• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Not all heroes wear capes.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Second rate reporter says what?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Archives for Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter

Alabama G-ddamn.

by MisterDancer|  August 8, 202311:00 am| 349 Comments

This post is in: #BLM #M4BL, Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Domestic Terrorism, domestic terrorists, Kiss My Black Ass, Make The World A Better Place, Open Threads, Post-racial America, Racial Justice

(Following up on yesterday’s promise) I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice, but I think there’s unexpressed importance in the recent Alabama Asswhooping.

For those unaware: When a Black riverboat worker asked some White people to obey the laws of the place he worked, they chose violence. A very racially-charged brawl ensued.

Responses have ranged from the pride in self-defense among a number of Black folx (and White supporters), to…well, selective editing and outrage in the people you’d expect.

There’s a lot here. So I’ll focus on those eager with the “violence isn’t the answer” prompt. Those uneasy with how easy so many seem to be with the asswhuppin’. You’re right! Violence isn’t the answer to all the issues plaguing Black folx in America — much less, the issues around Reproductive Justice, or attacks on LBGTQIA+ folx, or the treatment of people with disabilities.

And yet. If we don’t all work together to resolve these issues, and the issues of so many others. If we don’t start to recognize the source of so many challenges in America…well. I mean, Dr. King said it, a few months before White violence took his life:

First, is the guilt for riots exclusively that of Negroes? And are they a natural development to a new stage of struggle? A million words will be written and spoken to dissect the ghetto outbreaks. But for a perceptive and vivid expression of culpability I would like to submit two sentences that many of you have probably heard me quote before from the pen of Victor Hugo. “If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin but he who causes the darkness.” The policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

(Emphasis mine – MD)

It’s also important to understand that “enjoying” this moment, in the Black community, isn’t carefree. It’s with the background of the weight of centuries of oppression, and the very real issues of the present moment that reflect in this brawl. In the people who almost certainly chose violence against a Black man because — in the American South, yes, but elsewhere as well — his life and liberty isn’t worth the same as them. And that some Black folx aren’t about losing any more liberty, without a literal fight.

As Joy Reid put it:

[Back in the day] There were no consequences for [White Folx] and deadly ones for us if we tried to fight back. Well that era is done and it ain’t coming back, no matter how many sundown-town fantasy songs their country singers make. Seeing Black folk come as a community to that security guard’s rescue, one guy even swimming over like Aquaman to help him, was a ‘Wakanda Assemble’ moment, in which a group of old school southern bullies effed around and found out.

Those “greater crimes” are not things that a whole group can ignore, forever. You cannot say that one side gets all the Stochastic Terrorism they want, and expect the attacked people to bend over and take it, forever.

I don’t know who needs to hear this. But I hope they do, and do so with a quickness.

I don’t wanna be the Black Reporter for Balloon Juice. I cannot be the Marginalized People Reporter for Balloon Juice. But Alabama might be a sign of things to come, if we aren’t real damn careful as a country.

 

Alabama G-ddamn.Post + Comments (349)

A Few Words About the Murder of Jordan Neely

by Adam L Silverman|  May 3, 20238:00 pm| 68 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Criminal Justice, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Silverman on Security

I wanted to write a few words about the murder of Jordan Neely. Because of my martial arts background I think I’m uniquely qualified to write about it among the front pagers. Cole quote tweeted this:

Yes. https://t.co/CWWhkI5Xfg

— John Cole (@Johngcole) May 3, 2023

I recommend the whole thread that Cole is quote tweeting, but let me copy and paste below what I texted Cole with a couple of additions, which will be in italics:

I teach the lateral vascular restraint and its counter as an aikido instructor. I’m also the demonstration dummy when Saotome Sensei and my more senior colleagues teach it at seminars and in classes. This is because I have a 19 inch neck and because I know how to protect myself if it is applied. When I teach it, I teach specifically that you must not hold it for more than four seconds if it is applied correctly because after four seconds you risk killing the person you’re trying to subdue. This is because you’re basically making the body think it is having a stroke and if you apply it too long you actually cause one/the equivalent of one.

When I lived in Scotland and worked as a bouncer I’ve applied it in a real life situation where I was defending other people from someone who was drunk and violent. I honestly didn’t think I had it locked in properly and I’d never actually applied it before. It was just the fastest and simplest way to get control of the guy’s head. Before I clamped down on his carotid and jugular – hence the name of lateral vascular restraint – I told the guy to stop struggling and I’d release him. He didn’t, so I locked it in and I started to count out loud: “One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand” while gently lowering him to the ground. At four one thousand I released the hold, he was out, I checked his pulse, put him in the recovery position, we called the constables and for an ambulance, and I said “FUCK ME!!! IT WORKED!!” The drunk guy I’d rendered unconscious was fine. He came to before the ambulance arrived and they took him off to sober up.

