BLACK HISTORY MONTH

Interview

The Black Anti-Fascist Tradition Recognized Fascism Didn’t Begin in Europe

Black anti-fascists have long warned about creeping fascism, from slavery to mass incarceration to ICE terror.

By George Yancy ,

Truthout

February 21, 2026

Prisoners at the Attica Correctional Facility give the Black Power salute on September 10, 1971. “I believe the connection between abolition and Black anti-fascism is crystallized in the writings and activism of political prisoners and prison abolitionists,” says scholar Jeanelle K. Hope. “The Attica prison uprising of 1971 stands as a major inflection point in this history.”

Bettmann / Contributor / Getty Images

Back in 2016, I was asked what I thought about Donald Trump. Even back then, I saw him as an aspiring fascist, and I responded:

Simply put. He is a conduit through which white America expresses its most vile desire for white purity. An apocalyptically dangerous white man who sees himself as the center of the world. That kind of hubris bespeaks realities of genocide.

Trump 2.0 has only confirmed my fears, my dread, and my anger. Make no mistake about it: This administration is unapologetically and shamelessly hellbent on establishing a violent white fascistic state. I know that some are surprised, but the truth of the matter is that the horrible reality of anti-Black fascism is not a new formation. The soul of this country was founded upon white power, white greed, and white violence. So, I am not surprised by the likes of Trump; he is a product of a vicious poison, a historical legacy, that predates his abominable presidency. But this isn’t mere speculation or exaggeration. Our bodies and psyches are a record of this history: chains, enslavement, dehumanization, scarred backs, raped bodies, castrated bodies, broken necks, broken family ties, denied rights, denied citizenship, mass incarceration, and slow death. Indeed, there are those Black voices who not only recorded this history, but who understood its fascistic logics. For example, Black poet and activist Langston Hughes wrote:

Yes, we Negroes in America do not have to be told what Fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression have long been realities to us.

And it was Black sociologist and philosopher W. E. B. Du Bois who wrote, “We have conquered Germany … but not their ideas. We still believe in white supremacy, keeping Negroes in their place.”

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Thinking about the reality of anti-Black fascism led me to the indispensable work of Jeanelle K. Hope and Bill V. Mullen. When it comes to documenting anti-Black fascism, they trace a longer arc with respect to the rise of fascism; they show just how European fascists drew from early U.S. laws for their own specific fascist formations, and how the U.S. functioned as the very hub of fascist discourse and practice. Given this rich history and its importance for how to strategize moving forward, I conducted this exclusive interview with Jeanelle K. Hope, who is an independent scholar and a lecturer at the University of California-Washington Center.

George Yancy: It is important to historically situate the phenomenon of fascism, especially within our contemporary context where the Constitution is being trampled upon, and what one might call the paramilitary deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Your book, The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back from Anti-Lynching to Abolition, which you co-authored with Bill V. Mullen, powerfully challenges the narrative that fascism is a phenomenon that is exclusive to 20th-century Europe. In this regard, your book constitutes a necessary counter-narrative that highlights the gratuitous violent history that Black people in the U.S. have faced since their enslavement. This counter-narrative is what you term the Black anti-fascist tradition. In brief, what are some of the features that define the Black anti-fascist tradition?

Jeanelle K. Hope: The Black anti-fascist tradition recognizes that there has been a long arc of fascism throughout history, and that anti-Blackness has long undergirded fascist policies and formations, thus, disrupting prevailing historical narratives and theorizing on fascism. We argue that the earliest roots (or pillars) of fascism — authoritarian rule, genocide and ethnic cleansing, militarism, racial capitalism, dual application of the law — can be traced to the colonization of Africa and chattel slavery across the Americas. One of the most salient and defining features of anti-Black fascism is genocide. We chart out the systematic genocide of Black people from the brutality of enslavement, post-emancipation lynchings, to state-sanctioned violence and police brutality. Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors and Red Record, W.E.B. Du Bois’s lynching reports in The Crisis, William Patterson’s petition to the United Nations entitled, “We Charge Genocide,” and Arlene Eisen’s 2012 report “Operation Ghetto Storm” all meticulously document the impact of lynchings and the immiseration of Black life. And with such damming evidence in hand, they argued that such acts constitute genocide. Indeed, “We Charge Genocide” emerges as a cross-generation rallying cry among Black anti-fascists like Patterson, Stokely Carmichael, and the Chicago-based youth group aptly named “We Charge Genocide.”

