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Historian Jeanne Theoharis’s new book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South, is a major reexamination of the civil rights leader that offers a different picture of both King’s own experiences of police brutality and his sustained critique of police brutality and the criminal legal system in the North as well as the South. “We’ve southernized Dr. King. And so, his critique of police brutality outside the South, his long-standing critique of school segregation, of housing segregation, of job discrimination, King sees these as national, not local,” says Theoharis, distinguished professor at Brooklyn College.

This Sunday marks five years since George Floyd was murdered by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. In a video that shocked the world and spurred a global movement for racial justice, Chauvin pinned Floyd to the ground with a knee to his neck for eight minutes while Floyd gasped for air. Floyd repeatedly said, “I can’t breathe.” Despite the nationwide uprising that followed Floyd’s killing, Congress failed to pass legislation that sought to reduce racial profiling and the use of force by law enforcement. The Trump Justice Department dismissed police reform and oversight agreements in Minneapolis and Louisville earlier this week, just days ahead of the fifth anniversary. We speak with Nekima Levy Armstrong, Minneapolis-based civil rights attorney, activist and founder of the Racial Justice Network, on where the movement for racial justice stands today.

...CONGRATS... ...to editorial cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz for winning the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights organization's 2025 Book and Journalism Award for his important and indefatigable cartoonery. Here's a few recent samples... ...MEMORIAL DAY... ...NEXT WEEK!... * * * As The BRAD BLOG's former longtime toon sherpa PDiddie always reminded us: "With editorial cartooning increasingly an endangered [...]

Well, it's our last BradCast for a week or so, as we prepare for a muuuch-needed stand-down next week after Memorial Day. But we make up for it by packing a lot into today's program, with two of our favorite (and your favorite) guests. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.] We're joined today again [...]

The Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution raising the minimum wage for tourism workers to $30 an hour, the highest minimum in the nation. 

Five years after the police murder of George Floyd, where is the movement for racial justice?