That the guy in New York held it for 15 minutes means he either didn’t have it applied right and wound up asphyxiating Neely or if he did have it clamped on the vessels on each side of the neck he was trying to kill him. Given that Neely is reported to have struggled, my guess it is the former. And that means Jordan Neely was slowly asphyxiated to death. Regardless, holding this for fifteen minutes is way beyond the pale. 

Either way this is murder!

A few people here know I had a horrendous April. Fewer still know the grim details and those two helped me make it through, as did another close friend I’ve known most of my adult life, and one of the most special people I have been fortunate to also know almost my entire adult life. I was a raw exposed nerve and I was barely holding it together. I lost it at home a couple of times. The only thing at risk here was my temperpedic mattress, which I used as a pummeling target. But I was very close to completely losing it in public at least once.

Had that happened I could’ve very well been Jordan Neely! There but for the grace of a Deity or Deities or the Universe or what have you go I. And frankly there but for the patience and compassion of four or five very, very special people to whom I owe debts I can never repay go I!

No one should be at risk of being murdered by a poorly trained mixed martial arts wannabe or anyone else because they’re having a bad day or their worst day. If the guy who murdered Jordan Neely isn’t held accountable, and given the NYPD is conducting the investigation I’m not holding my breath, this will be moral insult added to the moral injury of Neely’s murder!

Open thread!

A Few Words About the Murder of Jordan NeelyPost + Comments (68)

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Wrapping Up Black History Month

by Anne Laurie|  February 27, 20226:22 pm| 26 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Excellent Links, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Russia

This here ?????? pic.twitter.com/qBjQCJFBP9

— Geneva H. (@shesthebaglady) February 23, 2022

Short end of the stick, as always… but the battle continues.

The Emancipator newspaper was established in 1820 to push for the abolition of slavery. Two centuries later, it's being revived in digital form to confront the racism that still stains America. https://t.co/VBjnKmykHw

— The Associated Press (@AP) February 23, 2022

Standing nearly 14 feet tall and 30 feet wide, the Legacy Quilt — part of the Museum of Food and Drink’s (MOFAD) latest exhibit, “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” — includes 406 tiles that illustrate Black people’s impact on American cuisine. https://t.co/c9yLA3YG3B

— Victoria (@AVocalistsRival) February 26, 2022

NEW YORK — Upon entering Aliko Dangote Hall at the Africa Center, you’re immediately confronted with the breadth and scope of the role African Americans have played in shaping our country’s food and beverage. Standing nearly 14 feet tall and 30 feet wide, the Legacy Quilt — part of the Museum of Food and Drink’s (MOFAD) latest exhibit, “African/American: Making the Nation’s Table” — includes 406 tiles that illustrate Black people’s impact on American cuisine.

“We’re in a few thousand square feet and we’re trying to tell 400 years of history. How do we do that?” said Catherine Piccoli, the museum’s curatorial director, on the process of assembling the exhibit. “We discussed early on the concept of a quilt — since quilts are so deeply rooted in African American culture — being part of the exhibition, and as we continued to talk about the quilt it became the sort of holding place, if you will, for telling as many stories as we could.”

Scheduled to run through June 19, a.k.a. Juneteenth, the first-of-its-kind exhibit puts Black people’s culinary contributions in agriculture, culinary arts, brewing and distilling, and commerce on full display and allows guests to see, experience and taste — yes, there is food available — the results. In addition to the quilt, it includes the Ebony Test Kitchen, a bastion of African American cuisine that was saved from demolition by preservation nonprofit Landmarks Illinois, along with photographs, artifacts and virtual reality experiences…

The Legacy Quilt was sewn by Harlem Needle Arts and features illustrations by graphic designer Adrian Franks. “The idea was to find 400 people, one for every year for the 400 years that were initially being celebrated when we were opening in 2020, which would have taken us from 1619 to 2020,” Harris said, referring to the year enslaved Africans were first brought to America. “There are blank quilt squares to indicate the number of people that we just don’t know and that are being discovered daily.”…

show full post on front page

The 1977 TV miniseries ‘Roots,’ based on Alex Haley's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, is being re-released to celebrate its 45th anniversary https://t.co/gamuhpZBQq pic.twitter.com/OoP45rP4Ce

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 26, 2022

“We want to make sure that America’s story is told from the folks who have not always been invited to the table, who have not always had a say in what their own history has been.” https://t.co/qO0xRpiukq

— Jonathan Capehart (@CapehartJ) February 20, 2022

The first time I saw Deb Haaland cry, she was a congresswoman from New Mexico, and she was standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

It was 2019, during a civil rights pilgrimage led by John Lewis. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) wailed out as a hymn was sung, and Haaland reached to comfort her. It was impossible not to be moved standing with Lewis on the bridge where he was almost killed in 1965.