Beyond presenting this counter-narrative, so much of our book also names how Black people have been on the front lines of anti-fascist struggles in Europe (the Spanish Civil War), Ethiopia (the Italian invasion of Ethiopia), and across the United States. Moreover, the Black anti-fascist tradition underscores that fascism attacks on multiple fronts (i.e., art and cultural production, education, immigration, law and policy, health care, housing, etc.) and subsequently, requires a multifaceted resistance. Black anti-fascists have incorporated various organizing strategies, tactics, and actions including legal challenges, mutual aid, anarchy, autonomy, self-defense, boycotts, solidarity, and abolition.

What I think is an important takeaway from the Black anti-fascist tradition is knowing that Black people have long warned about what I describe as fascism’s incessant creep. Fascism is not born overnight. It is relentless and creeps through society, systems, laws, and more over time. Black anti-fascists have played the long game, trying to check the creep of fascism at every turn, knowing that if left unchecked, humanity will enter some truly dark days.

In your book, you write, “By the time the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini began to theorize racial purity and Aryan identity politics, discussing race in this quasi-biological sense in the U.S. was old news.” This is such an important observation as it places anti-Black racism at the very core of the foundation of this nation. Talk about the centrality of “racial purity” and how that myth shaped the U.S., and how it continues to do so. And here I’m thinking about Trump’s disgusting use of the expression “shithole countries” and his encouragement of immigrants from Norway.

Recognizing that race/racism/racial hierarchy are at the very foundation of colonial rule, it is of no surprise that race is also at the crux of fascism. From the onset, the history of the United States is marked by colonialism, and race almost immediately emerges as a system of domination to subordinate Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans brought to the country. This racial hierarchy had/has significant economic and social implications. With Black, Brown, and Indigenous people viewed as subordinate, the belief of white supremacy and white domination in the western hemisphere was fomented. Up until the early 20th century (and some would even argue still today), great lengths (i.e. anti-miscegenation laws, racial integrity laws, racial purity tests, etc.) were undertaken to ensure a rigid racial hierarchy. The mere existence of interracial relationships and mixed-race people has long served as a threat to this system, blurring the racial binary, and forcing society and governments to have deeper questions about “who is white,” and thus, gets to benefit from this system of domination.

Moreover, throughout U.S. history, this “gatekeeping” or protectionism of the white race shows up countless times from anti-immigration laws (i.e., the Chinese Exclusion Act), Jim Crow laws, the eugenics movement, and recent discourse around the “Great Replacement” theory. These efforts have largely (and unsuccessfully) sought to stymie influxes of non-white immigration, non-white births, and interracial relationships. It is also important to name that the constant pursuit of white racial purity is fundamentally tied to patriarchy, natalism and the regulation of women’s bodies, hence the recent rollbacks on abortion access and reproductive health care.

I was aware of Adolf Hitler’s admiration for the U.S.’s racial segregationist practices and its eugenics movement, but your argument delineates in detail that European fascism “had its roots in American Anti-Black Fascism.” This is a significant charge against the U.S.’s view of itself as “innocent,” and as a “shining city on a hill.” Indeed, it is this understanding of the U.S. that is necessary as we currently confront fascism in this country. You write, “Seldom have historians drawn connections between the Nuremberg Laws, Italian Racial Laws, and Jim Crow Laws of the US.” What is it about certain historians that they have failed or refused to make such a significant connection? I would even say such a significant indictment.

Naming that U.S. racial policies effectively served a blueprint for the various legal systems of European fascism would disrupt a decades-long historical narrative surrounding WWI and WWII. The story of the “Axis vs. the Allies,” and the United States’ role in defeating fascism has long been the prevailing historical narrative taken up by historians. I think there is at times a failure among historians to step back, read across archives, and to stitch multiple historical events together. We also must be honest that there has been a concerted effort among both politicians and historians to preserve a liberal or redeeming narrative surrounding the United States’ role in WWII. For example, it took decades for mainstream American history to finally recognize that the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the war was heinous. Yet some would still draw the line at comparing those “internment camps” to Nazi concentration camps. But it is that type of comparison that is direly needed to be able to understand the impact and evolution of fascism across time and space. We must also connect the current ICE detention centers to this broader history as well.

