Laura Kebede-Twumasi

A historical marker remembering the lynching of Ell Persons on Summer Avenue. (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian) As thousands of Memphians watched — men, women and children, even vendors selling sandwiches — Ell Persons was burned alive. “That mob was…

Dear Readers,The essence of our new "Civil Wrongs" project can be distilled down to one African word:Sankofa.It means to look back and retrieve what is at risk of being lost. The word comes from the Akan tribe of Ghana and embodies the importance…

Laura Faith Kebede will serve as coordinator of “Civil Wrongs,’’ a serialized reporting initiative appearing in print and broadcast mediums that will investigate unsolved and unresolved murders of the civil rights era as well as historical and modern…

Here at the National Civil Rights Museum, Carolyn Payne is processing not just the loss of her brother, but how the memory of him has diminished. Back in 2018, during the 50th Anniversary commemoration, he was the focus of an extensive exhibit. She…

Inspired by the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act of 2008, WKNO takes a look at the role of local journalists in reporting on racial inequality in American society, with video segments exploring two of the recently reexamined historic…

by Laura Faith Kebede — Transfixed by a microfilm slide on the fourth floor of Memphis’ central library, Adam Sadberry had never felt so close to his grandfather, a stalwart in the Black press who died decades before he was born. Ever since Sadberry…

Before the late 1980s, most academics cited the start of the Civil Rights Movement as Rosa Parks’ refusal to vacate her bus seat on Dec. 1, 1955. But 95 days earlier, the death of a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till was about to shake the movement to…

by Laura Faith Kebede — This week’s statue unveiling for Ida B. Wells is not the first time Memphis attempted to honor the famed journalist and suffragist with a landmark. In 1931, the year Wells died, her long-time friend and fellow activist Julia…

Fifty years ago, one of the largest and longest protests held in Memphis centered on education. The protests, known collectively as Black Monday, called for parents to take their children out of school during at least five Mondays in the fall of 1969…

As Gov. Bill Lee proposes a program that will allow thousands of students from low-income families to choose private schools, it’s unclear how many Memphis parents might take him up on the offer. That’s because what’s not often publicly acknowledged…

Schools in Memphis have become increasingly segregated over the last 50 years, according to a Chalkbeat analysis. A little more than half of Memphis schools are highly segregated, in which 90 percent or more of students are black. That’s up from…

In the 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, his dream of an education system providing equal economic opportunity to black children remains unfulfilled, according to a new book published by a Memphis advocacy group. “An…

More black Memphians have completed high school and college compared to 50 years ago, but those gains have not corresponded with a drop in child poverty. While the percentage of black Shelby County residents obtaining a high school diploma has…

UPDATE: On Dec. 20, the Memphis City Council voted to transfer ownership of the city’s two Confederate monuments to a nonprofit, which allowed for the removal of both the Nathan Bedford Forest and Jefferson Davis monuments from public parks. Read…

Debates about monuments honoring Confederate icons and what they represent often come down to one’s view of Civil War history. Last weekend’s violent gathering of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which left one protester dead, was…

At age 6, Ruby Bridges became the face of school integration as the first black child to attend an all-white elementary school in New Orleans in 1960. Today at 62, Ruby Bridges-Hall says the United States is going in the wrong direction on school…

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The discovery of history belongs to children, members of the Wolf Creek Cherokee tribe in eastern Henrico County asserted in their recent archaeological dig. With the assistance of longtime Virginia archaeologists, including Harry A. Jaeger, the…

The high position on the James River in Charles City County was the prime spot for a Union fort, so the U.S. Colored Troops under the command of Gen. Edward A. Wild started building what would become Fort Pocahontas in early May 1864. Several weeks…

They are the cemeteries without an address. One entrance has a painted plywood sign, “Four Cemeteries at Evergreen” before the chain link fence leading to a narrow, paved road surrounded by ivy-covered trees. The area is made up of Evergreen, East…