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Deborah Douglas

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Boston, Chicago
As seen in: The Emancipator, LinkedIn, Medium, HuffPost, The Guardian, USA Today, Washington Post Opinions, Quartz, VICE, VICE UK, The Boston Globe and
Covers:  Justice, Health, Race, Equity, Business, Economy, Popular Culture
Phenomenal woman. That’s me! SoJo Medill | EIC @the_emancipator | Civil Rights Trail Book 📚 | Studs Terkel 🏆 | Boston Globe | Obama Summit #1
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How Chicago is reimagining the future of local journalism as papers decline

How Chicago is reimagining the future of local journalism as papers decline

The Guardian — Alden Global Capital has wasted no time living up to its reputation for squeezing costs since acquiring Tribune Publishing last month, quickly offering a buyout to newsroom employees at the Chicago Tribune, among the largest daily newspapers in the country.
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'I Wish Juneteenth Could Remain Underground, Secret, and Sacred'

'I Wish Juneteenth Could Remain Underground, Secret, and Sacred'

VICE — Tricia Hersey (Henri Trinh for VICE News) Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here. When President Joe Biden signed a law to make Juneteenth a federal holiday last week, not everyone was convinced he'd made the right decision.
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One year on, how George Floyd's murder has changed the world

One year on, how George Floyd's murder has changed the world

The Guardian — George Floyd's murder felt like everything was the same and nothing was the same, said Miski Noor, an activist in Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed by a white police officer a year ago on 25 May. "How many times have we seen Black death go viral?"
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Why Kamala Harris Becoming Vice President Is Such A Historical Landmark

Why Kamala Harris Becoming Vice President Is Such A Historical Landmark

Black Entertainment Television (BET) — Because of who she is, the vice president-elect will not go unnoticed.
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Meet the New Black Press | Nieman Reports

Meet the New Black Press | Nieman Reports

Nieman Reports — The TMZ headline "1,000 People Attend Chicago House Party During Coronavirus Pandemic" was worrisome to Tiffany Walden, editor-in-chief of The TRiiBE, a digital outlet that aims to reshape the narrative about Black Chicago. She was already following social media comments on a viral Facebook video posted on April 25 showing a jam-packed party in a West Side Chicago residence.
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Black Mama's Bail Out and 'grace of God' credited with release after 4 years - MLK50: Justice Thr...

Black Mama's Bail Out and 'grace of God' credited with release after 4 years - MLK50: Justice Thr...

MLK50: Justice Through Journalism — Beautiful was facing 75 days "in the hole" when Black Mama's Bail Out paid for her release. Beautiful, 28, a transwoman, was all too familiar with "the hole." She had already spent many days there during her four-year stint in pretrial detention at Shelby County Jail men's lockup.
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Why is COVID-19 cutting a lethal swath through black Shelby County? And how can it be stopped?

Why is COVID-19 cutting a lethal swath through black Shelby County? And how can it be stopped?

The Commercial Appeal — Like many Memphians, TaJuan Stout-Mitchell has been putting some distance between herself and novel coronavirus by wearing a mask and standing 6 feet away from strangers. What she hasn't been able to do, though, is distance herself from news of people she either knows, or knows of, who have been sickened or killed by COVID-19.
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Why is COVID-19 cutting a lethal swath through black Shelby County? And how can it be stopped?

Why is COVID-19 cutting a lethal swath through black Shelby County? And how can it be stopped?

The Commercial Appeal — Like many Memphians, TaJuan Stout-Mitchell has been putting some distance between herself and novel coronavirus by wearing a mask and standing 6 feet away from strangers. What she hasn't been able to do, though, is distance herself from news of people she either knows, or knows of, who have been sickened or killed by COVID-19.
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Lessons From MLK for a Better Post-Coronavirus Economy

Lessons From MLK for a Better Post-Coronavirus Economy

YES! Magazine — The civil rights icon fiercely advocated for redistributive wealth and social democracy. Fifty-two years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Memphis, April 4, 1968, his radical economic agenda reverberates through a pandemic-ridden nation at a prophetic tilt.
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Issa Rae on Blackness, Dreadlocks, and Black People Getting Treated Like Pets

Issa Rae on Blackness, Dreadlocks, and Black People Getting Treated Like Pets

Vice — Even with today's increased diversity in film and television, many people still have a monolithic view of black life. Issa Rae, an actress, writer, and director, is aiming to correct this with her new HBO series Insecure , which premiered earlier this week and shows what black people do in our day-to-day: Living, loving, messing up, making up, and just generally trying "hard as fuck," as the show's tagline says.
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Soda tax debate overlooks sugar's sinister history

Soda tax debate overlooks sugar's sinister history

The Chicago Reporter — The world has been a slave to sugar for so long that Cook County residents who are sour on a new penny-an-ounce sugar tax have missed the social justice implications of the measure.
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Inside America's comfort with Confederate symbols - MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

Inside America's comfort with Confederate symbols - MLK50: Justice Through Journalism

mlk50.com — Details from Reuters/Ispos poll offer insight into the resistance to and commitment to removing statues in Memphis and elsewhere A deeper dive into an eye-opening Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll showing most Americans are fine leaving Confederate monuments alone provides some insight on the quest to remove the two standing in downtown Memphis.
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In Chicago, Dick Gregory cultivated fame and activism