Finally, I think one of the biggest issues among historians, and even many leftist activists, is the aversion to name any formation of fascism outside of interwar Europe as fascism. For far too long, many have believed that Hitler and Mussolini’s fascist rise was like capturing lightning in a bottle, when fascism has long existed beyond the confines of early 20th-century European history. From a deeply human standpoint I understand why one would want to believe that the atrocities of the Holocaust and Nazism could not be replicated. Yet, Black anti-fascists have long rang the proverbial alarm about the incessant creeping nature of fascism and its onslaught on Black life. Furthermore, to ignore or discount the claims of Black people like Robert F. Williams, Harry Haywood, George Jackson — among a host of others that have named fascism as the greatest threat to Black people (and all people) just because they don’t neatly fit within longstanding scholarly traditions on historical fascism — to me, is ahistorical.

I agree! Talk about how contemporary forms of abolitionist discourse and activism are linked to the Black anti-fascist tradition. I think that such a link is so important as it communicates the historical arc of Black people who continue to refuse fascism.

I believe the connection between abolition and Black anti-fascism is crystallized in the writings and activism of political prisoners and prison abolitionists starting with George Jackson, Angela Davis, Ericka Huggins, and Kathleen Cleaver, and later in the work of Ruth Wilson Gilmore and Dylan Rodriguez, among others. Many of the Black political prisoners of the late 1960s and early 1970s were among the most vocal in naming that America was engaging in fascism, arguing that prisons and the rise of mass incarceration amounted to the latest evolution of fascism’s incessant creep on society. They recognized that prisons helped facilitate systematic genocide and was buttressed by a criminal justice and legal system that openly practiced a dual application of the law, whereby Black people were subjected to different interpretations of the law and harsher sentences, among other injustices. I think about Ericka Huggins’s letters from Niantic prison where she describes their poor conditions, the inhumane nature of solitary confinement, and the unjust way many Black Panther Party members, and other radicals of the era, were largely swept into prisons on trumped-up charges. I even think of those early pages of Assata Shakur’s autobiography (Assata: An Autobiography) where she describes the guards of the prison in which she was incarcerated giving Nazi salutes to each other. The Attica prison uprising of 1971 stands as a major inflection point in this history.

Prison abolitionists have long connected American prisons to the long arc of fascism, arguing that they are so deeply entrenched in fascism that they are beyond reform, concluding that abolition is the only solution. These arguments, of course, are most fervently explored in Angela Davis’s Are Prisons Obsolete? and the work of Critical Resistance. It is from Davis and Critical Resistance’s work that more contemporary abolitionists descend. Thus, it is of no surprise that during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, calls to abolish the police emerged, and with the current wave of mass deportations and practice of “crimmigration,” there are calls to abolish ICE. The Black anti-fascist tradition recognizes that the incarceration of Black people has long been tied to the fascist pillar of genocide, thus, any reproduction of incarceration — be it ICE detention centers or Japanese internment camps — will always be part of a broader fascist project. The harrowing reports of ICE detention center conditions and deaths is the latest harbinger of fascism’s incessant creep.

Given the specificity of how Black people in the U.S. have been brutalized and dehumanized in terms of anti-Black fascist logics, talk about what strategies have emerged out of Black struggles for countering and resisting (I want to say overthrowing) U.S. fascism. On this topic, I often feel a great deal of pessimism. Yet I agree with Robin D. G. Kelly where he said to me, “There is no guarantee that we will win — whatever that means — but I guarantee that if we don’t fight, we lose.”

To feel pessimistic under the boot of fascism is only natural, and a feeling that is important to sit with. To draw upon the words of Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, I think we also must work through that pessimism and “let this [moment] radicalize you.” Earlier in the interview, I highlighted some of the major organizing tactics, strategies, and actions that animate the Black anti-fascist tradition, so I’ll use this space to stress some more practical forms of resistance for this moment. First and foremost, we all must begin the resistance to fascism through organizing and studying.

