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How Hidden Genius Project Is Teaching Youth to Use AI for Community Liberation
Emmanuel Wright( @see.doubleu ) and Pierre Bazile of the Hidden Genius Project(@hiddengeniuspro) led a powerful session at Know Your Rights Camp centered on technology as a tool for community liberation. They discussed unequal access to tech, racism embedded in digital systems, and the growing influence of AI, stressing the need for privacy and data protection. Through a hands-on design thinking activity, students created bold solutions including an ICE alert system, persona
4 days ago1 min read
Cop City and the Cameras: How Atlanta Traded Black Neighborhoods' Trees for an AI Surveillance Experiment
The expansion of Atlanta's surveillance state, anchored by the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center known as "Cop City," poses serious threats to Black and Brown communities who are already disproportionately surveilled, policed, and environmentally burdened. For residents like Brian Page, a 41-year-old raising his daughter in a majority-Black DeKalb County neighborhood, the network "certainly feels like an invasion of privacy." With more than 60,000 cameras linked to law en
Jun 62 min read
Dominic Antoine Jr., East Oakland Teen With 4.3 GPA, Gets Into All 31 Colleges He Applied To
Dominic Antoine Jr., known affectionately as "Pooda," is proof that excellence thrives even where the odds seem stacked. This 18-year-old Oakland native, a senior at Fremont High School in East Oakland, has done something remarkable: he applied to 31 colleges and received 31 acceptances. Not a single rejection. With a 4.3 GPA earned through rigorous Advanced Placement and dual-enrollment college courses, Dominic has shattered every ceiling placed before him. On National Coll
Jun 62 min read
Louisiana Erases Black Congressional District & Calls It Redistricting
Louisiana's Republican-controlled Legislature has signed a new congressional map eliminating one of the state's two majority-Black districts — a move critics are calling textbook voter suppression dressed in the language of legal compliance. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the map after the Supreme Court's recent ruling weakened the Voting Rights Act, the landmark 1965 law designed to protect minority voters from exactly this kind of political maneuvering. The ruling gave Republican
Jun 62 min read
New York Pushes Reparations Report Deadline to 2029 Amid Political Headwinds
The debate over reparations often gets framed as a Southern issue, tied to the plantation economy of states like Mississippi or Georgia. But New York's own reparations commission, and the political turbulence surrounding it, makes a compelling case for why the conversation is just as urgent in the North. New York's Community Commission on Reparations Remedies recently had its reporting deadline pushed back to 2029, a delay embedded quietly in the state budget. While critics
Jun 42 min read
Black Teen Shot In The Back Over Bottles Of Water & Shooter Walks Free
The verdict felt familiar to anyone who remembers 1991. A South Carolina jury on Monday acquitted Chikei Rick Chow, 61, of murder in the 2023 shooting death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton, a 14-year-old Black boy shot in the back outside a Columbia convenience store, and the echoes of Latasha Harlins rang loud. Harlins was 15 when Soon Ja Du shot her in the back of the head at a Los Angeles liquor store over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. Du was convicted, then sentenced to probati
Jun 32 min read
Three Men Freed After 28 Years: Flawed Forensics Expose Justice System's Deepest Failure
Our justice system failed three men for 28 years, and that failure demands a reckoning. In 1997, Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham, and Rasheed Turner were convicted of murder in Philadelphia based on a single eyewitness who claimed to see them leaving the victim's home Saturday evening. There was no physical evidence. The witness faced "significant credibility challenges at trial." Yet the prosecution leaned on a medical examiner's testimony to anchor the timeline, and three
Jun 32 min read
Imagining a World Without Borders at Know Your Rights Camp
At the Know Your Rights Los Angeles camp, youth voices reflected the power of understanding personal rights to challenge bullying and strengthen advocacy. Diego Ramos described a meaningful exercise imagining a world without borders, saying it would create greater happiness and unity. He also emphasized how ethnic studies help students connect present-day struggles to historical movements for dignity and equality. Rodolfo Mejia, inspired by his activist parents, shared his de
Jun 31 min read
Harvard Fires Slavery Research Team After Identifying 900 Enslaved People
Harvard University's handling of its slavery legacy research reveals a troubling pattern of suppression and retaliation that betrays the institution's 2022 commitment to openness and accountability. Christopher Newman, a Howard University doctoral student interning with Harvard University Archives, was escorted off campus by police, banned, and denied access to his belongings after simply suggesting the university investigate its ties to Antigua. His crime, in his own words,
Jun 22 min read
Police Accountability, Qualified Immunity & ICE: Civil Rights Attorney Lauren Bonds Exposes the System
What does police accountability actually mean and why is it so hard to achieve in America? In this powerful episode of the Know Your Rights Camp Podcast, hosts Diana Barbadillo and Amir Whitaker sit down with civil rights attorney Lauren Bonds, Executive Director of the National Police Accountability Project (NPAP), to break down the legal, political, and structural barriers protecting police, ICE agents, and correctional officers from consequences. Watch the episode here: Li
Jun 21 min read
Generations of Black-Owned Land Lost: Georgia Court Hands Family Farm to Railroad in Latest Chapter of Dispossession
In yet another chapter of the long, painful history of Black land dispossession in America, the Georgia Court of Appeals has sanctioned what many view as the theft of generational Black-owned land in Sparta, Georgia. On Wednesday, the court upheld a lower court's ruling allowing Sandersville Railroad to exercise eminent domain against Blaine Smith and other Black landowners to construct a rail spur through their properties. For nearly three years, the Smiths and their neighbo
May 282 min read
4.8 Million Settlement Reached in Death of Ronald Greene But No One Held Criminally Responsible
A measure of justice arrived Tuesday evening when Louisiana officials reached a tentative $4.8 million settlement with the family of Ronald Greene, the 49-year-old Black motorist who died on May 10, 2019, after a brutal encounter with the Louisiana State Police. It is a victory, hard-won and long delayed, but no settlement can undo the loss, and Greene's family and friends should never have had to live without him. Greene died after a high-speed chase near Monroe ended not i
May 271 min read
Nicole Walters Teaches Financial Freedom at Know Your Rights Camp
Nicole Walters (@nicolewalters) delivered an empowering finance session at Know Your Rights Camp in Los Angeles, sharing her experience as a first-generation immigrant navigating racial capitalism in America. She stressed that financial literacy is more than money management; it’s a pathway to freedom, ownership, and generational impact. The camp centered on practical, actionable tools, with youth eager to launch businesses and support their families’ entrepreneurial goals.
