available on PBS television’s The Chavis Chronicles.
While Sellers’ books like “Who Are Your People?” and “My Vanishing Country: A Memoir” have sparked needed dialogue, he plans to do more.
Notably, he said he wants to lift the importance of the civil rights movement.
“I want to put together an overview and then dig down deep into pieces, and maybe tell some stories about the heroes and heroines who got us this far, the shoulders upon which we stand,” Sellers asserted.
His father, Cleveland, counted as a key figure in pushing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee – or SNCC – in the direction of grassroots organizing for Black political power.
Cleveland Sellers was one of the 28 people wounded during The Orangeburg Massacre in 1968.
The deadly incident occurred at South Carolina State University as highway patrol units fired upon nonviolent and unarmed student protestors.
Three students were killed.
“My father was shot in the shoulder,” Bakari Sellers remarked. “The unique part of that is that all of the officers were charged, and it was the first time in the country’s history that law enforcement was charged with federal crimes.”
A jury rendered not guilty verdicts, and prosecutors lodged five felony charges against Cleveland Sellers that carried a 75-year prison sentence.
“My father was charged, convicted, and sentenced to hard labor,” Sellers said. “Ironically, they misplaced evidence and backdated the indictment from February 8 (when the massacre occurred) to February 6, meaning that my father was really convicted of being a one-man riot.”
Sellers remarked how his family got involved in the movement after the murder of Emmet Till.
“My father came to Howard University and befriended Stokely Carmichael, and the rest is history,” he said.
Following Cleveland’s stint in hard labor, Sellers said his father returned home facing the odds of being Black with a felony on his record.
He recalled how his mother would give birth to his sister while Cleveland was in prison.
However, Cleveland would earn a degree from Harvard, and later, he landed a job as a college president.
“I joke that my family was probably the only guy on the yard with a degree from Harvard,” Sellers said.
He noted that his mother “was one of the strongest people I know.”
“Her family was middle class, and they weren’t necessarily too keen of the movement but aware,” Sellers recounted. “But my mother was part of that school desegregation class at Hamilton High School in Memphis, so there’s that history on both sides of the family,” he said.
Sellers notes how his life has been bookended by tragedy – the 1968 Orangeburg Massacre and the 2015 Charleston Massacre, where he lost a friend.
“This is the Negro experience in America,” Sellers decided.
“I want to tell the stories about the Black women who always sit on the front two rows of the church wearing their big hats, and when you hug them, you smell like Chanel all day long, and they use two sticks of butter in their pies.”
He continued:
“And the stories of the men who served in Vietnam and who sit in the barbershop all day without getting a haircut and talking about why Muhammad Ali would beat Mike Tyson and when Dr. King came through town.
“We have to own our story. If we don’t, people will tell you that Dr. King came down to this country, won a Nobel Prize, told you to judge people by the content of their character and not by their skin color, and then he died in his sleep. They don’t tell you about the revolutionary that was Dr. King.”
Dr. Benjamin F, Chavis, Jr, affirmed, “We are grateful to American Public Television (APT), PBS TV stations, CRW Productions, and the National Newspaper Publishers Association for enabling The Chavis Chronicles to produce such an inspiring and visionary interview with Bakari Sellers. In fact, the Sellers family continues to exemplify intergenerationally the best of what it means to be a Freedom-Fighting Family.”
The post Bakari Sellers Reflects on History and the Future first appeared on BlackPressUSA.
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High Court Opens Door to Police Accountability
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected a judicial doctrine that for years shielded law enforcement officers from civil liability in police shooting cases by allowing courts to assess force based only on the final moments before an officer pulled the trigger.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected a judicial doctrine that for years shielded law enforcement officers from civil liability in police shooting cases by allowing courts to assess force based only on the final moments before an officer pulled the trigger. In Barnes v. Felix, the high court struck down the Fifth Circuit’s “moment-of-threat” rule, which had been used to justify the 2016 killing of Ashtian Barnes, a Black man shot during a traffic stop outside Houston. Officer Roberto Felix fired two shots into Barnes’s moving car after stepping onto the doorsill. The lower courts determined that only the two seconds before the shooting—when Felix was holding onto the vehicle—mattered in deciding whether the use of deadly force was reasonable. The Supreme Court disagreed. Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Elena Kagan made clear that determining whether an officer’s use of force is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment requires an analysis of the totality of the circumstances, including all events leading up to the shooting. “A court deciding a use-of-force case cannot review the totality of the circumstances if it has put on chronological blinders,” the Court ruled.