Remember, fascism attacks on all fronts, so we must develop a strategy that recognizes this and can be adapted in various spaces. Fascist policies are dismantling public education before our eyes. Parents and teachers must organize at the school district level to resist book bans and anti-ethnic studies bills. And even more so, parents must see “school choice” and “school vouchers” for what they are — the privatization of public schools. This is anti-democratic.

Fascism will quite literally starve its constituents. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of mutual aid in a moment where unemployment is increasing, particularly amongst Black women, and the federal government has slashed the budgets of many social safety-net programs, like SNAP. As fascism seeks to further divide society, we must remember to take care of those in our communities.

While there have been several boycotts and protests over the last 13 months, I do think there is much we can learn from European citizens that have mounted national strikes in response to government austerity. Overall, there is much that can be done to organize workers, as fascism’s grip on capitalism will have disproportionate impacts on the worker — as we are currently witnessing.

And most importantly, one of the most significant efforts we can do to resist fascism is to build solidarity. Solidarity is crucial to resisting fascism as it spurs organizations and mass movements. Solidarity is built through relationships, shared struggle, and deep communication with one another. While this work may seem ancillary, it will prove to be our most challenging, as fascism (and predatory social media algorithms) has fractured so many communities. Fascism thrives on division (racial, economic, national, political, gender, age, etc.), so one of the most important ways to resist it is to close those divides through respect and mutual cooperation.

CRT/DEI

Interview

A New Era of Scholarship Is Shining a Light on the Black Philosophical Tradition

Without this history, students may see Black thinkers as footnotes rather than world-historical contributors.

By George Yancy ,

Truthout

February 18, 2026

From left to right: Philosophers Hubert Harrison, Thomas N. Baker, and C. L. R. James.

Wikimedia Commons

Given the field of philosophy’s paucity of Black or African American philosophers, it is still something of an oxymoron to be a Black or African American philosopher. It is still possible to get second looks when saying, “Oh, I’m a philosopher.” Being a Black or African American philosopher doesn’t compute within a culture, and within academic settings, where images and discussions of Socrates and Plato or René Descartes and Jean-Paul Sartre dominate what philosophy looks and sounds like. In short, white folk continue to comprise the majority in the field: 81 percent. While most of my philosophical work has focused on the meaning of racial embodiment, especially anti-Blackness, and the structure of whiteness, I had the fortune to write and publish the first (or certainly one of the first) essays on African American philosophers Thomas N. Baker and Joyce M. Cook.

Baker was the first Black man to receive his Ph.D. in philosophy, awarded from Yale in 1903. And it was Cook, a dear friend of mine, who was the first Black woman to receive her Ph.D. in philosophy, also from Yale, in 1965. There is serious work that still needs to be done toward the construction of African American philosophy and primary research within the field. The work is out there — but it requires far more, as it were, archeological study. Many celebrate the history of Black Studies and the canonical figures within it, but have little sense of the existence and powerful work of African American philosophers — which is not to say that these areas are mutually exclusive.

It is for this reason that I decided to conduct this exclusive interview with philosopher Stephen C. Ferguson, a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at North Carolina State University and author of the recent book, The Paralysis of Analysis in African American Studies: Corporate Capitalism and Black Popular Culture. Ferguson is one of the leading philosophers (along with John H. McClendon) whose scholarship has been invaluable in researching, locating, and critically interpreting the history and contemporary relevance of African American philosophy.

George Yancy: When I was an undergraduate studying philosophy in the early 1980s at the University of Pittsburgh, I thought that I was the only Black philosopher in the world. This was partly a function of the fact that I was typically the only Black student sitting in my philosophy classes. I had no idea that there was something called “African American philosophy.” Let’s begin there. What is African American philosophy?

Stephen C. Ferguson: A useful place to begin is with a minimal but clarifying definition. African American philosophy refers, first, to a body of texts written by African American thinkers who themselves understood their work as philosophical. This challenges a long-standing presumption within professional philosophy — that philosophy is defined exclusively by disciplinary recognition rather than by intellectual practice.