So it wasn’t a surprise to watch tears well this week for Haaland, now the interior secretary, as she stood outside the Mississippi courthouse that once set free the murderers of Emmett Till. For Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, visiting these sites doesn’t just mean remembering the injustice inflicted upon Black people; it means walking the ancestral lands that were home to Indigenous people long before the slave ships came. Long before the boundaries between the races were drawn, and then reinforced by Jim Crow. She knows what it means to come from people who experienced prejudice and violence — the kind of violence that killed Till when he was just 14 years old.

A 2017 act of Congress spurred the current effort to incorporate existing sites that honor the history of Till’s 1955 lynching into the National Park Service, and it’s what brought Haaland to the Mississippi Delta to listen. What she heard was pain from a community that wants Till’s story told truthfully…

This is your annual Black History Month reminder that Russia's most important poet, who has done for our literary language what Shakespeare has done for English, was a black man who was arrested and exiled for his political views and ultimately slain by a white officer. pic.twitter.com/qt0ELzbJod

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 2, 2022

Alexander Pushkin's proud black heritage is a source of endless butthurt for a certain subset of Russians that is NEVER not fun to irritate.
"The Negroes' ugly descendant" himself would've been giddy with merriment, I tell you.

— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) February 2, 2022

Sunday Evening Open Thread: Wrapping Up Black History MonthPost + Comments (26)

Terrorism towards Historically Black Colleges and Universities

by MisterDancer|  February 1, 202212:33 pm| 93 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Open Threads

For Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Black History Month starts with terrorism. Multiple institutions of learning have had terrorists call in bomb threats, yesterday and today. Here are the ones I can find direct evidence of, either thru (semi)local reporting, or the school’s website/twitter/facebook:

  • Southern University and A&M
  • Howard University
  • Bethune-Cookman University
  • Albany State University
  • Bowie State University
  • Delaware State University
  • University of the District of Columbia
  • Coppin State University
  • Morgan State University
  • Edward Waters University
  • Xavier University
  • Fort Valley State University
  • Spelman College
  • Kentucky State University
  • Edward Waters University
  • Alcorn State University
  • Mississippi Valley State University
  • All HSCUs in Hinds County, Miss
  • Rust College
  • Jackson State University
  • Tougaloo College

I would assume there are others. I would emphasize these are all acts of terrorism, with all that implies. Furthermore: this is certainly meant to, at a minimum, send a message. To put fear into Black folx and those who stand with us.

Therefore: I list all of them in this way, as a small act of defiance. Not just to the terrorists, but to a media that will certainly will make the reporting on this act murky, will dump a partial list on the public without underlining the lives at risk, and the fear the students, faculty, and community rightly feel, at this time. Presenting each institution with its own report, as separately and directly as I can, is a small pushback against how these narratives tend to fail the people involved.

More than that, I’ll leave to experts in the field.

I’ll just close on a bit of the statement from the Morgan State University President on these tragedies:

My message to you this morning is to stay strong, remain resilient, and continue to prepare yourselves to grow the future and lead the world because our nation and world desperately need more leaders steeped in the values we teach here at Morgan. Those values are Leadership, Integrity, Innovation, Diversity, Excellence and Respect. Hate is not one of them!

Terrorism towards Historically Black Colleges and UniversitiesPost + Comments (93)

Late Night Reminders Open Thread: The National Promissory Note

by Anne Laurie|  January 18, 202211:43 pm| 24 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Civil Rights, Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat, Right to Vote

how strangely topical

it's almost as though civil rights advocates have been swimming upstream against the same condescending, bad-faith arguments for decades https://t.co/QTSoSj233v

— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) January 18, 2022

Jim Crow 2.0 is about two insidious things: voter suppression and election subversion. It’s about making it harder to vote, who gets to count the vote, and whether your vote counts at all.