The victim’s mother, Janice Barnes, brought the case under Section 1983, alleging that Felix violated her son’s constitutional rights. The ruling sends the case back to the lower courts for reconsideration under the broader standard set by the Supreme Court. According to the Constitutional Accountability Center (CAC), the Court’s ruling solidifies that police do not have special constitutional status and should be held to the same accountability standards. “The moment-of-threat rule is entirely unsupported by the Constitution’s text and history,” said Nargis Aslami, a fellow at CAC. Chief Counsel Brianne Gorod added, “The Court took a small but important step toward greater accountability for police officers who violate the Fourth Amendment by inflicting unnecessary violence during their encounters with the public.” The ruling comes as data continue to show disproportionate police encounters and violence against Black Americans. A NAACP Criminal Justice Fact Sheet revealed that a Black person is five times more likely than a white person to be stopped without just cause. Black men are twice as likely to be stopped as Black women. Meanwhile, 65% of Black adults say they have felt targeted because of their race.
Each year, between 900 and 1,100 people are shot and killed by police in the United States. Since 2005, at least 98 non-federal law enforcement officers have been arrested for fatal on-duty shootings. Still, only 35 have been convicted—and just three have been convicted of murder with the convictions upheld. Recent data from the Prison Policy Initiative show that while white residents are most likely to initiate contact with police—for reasons like reporting crimes or seeking help—Black, Hispanic, and Asian individuals are more likely to be on the receiving end of police-initiated contact, including street stops, traffic stops, and arrests. Traffic stops, which remain the most common form of police-initiated contact, are also among the most lethal. According to Mapping Police Violence, over 100 police killings occurred during traffic stops in 2023. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 62% of Black people whose most recent police contact in 2022 was initiated by officers were drivers in traffic stops. That compares to 56% to 59% among other racial groups. Black drivers were searched or arrested at a rate of 9%—more than double that of white drivers and significantly higher than Hispanic or Asian drivers. “The Supreme Court’s decision in Barnes v. Felix is crucial not only for police accountability but also for broader constitutional protections,” the North Star Law Group wrote in a post. “If the Court upholds the ‘moment of threat’ standard, it could make it even harder to hold officers accountable for excessive force. However, if it reinforces the ‘totality of circumstances’ standard or adopts a hybrid approach, it could create a fairer system that protects both civilians and responsible police officers.”
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Workplace Inequity Worsens for Black Women
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — Meanwhile, they remain underrepresented in high-wage fields like tech, law, and executive management—even when they hold the degrees and credentials to qualify.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
Black women remain the backbone of the U.S. labor force—working more, earning less, and bearing greater burdens across nearly every sector. Even as the country added 177,000 jobs in April, Black women lost 106,000 positions, the steepest decline of any group. Their unemployment rate jumped to 6.1%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the losses go far deeper than a single month of data. Research shows Black women are not only overrepresented in low-wage industries like care, cleaning, education, and food service—they are also consistently denied advancement and paid significantly less than white male peers, even with the same credentials. In its July 2024 report, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) found Black women working full-time, year-round earned just 69.1 cents for every dollar paid to white men. That figure drops to 49.6 cents in states like Louisiana. “Black women consistently have higher labor force participation rates than other demographics of women,” officials from the National Partnership for Women and Families wrote. Yet those higher participation rates have not translated into pay equity or job security.
The earnings gap grows wider with age. For example, Black women aged 56 to 65 working full-time, year-round, earn just 59.3 cents for every dollar paid to white men in the same age group. Those in leadership roles report disproportionately high dissatisfaction with pay and access to advancement, with 90% of women of color in management saying systemic barriers hinder workplace progress. Additionally, according to a 2022 Health Affairs report, more than one in five Black women in the labor force are in health care—more than any other group. However, nearly two-thirds of them work as licensed practical nurses or aides, and 40% are in long-term care. These roles are among the lowest-paid and highest-risk in the industry, often involving grueling schedules, poor benefits, and unsafe conditions. Beyond health care, the National Employment Law Project found that more than half of Black women work in jobs where they are overrepresented, such as childcare, janitorial work, and food preparation. Meanwhile, they remain underrepresented in high-wage fields like tech, law, and executive management—even when they hold the degrees and credentials to qualify.
In Boston, Charity Wallace, a 37-year-old biotech professional, and Chassity Coston, a 35-year-old middle school principal, both say they’re leaning heavily on community and mental health strategies to cope with workplace challenges. “It’s a constant fight of belonging and really having your girlfriends or your homegirls or my mom and my sister,” Wallace told NBC News. “I complain to them every day about something that’s going on at work. So having that circle of Black women that you can really vent to is important because, again, you cannot let things like this sit. We’ve been silenced for too long.” Limited opportunities for promotion and sponsorship compound the isolation many Black women feel in their workplaces. In 2024, writer Tiffani Lambie described the “invisible struggle for Black women” at work. “The concept of ‘Black Girl Magic’ contributes to the notion that Black women are superheroes,” she wrote. “Although the intent of this movement was to empower and celebrate the uniqueness of Black women, the perception has also put Black women at greater risk of anxiety and depression—conditions that are more chronic and intense in Black women than in others.”
She warned that workplace conditions—marked by fear, lack of support, and erasure—threaten to push more Black women out of leadership and career pipelines. “If left untouched, the number of Black women in leadership and beyond will continue to decline,” Lambie wrote. “It is incumbent on everyone to account for these experiences and create an equitable and safe environment for everyone to succeed.” The Urban Institute recently spoke with a Black woman who transitioned from part-time fast food work to a full-time data entry role after completing a graduate degree. The job offered her better pay, health insurance, and stability. “It gives you a sense of focus and determination,” she said. “Now, I can build my career path.”
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Black Women Decimated by Job Loss in Trump Economy
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — The number of employed Black women dropped from 10.325 million in March to 10.219 million in April. Their unemployment rate jumped from 5.1% to 6.1%, the largest month-to-month increase among all racial and gender groups.

By Stacy M. Brown
Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
According to newly released data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, black women experienced the steepest job loss of any demographic group in April, shedding 106,000 jobs. The April report shows a significant setback for Black women in the labor market, even as the U.S. economy added 177,000 jobs and the national unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%. The number of employed Black women dropped from 10.325 million in March to 10.219 million in April. Their unemployment rate jumped from 5.1% to 6.1%, the largest month-to-month increase among all racial and gender groups. Among other findings, the labor force participation rate for Black women edged to 61.2%, indicating a loss in employment and a possible decline in overall workforce engagement. The unemployment rate for white women remained unchanged at 3.3%. Hispanic women’s unemployment also held at 4.6%. Women in other groups generally do not face the dual barriers of racial and gender discrimination that Black women contend with, a factor in the jobless rate gap.
The overall Black unemployment rate rose to 6.3% in April, up from 6.2% in March, marking the third straight monthly increase and the highest rate since January. In contrast, Black men saw a gain in employment, dropping their jobless rate from 6.1% to 5.6%. Asian Americans had the lowest unemployment rate in April at 3.0%, while the rate for Hispanic Americans was 5.2% and 3.8% for white Americans. HBCU Money reported that the number of Black women employed is now at a five-month low, while the number of unemployed Black women is at a five-month high. Economist William Michael Cunningham, owner of Creative Investment Research, told BLACK ENTERPRISE that the number of unemployed Black Americans increased by 29,000 in April, reaching nearly 1.4 million. At the same time, the total Black labor force declined by 7,000. “The unusual nature of this increase in Black women’s unemployment is a testament to and a direct result of the anti-DEI and anti-Black focus of the new administration’s policies,” Cunningham said. “This is demonstrably damaging to the Black community, something we have not seen before.”
Cunningham noted that many Black women are searching for jobs but not finding them. He said eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion roles and cuts in federal government jobs are key contributors. The BLS reported that federal government employment dropped by 9,000 in April and is down 26,000 since January. “For Black women, the numbers show that those seeking work are not finding jobs,” Cunningham said. “The jobs that have traditionally been a path to stability are disappearing.” Nationwide, job growth continued in health care, transportation and warehousing, financial activities, and social assistance. Average hourly earnings increased by six cents to $36.06. The Employment Situation for May is scheduled for release on Friday, June 6.
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