SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers are setting up a task force to study and make recommendations for reparations to African Americans, particularly the descendants of slaves, as the nation struggles again with civil rights and unrest following the latest shooting of a Black man by police. The state Senate supported creating...
Thousands Gather at March on Washington Commemorations
WASHINGTON — Capping a week of protests and outrage over the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin, civil rights advocates began highlighting the scourge of police and vigilante violence against Black Americans at a commemoration of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. An estimated thousands...
Costa Remembers John Lewis: He Tried to Heal ‘Racial Divide’
The death of civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis late last week prompted poignant memories from Rep. Jim Costa (D - Fresno). "I served with John Lewis for 16 years in the United States House of Representatives," Costa said, "And I must say that, clearly, he was the conscience...
Latest State ‘Green’ Edict Discriminates Against Minorities: Lawsuit
A new law set to take effect in California on July 1st will drive housing prices way up. Some estimates put the number at hundreds of thousands of dollars per home. A statewide coalition of community leaders, opinion-makers, and minority advocates says the law — SB 743 — targets people who...
This Unsung Valley Hero Fought for the Dignity of America's Farmworkers
Gilbert Padilla is one of the most unheralded and relatively unknown heroes who made major contributions to the national farmworker movement between 1962 and 1980. A co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, he never sought the national spotlight or gained public recognition during his...
California Pardons Gay Civil Rights Leader in New Initiative
SACRAMENTO — California’s governor announced Wednesday that he is posthumously pardoning a gay civil rights leader while creating a new pardon process for others convicted under outdated laws punishing homosexual activity. Bayard Rustin was a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and a key organizer of the March on...
Walters: The Pardon Power, for Good or Ill
The power of presidents and governors to overrule judges and juries by pardoning convicted felons or commuting their sentences is a vestige of ancient monarchial authority. As one history of the pardon power puts it: “The prerogative of mercy made its debut on the statutory rolls of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs during the...
Martin Luther King Holiday: Faith, Politics Mix This Holiday
ATLANTA — The nation is marking the legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. with tributes Monday recalling his past struggles for racial equality, observing the federal holiday named for him against the backdrop of a presidential election year. In an early tribute to King, Vice President Mike Pence...
Activists Call for Federal Investigation into Fresno Police
At times, Christina Pauline Lopez, overcome with the emotion of the moment, hid her face behind a sign depicting images of her son. Lopez was among the protesters at the Robert Coyle Federal Courthouse in downtown Fresno on Monday night decrying the 2017 shooting death of her son Isiah Murrietta-Golding by Fresno...
Powerful Democratic Congressman Elijah Cummings has Died
BALTIMORE — Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a sharecropper's son who rose to become a civil rights champion and the chairman of one of the U.S. House committees leading an impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, died Thursday of complications from longstanding health problems. He was 68. Cummings was a...