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Here the work of Black philosopher and theologian William R. Jones is indispensable. In his seminal essay, “The Legitimacy and Necessity of Black Philosophy: Some Preliminary Considerations,” Jones argued that skepticism toward African American philosophy often rests on a mistaken assumption: that race must function as its essential organizing principle. Subsequently, Jones insisted that African American philosophy is not grounded in biology or some sort of “racial essence.” As he put it, “Black experience, history, and culture are the controlling categories of a Black philosophy — not chromosomes.” In this formulation, “Black” denotes an ethno-cultural formation shaped by shared historical conditions.

This does not mean that questions of race are irrelevant. The philosophy of race is an important subfield within African American philosophy. The mistake lies in assuming that it exhausts the field.

Jones therefore urged that philosophy itself be understood more broadly than narrow professional definitions allow. He proposed attending to factors such as author, audience, historical location, and antagonist. From this standpoint, African American philosophy recognizes the philosopher as situated within a specific ethno-cultural community, often addressing that community as a primary audience. Their philosophical point of departure is a historically specific experience requiring conceptual articulation, frequently from an antagonistic position that challenges academic racism in terms of concepts, curricula, and institutions.

Underlying this account is a distinction between race and ethnicity — or more precisely, between race as a classificatory system imposed through domination and ethnicity or nationality as a historically formed collective shaped by shared institutions and struggle. In the U.S. context, African Americans constitute such a distinctive ethno-national formation — forged through slavery, segregation, labor exploitation, and political resistance within a multinational state.

Following Jones, I also draw an analytic distinction between the history of African American philosophers and the philosophy of the Black experience. The former includes all African American philosophers regardless of topic or method. The latter refers to philosophical projects explicitly devoted to analyzing the meaning and consequences of Black life under determinate social conditions. As the number of African American philosophers grows, so too does the range of philosophical problems addressed — many extending well beyond race as a topic.

As an undergraduate, I knew that Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Angela Davis, and others were activists, but no one told me that they were philosophers or that what they had to say was of philosophical significance. The only person who shared this with me was my mentor James G. Spady. Speak to how important it is that this history be told.

I had a similar experience as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri–Columbia. Philosophy appeared almost entirely detached from Black intellectual life. That changed when I met John H. McClendon III. From that point forward, McClendon and I — very much in the spirit of Marx and Engels — worked collectively to recover and reconstruct the African American philosophical tradition.

One of the most important outcomes of our collaboration is African American Philosophers and Philosophy: An Introduction to the History, Concepts, and Contemporary Issues. The work was the result of years of philosophical reading and archival research. What distinguished that book was not simply that it introduced African American philosophers, but that it introduced philosophy itself through the African American philosophical tradition. Before this, African American thinkers were often treated as supplementary figures or “special” topics. Or we might find, in the case of African American philosopher Charles Leander Hill, someone who writes a history of modern Western philosophy. With A Short History of Modern Philosophy from the Renaissance to Hegel, published in 1951, Hill became the first African American philosopher to publish a book on the history of modern philosophy. No one had seriously asked how to introduce philosophy — its core problems and methods — through African American thought. That intervention remains foundational.

This matters because it challenges the assumption that figures such as Frederick Douglass, Malcolm X, or Angela Davis were merely activists. What our work demonstrates is that Black thinkers have produced sustained philosophical reflection on what are often called the “big questions”: metaphilosophy, ontology, epistemology, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion, philosophy of history, and social philosophy. Even when these questions were not framed explicitly in racial terms, the Black experience formed the historical context of their inquiry.

“Examining Ethics” podcaster Christiane Wisehart once described John and me as “philosophical archaeologists,” and that description is apt. Our work represents a first step in the discovery, recovery, and reconstruction of an African American philosophical canon. We do not claim to have completed that task. The hope is that future generations will build upon this foundation, extending the canon we helped recover.


“Historically, Black philosophical traditions emerged less from philosophy departments than from Black intellectual culture — churches, newspapers, political movements, labor struggles, and independent study.”

African American philosophy is best understood as a species of Black intellectual thought. Historically, Black philosophical traditions emerged less from philosophy departments than from Black intellectual culture — churches, newspapers, political movements, labor struggles, and independent study. This does not sever African American philosophy from European or Anglo-American traditions; it gives it a determinate identity shaped by distinct historical conditions. Without this history, students are left believing Black thinkers are philosophical footnotes rather than world-historical contributors.

In your article, “Marxism, Philosophy, and the Africana World,” you argue that the professionalization of philosophy is rooted in institutional racism. Even as a graduate student in philosophy, at Yale and Duquesne University, I was confronted by a sea of white faces. This continues to be true now that I’m a professional philosopher. Say more about how the professionalization of philosophy is rooted in institutional racism. This issue is especially important as we now face executive and legislative policies designed to erase Black knowledge production. Think here of the March 27, 2025, executive order “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which is aimed at censoring the full truth about the struggle of Black people in the U.S. This executive order, it seems to me, is another manifestation of racism.

To address this adequately, we must begin from a dialectical materialist standpoint and situate professional philosophy within the historical development of the modern university. Specialization and professionalization were not neutral intellectual advances; they were foundational to the university’s role within capitalist society. The specialization of knowledge led to the emergence of academic disciplines; authority shifted from broad intellectual engagement to credentialed expertise. This process established boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate inquiry.

Certain ideas and figures become hegemonic — what Marx famously described as the ruling ideas of the ruling class — while others are disqualified as philosophy and displaced from the academic marketplace. Marxism, for example, is routinely declared a historic failure or an intellectual dinosaur, even as every waking hour of social life under capitalism is organized around the urgent task of making capitalism function.

The exclusion of African American thinkers from academic institutions must be understood through class location and the organization of labor in the United States. From capitalist slavery to sharecropping, and later industrial wage labor and mass unemployment, African Americans were denied the material conditions — time, security, and institutional continuity — necessary for a stable philosophical intelligentsia. Religious institutions therefore functioned as alternative sites of education and abstraction, much as they did for other oppressed groups within the U.S. multinational state.


“The exclusion of African American thinkers from academic institutions must be understood through class location and the organization of labor in the United States.”

The autodidact materialist philosopher Hubert Harrison, known as the “Black Socrates,” exemplifies this contradiction. He produced systematic philosophical lectures such as “World Problems of Race” and works such as When Africa Awakes, yet was denied recognition precisely because his philosophy was embedded in Black working-class political culture rather than professional philosophy.

Dialectical analysis requires us to go further. Even when partial inclusion occurred, new constraints emerged. There remain “ruling ideas” that restrict what African American philosophy is permitted to be — shaping not only who is recognized as a philosopher, but which questions can be asked without professional penalty.

If we examine African American political philosophy across the long Cold War — from the 1950s to the present — a striking pattern emerges. Many African American philosophers aligned themselves with variants of social contract theory — a framework historically used to legitimate bourgeois democracy. From William Fontaine to Bernard Boxill to Charles Mills, one finds a persistent commitment to anti-communist liberalism — often “radicalized,” but liberalism nonetheless. Structural critiques of capitalism, imperialism, and class power are often displaced in favor of moral critique or legal reform. This has been very evident during the Reign of Emperor Trump.

The irony is profound. African American philosophers are often presented as ruthless critics of racism and white supremacy, yet the dominant theoretical orientation has largely avoided questions about the compatibility of capitalism with Black liberation, or the material limits of liberal (bourgeois) democracy.

August Nimtz and Kyle A. Edwards’s work The Communist and the Revolutionary Liberal in the Second American Revolution is instructive. It offers a real-time comparison of Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass during the struggle to abolish slavery. Marx’s and Engels’s writings on the U.S. Civil War reveal abolition not simply as a moral triumph, but as a world-historical rupture between competing social systems: capitalist slavery and industrial capitalism.

By placing Douglass’s liberalism alongside Marx’s scientific socialism, Nimtz and Edwards show that while liberalism was powerful in mobilizing moral outrage, Marxism offered a deeper structural explanation of why capitalist slavery had to be abolished. It was not the fulfillment of liberal democracy, but a contradictory breakthrough that generated new forms of labor exploitation.

The point is not to denigrate Douglass, but to clarify (via philosophical interpretation) the theoretical stakes. Liberalism and Marxism offer fundamentally different diagnoses of power and social change. To remain within liberalism is to risk mistaking reform for revolution.

