This image from video shows AP Race and Ethnicity Editor Aaron Morrison in New York during a panel discussion titled, “Race and Democracy: The Facts and The Fury,” on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. (AP Photo)

AARON MORRISON

AP National Writer

Aaron is a national writer who covers race and justice.

Democratic Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks cheers during an election night watch party Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in College Park, Md. (AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel)

Black women notch historic Senate wins in an election year defined by potential firsts

For the first time ever, two Black women have been elected to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate. Delaware Rep.

Faith leaders and other supporters pray over New York City Mayor Eric Adams, center, during a rally and prayer vigil on the steps of City Hall in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

How Black leaders in New York are grappling with Eric Adams and representation

The indictment of New York City mayor Eric Adams on federal bribery charges has sparked debates among Black leaders and community advocates about whether to stand behind a figure who, for many, represents a milestone of Black representation in government.

Organizers with the National Action Network put up banners for a Get Out the Vote event as the prepare to depart on a bus tour toward Philadelphia in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on Friday, Sep. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)

Sharpton and Central Park Five members get out the vote in battleground Pennsylvania

With less than 40 days until Election Day, the Rev. Al Sharpton’s choice of a battleground state for a get-out-the-vote bus tour made sense.

Reflected in a mirror, people watch the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at the Gipsy Las Vegas in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Harris addresses Trump’s false claims about her race and his history of racial division

Kamala Harris has addressed false claims by former President Donald Trump about her racial identity, calling his remarks about race a “tragedy” for someone seeking the office of the presidency.

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) holds his hands behind his back as if he is handcuffed as Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) unlocks them after Hill scores against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the second half during an NFL football game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP)

Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop revives discussion about the realities faced by Black drivers

After his traffic stop in Miami, Tyreek Hill talked about “the talk.” That is, the instructions passed down in Black families for generations about what to do when pulled over by police. Keep your hands in sight, preferably on the steering wheel.

Tomas Machac, of the Czech Republic, returns a shot to Sebastian Korda, of the United States during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump advertises his firm on patches worn by US Open tennis players

Prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump is advertising on players’ outfits at the U.S. Open Grand Slam tennis tournament this week by placing his firm’s name on sponsor patches worn during matches.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, center, hugs her grand-niece Amara Ajagu surrounded by family during the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Kamala Harris’ racial and cultural firsts were onstage throughout the Democratic convention

On the night she became the first woman of Black and South Asian heritage to be a major party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t explicitly mention the racial and gender firsts she would set if elected to the White House.

FILE - Marcelle Stewart, left, confronts police officers during a march and rally in downtown Ferguson, Mo., Monday, Aug. 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings, File)

Michael Brown’s death transformed a nation and sparked a decade of American reckoning on race

Michael Brown has been dead for a decade. The Black teenager’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted an eruption of protests in the suburban city and gave a boost to a then-nascent Black Lives Matter movement.

FILE - San Francisco district attorney candidate Kamala Harris, left, serves meals while volunteering in San Francisco, Nov. 27, 2003. Vice President Harris and other politicians of color have often had to code-switch, or purposely adjust one's speech style and express to optimize relatability and ensure their message had cultural resonance. To imply, as former President Donald Trump did Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, that Harris and others are inauthentic for doing so speaks to a belief that whiteness is still the default in politics and democracy. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Analysis: Donald Trump questioning Kamala Harris’ race shows he doesn’t understand code-switching

Kamala Harris and other politicians of color have often had to code-switch, or purposely adjust their speech style and expression to optimize relatability and ensure their message had cultural resonance.

This image shows the May 1, 1989, full-page newspaper ad that Donald Trump famously took out in the New York Daily News calling for the execution of five Black and Latino youths, also known as the Central Park five, wrongly convicted in a vicious attack on a white female jogger. The case roiled racial tensions locally and many point to it as evidence of a criminal justice system prejudiced against defendants of color. (New York Daily News via AP)

Black leaders call out Trump’s criminal justice contradictions as he rails against guilty verdict

Donald Trump lambasted the guilty verdict of his hush money trial this week from the same Manhattan courthouse that was the site of one of the most notorious examples of injustice in recent New York history that he had a part in.

CORRECTS SERVICE BRANCH TO U.S. AIR FORCE INSTEAD OF U.S. NAVY - Chantemekki Fortson, mother of Roger Fortson, a U.S. Air Force senior airman, holds a photo of her son during a news conference regarding his death, along with family and attorney Ben Crump, Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Fortson was shot and killed by police in his apartment, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Who gets to claim self-defense in shootings? Airman’s death sparks debate over race and gun rights

The death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson in Florida this month reignited a complicated debate about race, gun laws and self-defense – namely, who is typically afforded deference when it comes to using guns in self-defense and who is not.

