Author: Reporter

For over two years, Ebonie Vazquez searched to find a mentor of color for her son, Giovanni, now 11 and passionate about playing the violin. She has now found that space at a local church. New Hope Presbyterian Church, a multiethnic congregation led by a Black female pastor in Anaheim, California, started a string orchestra in April, welcoming students, including those who may have trouble getting into and paying for music programs. It is located in Orange County, which is largely affluent. The Rev. Chineta Goodjoin said her church had a smaller strings program for several years. When Goodjoin’s...

Memorial Day is a U.S. holiday that is supposed to be about mourning the nation’s fallen service members, but it has come to anchor the unofficial start of summer and a long weekend of travel and discounts on anything from mattresses to lawn mowers. Iraq War veteran Edmundo Eugenio Martinez Jr. said the day has lost so much meaning that many Americans “conflate and mix up Veterans Day, Memorial Day, Armed Forces Day, July Fourth.” Social media posts pay tribute to “everyone” who has served, when Memorial Day is about those who died. For him, it is about honoring...

In 2020, after a summer of protests rocked U.S. cities, the words “Black Lives Matter” went from the rallying cry of racial justice demonstrators to words lining the very roads along which they marched. After the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, towns and cities nationwide commissioned artists to paint BLM street murals in solidarity with the reckoning on police brutality and racism prompted by the unprecedented, multiracial mass rallies. Five years on, many of the murals are still maintained by activists and community groups, while wear and tear, construction and vandalism spelled the end of...