You’re a Marxist-Leninist philosopher and an African American philosopher. Talk about the complexity of your identity. What does Marxist-Leninist philosophy have to teach African American philosophy and vice versa?

As a good dialectician, I have to point out that the question presumes a distinction that I do not accept. It assumes that Marxist-Leninist philosophy and African American philosophy are identities to be reconciled. My own formation suggests a different starting point.

I grew up in a Black working-class community in the Midwest, raised by parents whose political sensibilities were shaped by the Black Power movement. That environment formed my social consciousness long before I had a philosophical vocabulary. As a young ravenous reader, I consumed whatever was available — Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, Dickens’s Hard Times and Great Expectations, Langston Hughes, Luke Cage comics, popular history, and political biography — until encountering The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which became a moment of nationalist awakening. That awakening unfolded against the backdrop of deindustrialization, urban decay, and the hollowing out of working-class life in the 1980s and 1990s. The racial character of that devastation was obvious, but so too was its class content. So, my philosophical journey became understanding the class character of racism and national oppression, its roots in world capitalism. This required me to read Marx’s politico-economic works, particularly Das Kapital; Vladimir Lenin’s text, Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism; and Kwame Nkrumah’s Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism. I should add I read C. L. R. James’s masterpiece Black Jacobins in high school.

There is no neat progression “from race to class,” no linear movement from identity to politics. My racial and class consciousness emerged together, forged by the same historical conditions. I became who I was because I am a product of my time. This is precisely the point Marx makes when he reminds us that philosophers do not emerge fully formed from abstract reflection, but from material life itself:


Philosophers do not spring up like mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of their time, of their nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible juices flow in the ideas of philosophy. The same spirit that constructs railways with the hands of workers, constructs philosophical systems in the brains of philosophers. Philosophy does not exist outside the world, any more than the brain exists outside man…

My Marxist-Leninist orientation, then, was not an identity choice layered onto an already-formed Blackness. Blackness shaped my motivation; dialectical and historical materialism shaped my method of investigation. That distinction has guided my work ever since.

As I was coming of age philosophically, I intensively read Black philosophers debating whether philosophy could be meaningfully adjoined to Blackness. Against William Banner’s insistence that philosophy must transcend Blackness, Roy D. Morrison (among others) posed a deeper challenge: whether Enlightenment reason itself could be reconstituted from the standpoint of Black historical experience — a project that reads as a prolegomenon to any future Black Enlightenment. Those debates raised a fundamental question: Is Blackness a philosophical perspective, or is it an object of philosophical investigation?

Here Black Studies becomes decisive. Its relationship to the philosophy of the Black experience is analogous to that between physics and the philosophy of physics. Black Studies created the intellectual space in which Blackness could be studied systematically as a material and historical phenomenon rather than treated as a deviation from an assumed universal norm. Philosophy is a critical tool among others for conceptual clarification, critique, and synthesis. It is therefore no accident that early work in the philosophy of the Black experience appeared first in Black Studies venues rather than in philosophy journals, which were far slower to recognize Black life as a legitimate object of philosophical inquiry.

It was through my engagement with Black Studies that I came to understand the limits of bourgeois democracy. And yet, professional philosophy treats bourgeois democracy as the natural — and often the only — horizon of political legitimacy. Among many African American philosophers, this assumption largely goes unchallenged. Questions about justice, rights, and citizenship are routinely framed within liberal constitutionalism, while alternative democratic traditions and historical experiences are left unexplored. Where, for example, are the sustained philosophical engagements with democracy in Cuba, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez, or the Soviet Union? What might these experiences teach us about popular sovereignty, collective decision-making, and mass participation beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy?

This silence reflects the long Cold War repression of socialist political thought. It is therefore telling that figures such as Marxist philosopher C. L. R. James remain marginal within contemporary philosophy curricula. James’s Every Cook Can Govern, a profound meditation on democracy from ancient Greece to modern socialism, should be central to any serious discussion of democratic theory.