May 271 min read
From Corporate Job to Self-Made Millionaire: Nicole Walters on Surviving Inflation & Rigged Capitalism
On this week's episode of the KYRC podcast, host Amir Whitaker sits down with entrepreneur, bestselling author, and podcaster Nicole Walters for a powerful conversation about surviving and thriving in a rigged economy. Nicole shares her journey from a six-figure corporate job to self-made millionaire, breaks down why the "good corporate job" was never truly secure, and offers practical strategies for Black women and marginalized professionals to become "walking businesses." F
May 261 min read
Robert Johnson Walks Free After Nearly 29 Years Behind Bars For A Crime He Didn't Commit
What a momentous day at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse! After 28 years and 10 months of wrongful imprisonment, Robert Johnson is finally, officially, a free and innocent man. The joyful cheers that erupted in the courthouse on Tuesday were a beautiful departure from its usual somber atmosphere, as supporters celebrated the formal dropping of murder charges against Johnson, who was just 16 years old when he was wrongly accused. The relief in Johnson's own words is palpable a
May 262 min read
Tennessee District Bans Roots, Erasing Alex Haley's Story of Slavery From Its Own Backyard
In yet another act of cultural erasure dressed up as policy, Knox County Schools (KCS) in Tennessee has stripped Alex Haley's landmark novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family from its library shelves. This is what oppression looks like when it hides behind bureaucratic language: a Pulitzer Prize–winning chronicle of slavery's brutality, sanitized out of children's reach. First published in 1976, Roots follows Kunta Kinte, "brutally stolen from his home in the Gambia," and
May 252 min read
Lawsuit Demands Justice for 17-Year-Old Erin Cowser Who Was Body-Slammed and Lied About by San Bernardino Police Officer
The body-slamming of 17-year-old Erin Cowser by a San Bernardino police officer outside a Food 4 Less store in May 2025 stands as a deeply troubling example of police misconduct that demands accountability. Civil rights attorney Toni J. Jaramilla has filed a lawsuit on Cowser's behalf, and the evidence laid out paints a picture of unjustified violence against a vulnerable teenager who had done nothing to warrant such brutal treatment. According to the lawsuit, Cowser had simp
May 222 min read
California Moves to Ban Masks For All Police Officers: Wiener's SB 1004 Closes Loophole After Court Ruling Finds "No Cognizable Justification" for Concealed Identities
In a decisive move to protect civil liberties and restore public trust in policing, California state Senator Scott Wiener has introduced emergency legislation, SB 1004, to prohibit all law enforcement officers, state, local, and federal, from wearing masks while on duty. This legislation represents the right path forward for a state committed to transparency, accountability, and constitutional governance. The need for this bill became clear after U.S. District Judge Christina
May 222 min read
Why the Courtroom Has No Business Judging Rap Lyrics
The use of rap lyrics as criminal evidence is a fundamentally flawed practice that undermines artistic freedom, distorts the purpose of art, and threatens defendants' right to a fair trial. Maryland's recently passed PACE Act brings this debate into sharp focus, and makes the case that this tactic must be curtailed nationwide. At its core, the problem is one of misinterpretation. Prosecutors have spent decades treating rap as confession rather than craft, submitting lyrics a
May 212 min read
DHS Plans AI “Smart Glasses” That Could Identify People in Real Time
The Department of Homeland Security is set to receive $7.5 million in President Trump's fiscal year 2027 budget to develop AI-powered "smart glasses" capable of identifying migrants in real time using biometric technology, and critics warn the implications stretch far beyond immigration enforcement. The glasses, listed under DHS's Research, Development and Innovation budget, would equip federal agents with what the documents describe as "real-time access to information and b
May 202 min read
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