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☆ Black UAW workers won progress in America's auto industry. They are on strike for its future
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-07 | by ( Nathaniel Meyersohn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +12 min

The percentage of Black workers in the auto industry today is more than double their share of the workforce overall. But the decline in US auto jobs and the erosion of unions have hit Black workers hardest. Black workers are likelier to belong to unions, in any industry, compared to White and Hispanic workers. Black union workers earn on average 16.4% higher wages than non-union Black workers, and they are likelier to have health care and retirement benefits, studies show. Hard-won gains disappearSoon after Black auto workers broke into better paying jobs, the US auto industry began its long decline, decimating Black communities in particular.

Persons: Lynda Jackson’s, Jackson, ” Jackson, ” Lynda Jackson, Lynda S, Emily Elconin, ”, Tiffanie Simmons, Simmons, Steven Pitts, Luke Sharrett, Tesla, “, ” Pitts, Jim Crow, Henry Ford, Nelson Lichtenstein, “ Walter Reuther, Ford, Irving Haberman, Kevin Boyle, Boyle, Philip Randolph, Randolph, Franklin Roosevelt, Walter Reuther, —, James Meredith, Martin Luther King, Jr, Roy Wilkins, Phillip Randolph, Walther Reuther, Martin Luther King Jr, Reuther, ” Boyle, Spencer Platt, Josh Bivens, Biden, Erica Smiley, ” Smiley Organizations: New, New York CNN, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, United Auto Workers, UAW, Detroit’s, Processing, Bloomberg, Getty, Ford Motor, Economic Policy Institute, UC Berkeley Labor Center ., Tesla, Ku Klux Klan, University of California, America, Northwestern University, Jobs, Walther Reuther . Express, Hulton, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, The League, Revolutionary Black Workers, Black, Economic, Institute, P Global Market Intelligence, Justice Locations: New York, Alabama, Detroit, America, Ypsilanti , Michigan, Wayne , Michigan, Detroit , Michigan, White, Fremont , California, . Mississippi, sharecropping, Chicago , New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, AFP, Santa Barbara, Ford's, Rouge, Dearborn , Michigan, Washington, Birmingham, Selma, Black, Flint, Midwest, autoworkers

Just a week after performing at the historically Black Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss., supporting James Meredith’s March Against Fear, Nina Simone was on fire as she strode onstage to play for a very different audience at the Newport Jazz Festival on July 2, 1966. Her interactions with the bourgeois New Englanders at Newport were hardly warm: In the middle of an acid-rinsed version of “Blues for Mama,” she dismisses them — “I guess you ain’t ready for that” — and later she hushes them: “Shut up, shut up.” But she pours every ounce of vitriol she’s got into the performance, especially on “Mississippi Goddam.” She’d first released the song in 1964, and two years later it felt as topical as ever. Meredith had just been shot while marching across Mississippi, and unrest was overtaking redlined Black neighborhoods across the country. At Newport, she amends one of the verses to address the oppression of Los Angeles’s Black community: “Alabama’s got me so upset/And Watts has made me lose my rest/Everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn!” The entire Newport performance is now available for the first time as an album titled “You’ve Got to Learn.” It’s spellbinding, heartbreaking stuff, reminding us just how much Simone would still be lamenting today. GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO

Persons: James Meredith’s, Nina Simone, strode, ”, —, she’s, ” She’d, Meredith, “ Alabama’s, Watts, It’s spellbinding, Simone, GIOVANNI RUSSONELLO Organizations: Black Tougaloo College, Newport Jazz Festival, Englanders Locations: Jackson, Miss, Newport, “, Mississippi

☆ They Loved the Diversity of Oakland. Could They Find a House They Loved There, Too?
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-24 | by ( Mark Kreidler | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

“The Seattle experience really solidified that thought for us, that this was something we all needed,” said Ms. Meredith, 43, an author and freelance writer. The younger Mr. Meredith spent his formative years in Jackson, Miss., and later did graduate work at the University of San Diego. “We loved the grittiness, the sunshine, and the diversity,” Ms. Meredith said. “Initially I think we were dumbstruck — awe-struck,” Ms. Meredith said. And they were willing to exhaust the Oakland market before they considered looking anywhere else.

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