This week, the U.S. Department of Justice quietly closed the book on one of Louisiana’s longest-standing school desegregation orders—first issued in 1966 to Plaquemines Parish, a place whose history of racial exclusion was once so notorious it had a name: Leander Perez. The DOJ framed the decision as “correcting a historical wrong.” But let’s call […]
It was early September 2005. About a week after we were hit by Hurricane Katrina and the levees failed, President George W. Bush, who was a little late coming here but he was here now, gave a speech in front of St Louis Cathedral. Most of the City was still in darkness, and still deep […]
My favorite part of Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech comes long before he enunciates his now-famous dream. It comes before he leaves behind the prepared speech. In this early part of the speech, Dr. King speaks of the nation’s bank of justice. Of his refusal to believe that it is bankrupt. And then he speaks […]
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