By Benjamin Chavis, Jr. Working families in the African American community and beyond have a hard-enough time keeping up with daily expenses. Every mortgage payment, car payment, trip to the grocery store, stop at the gas station, or utility bill that shows up in the mail is a reminder of how expensive it is to afford basic needs. Now, lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have introduced legislation that threatens to add one more expense to that list. On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers are championing what is essentially a regressive tax on airline passengers that would raise the cost of flying…
Author: Benjamin Chavis
By Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr., President and CEO, NNPA Amid the rush to comprehend the ramifications of a full-scale international trade war initiated by the errant and backward tariff policies of the Trump Administration, there are results of the tariffs that need to be challenged by Black America. The financial sustainability of the Black Press of America is now facing a catastrophic and a possible deadly impact, because of these new tariffs. The current dispute over the rising costs of the paper product termed “newsprint,” because of tariffs on Canadian newsprint threatens the future of member publishers of the…
Over the next several days, across the United States, people will pause in solemn remembrance of the 49th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Memphis, Tenn., on April 4, 1968. Back then, I was a young, college student and staff member of Dr. King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in North Carolina on that tragic day in 1968. There is no question that it has been a long and difficult road for our communities, during the past half century, as we continue to fight for equal rights and to eliminate racial hatred, discrimination…