Race: Conversations around race and racial justice

Here are the latest on the fight against racism, voices calling for racial justice and in-depth stories on communities of color and other racial issues from MPR News.

Voices of Minnesota Calls for change across the state

Protests and pain The killing of George Floyd

Call To Mind Spotlight on black trauma and policing

Amplifying voices Share your experiences and hopes for the future

Effort to replace MPD moves forward
A proposal to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new agency passed a hurdle in a City Council committee Thursday.  
Minnesota’s reckoning with race and policing was many years in the making
Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday in the murder and manslaughter trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who knelt on George Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes. Floyd’s killing touched off a worldwide reckoning on racial justice and law enforcement, building on the outrage that had grown with each high-profile police killing in recent years.
With Biden's backing, Democrats revive George Floyd police reform bill
House Democrats have passed the most ambitious effort in decades to overhaul policing. The sweeping measure bans chokeholds and “qualified immunity” for law enforcement while easing requirements for prosecutors to pursue misconduct charges.
Drug overdose deaths surge among Black Americans during pandemic
Black Americans with addiction face "pervasive and continuing systemic racism" and often struggle to gain access to treatments that prevent fatal overdoses.
New center to reframe how we research health disparities
A new grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota will support antiracism research in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.
As virus-era attacks on Asians rise, past victims look back
Asian Americans have faced a dangerous climate since the coronavirus entered the U.S. a year ago. Now, just over a year and thousands of incidents later, some of the earliest victims find moving forward has been difficult or, at best, bittersweet. 
Vernon Jordan, activist, former Clinton adviser, has died
Vernon Jordan, who rose from humble beginnings in the segregated South to become a champion of civil rights before reinventing himself as a Washington insider and corporate influencer, has died, according to a statement from his daughter. He was 85.
6 Dr. Seuss books won't be published for racist images
Six Dr. Seuss books — including "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" and "If I Ran the Zoo" — will stop being published because of racist and insensitive imagery, the business that preserves and protects the author's legacy said Tuesday.
 How inequity gets built into America’s vaccination system
People eligible for the coronavirus vaccine say they are running up against barriers that are designed into the very systems meant to serve those most at risk of dying of the disease.