In Chicago, Dick Gregory cultivated fame and activism

The Chicago Reporter — Courtesy of Chicago SNCC History Project Before Dick Gregory's big break performing at Hugh Hefner's Chicago Playboy Club, there was Herman Roberts and his Roberts Show Club. Gregory got his comedy start in Chicago at that club, 6622 S. Parkway. Call it forgetfulness or even erasure.
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That Time White People Burned and Pillaged a Black Community on Election Day

That Time White People Burned and Pillaged a Black Community on Election Day

Vice — Election Day 1920 gave us one of the most violent, horrific stories in the history of American democracy. And unfortunately, despite the lives lost and the unimaginable racism that precipitated the carnage, it's a tale that has largely been left untold.
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#DontDumpOnFrayser group fights plan to build a demolition dump next to school

#DontDumpOnFrayser group fights plan to build a demolition dump next to school

mlk50.com — When Frayser residents think of their community, they don't think of garbage. So they're perplexed and frustrated anyone could think of garbage when it thinks of Frayser. A #DontDumpOnFrayser group is encouraging neighbors to fight Memphis Wrecking Co.'s quest to build a landfill next to Whitney Achievement Elementary School at an open meeting at 6 p.m.
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Obama's 'beer summit' derailed him on race: Column

Obama's 'beer summit' derailed him on race: Column

USA Today — That meeting told the nation it was okay to be dismissive of African Americans and their concerns. The list of black lives lost in police encounters gone wrong has grown longer than a T-shirt can hold. It's clear that even being on one's best behavior, and extending law enforcement every benefit of the doubt, can be deadly.
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Investor deposits lessons in financial literacy, freedom for a new generation

Investor deposits lessons in financial literacy, freedom for a new generation

mlk50.com — "I didn't know what having money looked like," said Tyler, founder and president of PreserverPartners LLC in Memphis, which manages investments for pension funds, hospitals and individuals. "I was driven by the idea that I didn't want to be poor when I grew up."
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Oprah Explains How Henrietta Lacks's Story Resonates with African Americans

Oprah Explains How Henrietta Lacks's Story Resonates with African Americans

Vice — From BET's Rebel to Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, popular culture has taken notice of the Black Lives Matter movement and the ongoing discussions about black bodies, often using it as a plot device.
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With two promotions, Chicago Sun-Times returns to its watchdog roots

With two promotions, Chicago Sun-Times returns to its watchdog roots

Columbia Journalism Review — After five mystifying (and let's be honest, pretty wretched) years under the ownership of wannabe journalism mogul and investor Michael Ferro, the city's No. 2 newspaper signaled a fresh start and a new direction late last month with the promotion of two award-winning investigative journalists to top spots in the newsroom.
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Denial of Right to Wear Locs Means Denial of Black Freedoms

Denial of Right to Wear Locs Means Denial of Black Freedoms

Ebony — White norms win again thanks to a recent ruling that employers can force workers to choose between cutting off their dreadlocks or losing their jobs. The nappy, kinky, coily and wavy textures of Black hair are not considered unchangeable racial markers like skin tone ...
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Mizzou protesters could use some media training

Mizzou protesters could use some media training

Columbia Journalism Review — The University of Missouri employees who interfered with newsgathering at a public protest on Monday have come in for widespread criticism from members of the press. But they have also done the student body of university a great disservice in modeling how to start a revolution-or, for that matter, simply deal with the media to advance their own cause. As seasoned journalists, we cringed when we saw an administrator lock arms with students to push a photographer backward, and a communications professor call for "some muscle over here" to eject a student videographer filming at Carnahan Quadrangle.
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Mizzou protesters could use some media training

Mizzou protesters could use some media training

Columbia Journalism Review — The University of Missouri employees who interfered with newsgathering at a public protest on Monday have come in for widespread criticism from members of the press. But they have also done the student body of university a great disservice in modeling how to start a revolution-or, for that matter, simply deal with the media to [...]
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Former Sun-Times staffers react to top reporter's resignation

Former Sun-Times staffers react to top reporter's resignation

Columbia Journalism Review — CHICAGO - It would be hard to overstate the sense of shock and dismay among journalists here, a day after Dave McKinney, former statehouse bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times, stepped down from the embattled yet feisty paper. "I'm convinced this newspaper no longer has the backs of reporters like me," McKinney wrote in his resignation letter to Michael Ferro, chairman of Wrapports LLC, the paper's owner. His departure, amid claims that Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner tried to use his considerable clout to interfere with McKinney's work, set social media abuzz.
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Helen Burns Jackson, Mother of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mourned in SC

Helen Burns Jackson, Mother of the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Mourned in SC

theroot.com — When the Rev. Jesse Jackson's mother gave birth to him as an unwed teen, "I guarantee you where she was going to church didn't look like this," said former President Bill Clinton in his signature, conversational style during homegoing services Monday for Helen Burns Jackson. Mrs. Jackson died Sept. 7 at age 91. Springfield Baptist Church in Greenville, S.C., was filled with love, laughter and tears for the woman who gave the world the civil rights icon, twice presidential candidate and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner, and his younger brother, Charles "Chuck" Jackson, a Grammy-winning singer and songwriter credited with launching Natalie Cole's legendary career.
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