President Joe Biden speaks to the National Action Network Convention remotely from the South Court Auditorium of the White House, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Biden tells racial justice meeting, ‘We’ve kept our promises,’ as he looks to energize Black voters

President Joe Biden has virtually addressed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference, telling a sympathetic crowd “we’ve kept our promises” as he ramps up efforts to energize Black voters who will be vital to his reelection bid this fall.

FILE - In this Oct. 3, 1995 file photo, attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. holds O.J. Simpson as the not guilty verdict is read in a Los Angeles courtroom during his trial in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey, left, Robert Kardashian look on. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)

In death, 3 decades after his trial verdict, O.J. Simpson still reflects America’s racial divides

For many people old enough to remember O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, his 1994 exoneration was a defining moment in their understanding of race, policing and justice.

FILE - President Joe Biden, left, and the Rev. Al Sharpton attend a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 28, 2023. Organizers of Sharpton's annual National Action Network Convention announced Thursday, April 11, 2024, that Biden will give a live virtual keynote address to a racial justice conference in New York City on Friday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Biden will give a live virtual address at Sharpton’s annual civil rights conference

President Joe Biden is expected to give a live virtual keynote address to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference in New York.

Protesters raise their hands as they face police officers during a rally in Paterson, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in reaction to the death of Jameek Lowery. Lowery, 27, who recorded a frantic video at police headquarters, wound up unresponsive after being taken to a hospital in an ambulance with police officers inside. He died two days later. (Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record via AP)

Takeaways: AP investigation reveals Black people bear disproportionate impact of police force

The Associated Press found that Black people make up a disproportionate number of those who died after being restrained, beaten or shocked with stun guns by police officers over a decade.

Timere Jones, right, carries a life-sized picture of his brother, Jameek Lowery, as he and others visit Lowery’s grave in Garfield, N.J., Thursday, Jan. 18, 2024. Lowery was among more than 300 Black people who died after encounters with police in which officers used force that isn’t supposed to be fatal -- including restraints, punches and stun guns -- The Associated Press found in documenting a decade’s worth of such cases. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

He didn’t trust police but sought their help anyway. Two days later, he was dead

Records show Jameek Lowery, a 27-year-old Black man from Paterson, New Jersey, died two days after he was restrained and repeatedly punched by officers.

Protesters raise their hands as they face Paterson police officers during a rally Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in Paterson, N.J., in reaction to the death of Jameek Lowery. Authorities are trying to determine how Lowery, 27, who recorded a frantic video at a police station wound up unresponsive while being taken by police to the hospital — and later died. (Danielle Parhizkaran=njhac

He didn’t trust police but sought their help anyway. He was dead two days later

“Why y’all trying to kill me?” Lowery asked several Paterson police officers on his Facebook Live video feed. “If I’m dead in the next hour or two, they did it.”

Cydney Wallace poses for a photo in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023. Cydney Wallace is a Black Jewish woman who recently went on a trip to Israel and the West Bank through a trip called "Black Jerusalem" that was focused on exploring "the sacred geography of Jerusalem through a framework that privileges a Black American and an African lens." (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Black American solidarity with Palestinians is rising and testing longstanding ties to Jewish allies

A growing number of Black Americans see the struggle of Palestinians reflected in their own struggles for racial equality and civil rights.

Shalomyah Bowers, a board member of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, stands for a photo before a welcome dinner for the annual Families United 4 Justice Network Conference in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. The event was hosted by the foundation at its mansion. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

At Black Lives Matter house, families are welcomed into space of freedom and healing

A national Black Lives Matter nonprofit that was widely criticized for purchasing a sprawling California mansion with donated funds recently opened the property to dozens of families who lost loved ones in incidents of police violence.

FILE - Tulsa Race Massacre survivors Hughes Van Ellis, left, and Lessie Benningfield Randle ride in a carriage at a remembrance walk during centennial commemorations of the Tulsa Race Massacre, May 28, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” died on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. He was 102. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Hughes Van Ellis, youngest known survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, dies at 102

Hughes Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” has died. He was 102.

Rev. Al Sharpton addresses the audience as he gives the Eulogy during the memorial service for Dollar General shooting victim Angela Carr, as Bishop Rudolph McKissick, Jr., back, and his wife Pastor Kimberly McKissick, listen during a memorial service at The Bethel Baptist Church, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, in Jacksonville, Fla. Uber driver Carr was one of three people killed in the racially motivated shooting. (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP)

As Jacksonville shooting victims are eulogized, advocates call attention to anti-Black hate crimes

The motivations of a shooter who recently targeted and killed Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, have revived concerns about the threat of hate violence and domestic terrorism. Experts say most hate crime victims in the U.S. are Black.

