Civil Rights

Formerly incarcerated women gathered outside the courthouse in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday to recount the horrors of sexual abuse they say they endured during their time in New York state prisons. Mia Wheeler, a former inmate at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, the largest women’s prison in the state, says she was raped numerous times on numerous occasions by a...

They say the abuse happened inside dozens of facilities, such as Bayview, Bedford Hills, and Rikers Island, Erica Byfield reports.

Wednesday’s unexpected arrival of dozens of undocumented immigrants, sent to Martha’s Vineyard from Florida under the order of Gov. Ron DeSantis, brought back vivid memories of a similar situation that unfolded on Cape Cod more than 60 years ago. In June of 1962, white supremacists in the South arranged for hundreds of Black families from Arkansas to board one-way buses…

A man arrested in New York City last month near the home of an Iranian opposition activist and writer has been indicted on a weapons count.

The FBI is investigating a man who showed up at the doorstep of Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad with a loaded assault rifle. Jonathan Dienst reports.

Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell, who won 11 championships in 13 seasons with the team, has died, his family announced Sunday. He was 88. Russell was also known as a pioneer in the fight for civil rights, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and speaking out about his treatment as a Black player in a city — and country...

John Chandler with the first look inside the new Jackie Robinson Museum in Lower Manhattan.

In addition to breaking the color barrier in baseball, Jackie Robinson went on to serve as an executive of a Fortune 500 company and a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. There is now a museum in Manhattan to honor his many contributions.

Leona Tate’s perception of race changed drastically in November 1960 — when she became one of the first Black children to desegregate New Orleans schools.

The mother of Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed and shot and killed in an altercation with an armed neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, spoke out on the 10th anniversary of his death.

Former officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao were each charged with depriving Floyd of his civil rights while acting under government authority.

Three former Minneapolis police officers have been convicted of violating George Floyd’s civil rights

Jurors at the federal trial of three fired Minneapolis police officers charged with violating George Floyd’s civil rights went home Wednesday without reaching a verdict

A foundation named for U.S. Rep. John Lewis and his wife has been established to further the work of the late civil rights pioneer

A shuttered bowling alley at the center of a 1968 integration protest where state police killed three Black students is being remade into a civil rights center.

A federal court in New York dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Christian wedding photographer who refused to photograph same-sex weddings

A judge has approved a request to wipe clean the court record of a Black woman who was arrested for refusing to move to the back of a segregated Alabama bus in 1955

France is inducting Missouri-born cabaret dancer Josephine Baker who was also a French World War II spy and civil rights activist into its Pantheon

A Florida circuit court judge has cleared the charges against four young Black men who were wrongly accused of raping a white woman more than seven decades ago

With Attorney General Merrick Garland looking on, Manhattan’s new U.S. attorney said Friday he’s establishing a civil rights unit in his office’s criminal division to concentrate greater resources on problems worsening in “troubled times.” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams made the comments after he was formally sworn in as the first Black top federal law enforcement official in the Southern...