We have to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 18, 2022

‘To truly honor the legacy of the man we celebrate today, we must continue to fight for the freedom to vote, for freedom for all,’ said Vice President Kamala Harris in a #MLKDay speech, urging the Senate to act to bolster right to vote https://t.co/lovh24Q95I pic.twitter.com/MXSSM0m5N0

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 18, 2022

The U.S. economy has never worked fairly for people of color, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says in a speech to mark Martin Luther King Day. Yellen's remarks were recorded for the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network breakfast in Washington. https://t.co/tktxYw3mns

— The Associated Press (@AP) January 17, 2022

The family of Martin Luther King Jr. leads a march for voting rights as the Senate prepares to take up legislation. pic.twitter.com/29erClB7SA

— Sophia Cai (@SophiaCai99) January 17, 2022

From a long thread:

So, I scrapped my original speech and spent the entire first half of it reading excerpts from a bunch of Dr. King's speeches, but without telling anyone that I was doing so, leading the audience to think King's words were mine. And, whew, chile, it was AMAZING.

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 17, 2022

Dr. King was a radical critic of racism, capitalism and militarism. He didn't die. He was assassinated. And many, including Regan, fought the national holiday we're not commemorating. If you haven't read, in entirety, his speeches, you've been miseducated & I hope that you will

— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) January 17, 2022

Late Night Reminders Open Thread: The National Promissory NotePost + Comments (24)

MLK: from Dreaming to Reality

by MisterDancer|  January 17, 20222:00 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, Black Votes Matter, Open Threads, Racial Justice, Recommended Reading, Taking Action to Defend Democracy, This Week In Blackness, Your Place Is In The Resistance, Cosplay Socialists, Don't Know Much About History, It's Not Too Late, Our Failed Media Experiment, Our Failed Political Establishment, Stuff About Black People Written By a Black Person, There can be no unity without accountability.

Among the most painful bits of Dr. King’s legacy is how so much of it’s reduced to “I Have a Dream.” It’s true that it’s a landmark speech, powerful and moving…

…and always heard out of context of the other, more direct speeches that graced the March on Washington (a March organized by an openly Gay Man, no less – go look up the badass Bayard Rustin, please and thank you!). As if  the marchers just wanted to spend all day on their feet, listening to platitudes and winsome ideas!

I’m not going to dive into that context, I assume your Google button ain’t broke. :) What I will do, is talk about a couple of other works by Dr. King, works that ground him in the realities he fought to overcome, and that echo into these times.

The text for the afternoon will be taken from two works from near Dr. King’s passing:

  • “The Drum Major Instinct,” (hereafter DRUM), which you can listen to here, and read here, and
  • “A New Sense of Direction,” (hereafter SENSE), which you can read here.

I post all this to encourage you to read/listen to the above in full. To underline that Dr. King was far richer a thinker and even rabble-rouser than gets noticed — that the Hoover FBI feared him for damned good reasons. If you chose to read the above docs, and skip the rest of this? HELL YA!

But for those who want more? Follow…

See, Dr. King did not buy into a color-blind society. That wasn’t the context he gave his “Dream” speech under. The context, the fuller context of his work and life’s mission, is made plain by this remarkable passage in DRUM:

 

[…]when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, “Now, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. [laughter] You’re just as poor as Negroes.”

And I said, “You are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. (Yes) And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white, and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white.

And you’re so poor you can’t send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.”

Now that’s a fact. That the poor white has been put into this position, where through blindness and prejudice, (Make it plain) he is forced to support his oppressors. And the only thing he has going for him is the false feeling that he’s superior because his skin is white—and can’t hardly eat and make his ends meet week in and week out.

And there’s so much more.

show full post on front page

One of the positive parts of Dr. King’s approach was in seeing a bigger picture, was in tying together all manner of injustice into a massive framework, what we today would call an attempt at intersectionality. It’s far from perfect; we know he was far too casual about martial relations to see the fullness of sexism. And although he was surprisingly cool with Rustin, he also failed to be vocal at all about what we’d today call LBGTQIA+ issues.

Yet there was a seed of power in his approach to directing white people to look inside themselves, in his challenge to their (and society’s) assumption of inherent goodness. And as critical as he was towards poor whites, that sympathy evaporates completely when you consider his words towards what we, today, might see as Privileged White people. From SENSE:

[…]policy-makers of the white society have caused the darkness. It was they who created the frustrating slums. They perpetuate unemployment and poverty and oppression. Perhaps it is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes, but these are essentially derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

King is far more aggressive – even angry — about calling out white society than he’s usually portrayed as. Reading his dissections of that systemic failure, and ideas on overcoming it, are bracing to this day…sadly.

