Without Reparations, Black Political Power Will Remain Vulnerable

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Some Exhibits to Come – One Hundred Years of Jim Crow

Bibliography – One Hundred Years Of Jim Crow

Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

Freedom’s Heroes During Jim Crow: Flossie Bailey and the Deeters

Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

An Iconic Lynching in the North

Claxton Dekle – Prosperous Farmer, Husband & Father of Two

Ancient manuscripts about mathematics and astronomy from Timbuktu, Mali

Some Exhibits to Come – African Peoples Before Captivity

Shackles for Adults & Children from the Henrietta Marie

Some Exhibits to Come – The Middle Passage

What I Saw Aboard a Slave Ship in 1829

Life After Hate: A Former White Power Leader Redeems Himself

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May 12, 2026

Dresden Heath, The Black Wall Street Times

Voting rights advocates, faith leaders, and community members gather at the Tennessee State Capitol during the May 7, 2026 Special Session to protest proposed redistricting efforts and attacks on Black political representation. Credit: Photo by Arie James /Arie JamesShoots

A week after the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais ruling, former Confederate states ruled by majority-Republican state legislatures didn’t waste any time targeting their majority-Black districts — weakening Black political power and representation.

In Louisiana v. Callais, the Court changed Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) to require proof of discriminatory intent, even though Congress rejected that standard in 1982 when it amended the law to address discriminatory effects.

Tennessee’s Republican House Speaker confirmed this right away, saying states could now redistrict “color-blind.” Its majority-Republican House and Senate quickly showed what that means in practice. Meanwhile, the federal supreme court has taken similar actions three times in the past twelve years.

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