Residents of the Jacksonville community attend a prayer vigil for the victims of Saturday's mass shooting Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis booed at vigil as hundreds mourn more racist killings

Hundreds of people have gathered at prayer vigils and in church to mourn yet another racist attack in America.

A person holds an image of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as they listen to speakers during the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Thousands converge on National Mall to mark the March on Washington’s 60th anniversary

Thousands have gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in the nation’s capital to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech. The March on Washington was convened Saturday by the Rev.

FILE - James Johnson, of Delray Beach, Fla., right, attends the "Restoring Honor" rally, organized by Glenn Beck, near the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

At March on Washington’s 60th anniversary, leaders seek energy of original movement for civil rights

Sixty years ago, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. issued his resounding call for racial harmony that set off decades of push and pull toward progress.

FILE - The Harriott II riverboat sits docked in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023. A riverfront brawl occurred on Aug. 5 when a crew member was punched for trying to move a pontoon boat that was blocking the riverboat from docking. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler, File)

Alabama riverfront brawl videos spark a cultural moment about race, solidarity and justice

Bystanders who trained their smartphone cameras on an Alabama riverfront dock, as several white boaters pummeled a Black riverboat co-captain, couldn’t have known the footage would elicit a national conversation about racial solidarity.

President Joe Biden signs a proclamation to establish the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument, in the Indian Treaty Room on the White House campus, Tuesday, July 25, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

For Emmett Till’s family, national monument proclamation cements his inclusion in the American story

President Joe Biden has signed a proclamation establishing a national monument honoring Emmett Till, the Black teenager from Chicago whose abduction, torture and killing in Mississippi in 1955 helped propel the Civil Rights Movement.

FILE - Protesters hold signs during a march and rally for slain teenager Trayvon Martin, March 31, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. The Black Lives Matter movement hits a milestone on Thursday, July 13, 2023, marking 10 years since its 2013 founding in response to the acquittal of the man who fatally shot Martin. Gunned down in a Florida gated community where his father lived in 2012, Martin was one of the earliest symbols of a movement that now wields influence in politics, law enforcement and broader conversations about racial progress. (AP Photo/Julie Fletcher, File)

Black Lives Matter movement marks 10 years of activism and renews its call to defund the police

The Black Lives Matter movement turns 10 years old on Thursday, marking the day in 2013 that the man who fatally shot Trayvon Martin was acquitted in his death.

Tulsa Race Massacre survivor Viola Ford Fletcher gestures while speaking during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, June 16, 2023, in New York. At age 109, Fletcher is releasing a memoir about the life she lived in the shadow of the massacre after a white mob laid waste to the once-thriving Black enclave known as Greenwood. “Don't Let Them Bury My Story” is published Tuesday, July 4, and becomes widely available for purchase on Aug. 15. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

Viola Ford Fletcher, oldest living Tulsa Race Massacre victim, publishes memoir

In the last couple of years, Viola Ford Fletcher has been on a tireless campaign for accountability over the massacre that destroyed Tulsa, Oklahoma’s original “Black Wall Street” when she was a child in 1921.

FILE - A person holds their fist in the air, April 20, 2021, in Washington at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House after the verdict in the murder trial against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was announced in Minneapolis. On Tuesday, June 27, 2023, a California judge dismissed a civil lawsuit that grassroots racial justice activists from around the U.S. brought last summer against a foundation with stewardship of the Black Lives Matter movement’s charitable endowment worth tens of millions of dollars. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

Fraud lawsuit against Black Lives Matter foundation dismissed in California

A California judge has dismissed a civil lawsuit that grassroots racial justice activists from around the U.S. brought last summer against a foundation with stewardship of the Black Lives Matter movement’s charitable endowment worth tens of millions of dollars.

Prisoner-students majoring communications, Jamal Lewis, from right, Lambert Pabriaga and Sherman Dorsey walk to their class at Folsom State Prison in Folsom, Calif., Wednesday, May 3, 2023. Under the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Simplification Act, more than 760,000 people in prison will become eligible for Pell Grants once the law is implemented on July 1. Prison education advocates say it's not a matter of if, but when recidivism rates drop and job attainment begins to rise. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

5 takeaways from AP’s reporting on Pell Grants for prisoners getting college degrees

Thousands of prisoners throughout the United States get their college degrees behind bars, most of them paid for by the federal Pell Grant program, which offers the neediest undergraduates tuition aid that they don’t have to repay.