See, King’s quick to lay the political blame on what I contend are still surpassing the Black and Brown voice in politics:

Negroes became outraged by blatant inequality. Their ultimate goal was total, unqualified freedom. The majority of the white progressives were outraged by the brutality displayed. Their goal was improvement or limited progression.

Obtaining the right to use public facilities, register and vote, token educational advancement, brought to the Negro a sense of achievement; he felt the momentum. But it brought to the whites a sense of completion. When Negroes assertively moved on to ascend the second rung of the ladder, a firm resistance from the white community became manifest.[….] Everyone underestimated the amount of rage Negroes were suppressing and the amount of bigotry the white majority was disguising.

(Not everyone. Ask Malcolm X, or Rev. Shuttlesworth, and you’d get a different answer on this, to name two people right off.)

But Dr. King is hella on the right track. And he knows it. And we’re still talking about the impact white progressives have on the Black and Brown vote, to this very day.

And because he’s on the right track, I can say this: Dr. King is clear that some changes can’t be made by speaking too kindly. That some painful truths have to come to the fore.

That’s what Black Lives Matter did. That’s what the 1619 Project did. That’s (part of) why Critical Race Theory – an academic theory mostly for lawyers – had to be scapegoated.

Dr. King saw that the closer we get to reality, the harsher the blow back. The more we talk about the systemic issues in this country, the more the arc of justice pushes the many folx who’ve suffered under those issues into the light and air we all deserve…and the more the old guard will press and preen and pervert and backstab to maintain power.

And SENSE touches on what kind of people have, and can, overcome those barriers:

[…]there are millions who have risen morally above prevailing prejudices. They are willing to share power and to accept structural alterations of society, even at the cost of traditional privilege.[…]Their support serves not only to enhance our power, but their break from the attitudes of the larger society splits and weakens our opposition.

It’s…not an easy calling, that Higher Calling, y’all. If you say it is, if you think I overstate things, then I ask you to show your work.

To conclude: I submit there are some things we can all learn from studying even a bit of Dr. King. And I hope the above serves as a starter, to that on your part, today.

MLK: from Dreaming to RealityPost + Comments (45)

Sunday Morning Open Thread: A Good Day to (Virtually) Visit A Museum

by Anne Laurie|  November 21, 20217:48 am| 129 Comments

This post is in: Black Lives Matter, KULCHA!, Open Threads, Science & Technology, Culture as a Hedge Against This Soul-Sucking Political Miasma We're Living In

Context, if you haven’t been to DC in awhile: https://t.co/GLUMmKcGxN

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 17, 2021

Smithsonian African American museum launches online interactive access https://t.co/jvU2NZwCoV

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 19, 2021


Timely!

The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture launched a sophisticated digital platform Thursday that brings a trove of interactive stories, images and video about the Black experience out of the museum and onto the Internet.

Called the Searchable Museum, it is designed to present the treasures of the five-year-old landmark on the National Mall in Washington to a broader audience, said museum director Kevin Young. The museum, which opened to the public on Sept. 24, 2016, has 40,000 artifacts…

Young said the digital access will allow the public to view exhibits at their own pace and in their own time. “I really see it as an incredible resource for visitors … who really want to either experience the museum for the first time or return again and again online,” he said.

“And there’s things you can see [virtually] that you can’t see in person,” he said.

For example, a meticulously preserved slave cabin from Edisto Island, S.C., is on display in the museum. “What you can’t do in the museum is go inside it,” Young said. But now you can, digitally.

The visitor can also take a grim 3-D virtual tour of the slave ship L’Aurore, for which a complete set of building plans survives…

“This is just the start,” Young said. “We’re looking right now at phase two and stories we can tell next.”

“This is African American history, which is central to American history,” he said. “To understand American history, we have to understand this. We have to understand the impact of slavery on life today. This is true for everyone.”

The exhibition opens with words from the late African American poet Maya Angelou: “History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived; but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

Sunday Morning Open Thread: A Good Day to (Virtually) Visit A MuseumPost + Comments (129)

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Go to page 4
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Image by MomSense (5/21.25)

Recent Comments

  • Betty Cracker on House Bill Passes (Open Thread) (May 22, 2025 @ 8:29am)
  • Scout211 on House Bill Passes (Open Thread) (May 22, 2025 @ 8:28am)
  • the pollyanna from hell on House Bill Passes (Open Thread) (May 22, 2025 @ 8:22am)
  • RevRick on House Bill Passes (Open Thread) (May 22, 2025 @ 8:21am)
  • JML on House Bill Passes (Open Thread) (May 22, 2025 @ 8:19am)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc