On July 28, 1917, a group of between 8,000 and 10,000 African-American men, women, and children began marching through the streets of midtown Manhattan in what became known as the first Civil Rights Protest in American history. On June 6, 2020, an estimated half million people of all races formed protest in 550 places across the country, due to the murder of George Floyd. Since Mr. Floyd's murder, many others, African-Americans and Latinos, have suffered or been killed due t

Ever since I became a Christian in high school, I was always one of the few Black kids in primarily White congregations. Though outside of the church I faced overt racism, inside the church I always found love and acceptance. Growing up there was always this unspoken rule that church and politics were to remain separated, but in my eyes that rule seemed to be arbitrarily applied. If the subject was something like abortion then we should hold prayer protests and vote for the P

On Monday, August 24, 2020, Isaac Fanuiel IV stood and spoke in front of a Commissioners Court of Galveston County. He was slotted in between a number of speakers fighting for the removal of the confederate statue from the entry of the Galveston County Courthouse. This statue had bothered him since adolescence, and he was now speaking in front of the five men who could vote to remove it. After a Juneteenth march, numerous protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, and app

On June 19, 1865, Union General Gordan Granger issued five general orders on Galveston island. One of those general orders was general order number three that freed the enslaved people of Texas. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862 to go into effect January 1, 1863, but southern states did not recognize President Lincoln as their President and ignored the proclamation. American slavery would not officially end until the ratificatio

As a young child, it did not take long to understand I was different from those around me. I remember being at Mall Of The Mainland, waiting for my mom to get her nails done, and she gave me money to play in the play area there. There was another girl of the Caucasian race with whom I tried to play. Her response was, “No, she is Black.” As a six-year-old, That was my first experience with understanding Black might not equal positivity for other. As a Black, female, Black Live

I moved to Galveston kicking and screaming from Colorado. I came here, not out of choice but out of obligation. My parents, specifically, my mother needed me as she was becoming more and more ill. I did make the choice to fulfil my obligation and moved here. I didn’t want to be here, I didn’t appreciate the beach. Yet. I couldn’t get used to the heat. Still. I couldn’t see the hidden charm in being a local and I couldn’t yet understand the simultaneous love and loathing for v