Musa Sega, a street vendor in Harlem, is one of many black people in the country who, frustrated by a string of police shootings and the tenor of politics nationally, pulled his money from a global bank chain and opened an account at a black-operated bank, one of just 22 such institutions in the country. “I gotta go black,” Sega said. “We gotta support our community. We gotta support our people.” (The New Republic)
Philadelphia’s housing authority bought a high school. It hopes the institution can help reverse the fortunes of one of the city’s poorest areas. (The Hechinger Report)
In a criminal justice system that processes misery day in and day out, there is a question whether the new Bronx district attorney, criticized as a former judge in the Kalief Browder case, can truly bring reform. (The Undefeated )
Advocates have renewed efforts to train residents how to avoid deadly encounters with police – while awaiting reform. (The Atlantic)
Lezley McSpadden goes on a tour to discuss her memoir about losing her son, who was shot and killed by police, “to represent,” she says, their side of the story. (The New Yorker)
For as long as Paola Ramirez has journeyed through her gender identity, she has been haunted by housing insecurity — first as a pained young boy living with her parents in Guatemala, then on her own as a gay man and, finally, as a transgender woman in New York. (Al Jazeera America)
For as long as anyone can remember, Baruba lived on the lot on Park Avenue near 126th Street in Harlem — a makeshift home that included a worn house trailer, an electricity hookup and milk crates. To developers who for years had tried to dislodge him, he was simply known as the Squatter. To others he was the Man With the Dogs. (The New York Times)