As McClendon put it succinctly, Blackness provides the motivation for doing philosophy, not the philosophical orientation. I take that formulation seriously. Marxism-Leninism offers African American philosophy the analytic tools to examine capitalism, imperialism, and the state as material systems shaping Black life. The relationship, then, is not one of identity complexity or reconciliation, but of theoretical necessity.

As African American philosophers, we must do more to get African American students to pursue the field professionally. What strategy do you suggest?

Any serious strategy must begin with an honest reckoning with the history of the American Philosophical Association (APA) and its attendant academic racism.

This was already clear in 1974, when Jones issued concrete recommendations to the APA: placement services, rosters of Black philosophers, surveys of philosophy at Black institutions, graduate fellowships, colloquia on Black philosophy, curriculum development, and the upgrading of philosophy at Black colleges. Since that time, the philosophical landscape has not moved beyond the horizon Jones set. Incremental progress has occurred, yet the overall number of African American philosophers has remained low.

We can no longer wait for professional philosophy to magically deliver Black students into the discipline. We must build our own institutional infrastructure — connected to the academy but not dependent on its permission, promises, or resources.


“Our struggle is an intergenerational relay race: We inherit unfinished questions and are accountable for carrying them forward. No one is coming to do this work for us. The future belongs to those who build.”

Changes in professional philosophy will come through institution-building and long-term strategy, not spontaneity. We must create layered spaces of intellectual formation — archival recovery, collective study, political education, and intergenerational mentorship — inside and outside the academy. Only through institution-building will we sustain a Black philosophical community that revisits core problems at increasing levels of rigor over time.

Forward ever, backward never!

In a moment when Black Studies and ethnic studies face sustained political attack, building independent yet affiliated philosophical infrastructure is not separatism; it is institutional realism.

Our strategy cannot rest on persuasion alone; persuasion presumes institutions are willing to act. History suggests otherwise. What is required is construction. Our struggle is an intergenerational relay race: We inherit unfinished questions and are accountable for carrying them forward. No one is coming to do this work for us. The future belongs to those who build.

This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

George Yancy

George Yancy is the Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of philosophy at Emory University and a Montgomery fellow at Dartmouth College. He is also the University of Pennsylvania’s inaugural fellow in the Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellowship Program (2019-2020 academic year). He is the author, editor and co-editor of over 25 books, including Black Bodies, White Gazes; Look, A White; Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly about Racism in America; and Across Black Spaces: Essays and Interviews from an American Philosopher published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2020. His most recent books include a collection of critical interviews entitled, Until Our Lungs Give Out: Conversations on Race, Justice, and the Future (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), and a coedited book (with philosopher Bill Bywater) entitled, In Sheep’s Clothing: The Idolatry of White Christian Nationalism (Roman & Littlefield, 2024).

Clementine Barnabet: The Black woman blamed for serial murders in the Jim Crow South

A grainy photograph of Clementine Barnabet.

A 1912 edition of The Atlanta Constitution newspaper via Wikimedia Commons Lauren Nicole Henley, University of Richmond

The Conversation

February 19, 2026

In April 1912, a young Black woman named Clementine Barnabet confessed to murdering four families in and around Lafayette, Louisiana. The widespread news coverage at the time effectively branded her a serial killer.

Her confession, however, did not align with the timeline of crimes that had gripped America’s rice belt region with fear. Even today, her guilt is debated.

From November 1909 until August 1912, an unknown assailant – or assailants – zigzagged across southwestern Louisiana and southeastern Texas. Many Black families were slaughtered in their homes under the cover of darkness. An ax – the telltale weapon – was almost always found in the bloody aftermath.

All but one of the scenes were located within a mile of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Route. In each case, a mother and child were always among the victims. Evidence of additional weapons was often found nearby, suggesting a deliberate cruelty to the carnage.

Dubbed the “axman”, the unknown assailant eluded the authorities and terrified local Black communities.

Today, when scholars and laypeople alike discuss Clementine Barnabet, they oscillate between two extremes: portraying her as a fear-inducing, cult-leading Black female serial killer, or as an innocent young Black woman caught in circumstances beyond her control.

In more than a decade of researching Clementine Barnabet, I’ve been struck by how print media created overtly sensationalized accounts of the mythology of the axman and, by extension, the axwoman. Whether Barnabet committed the crimes she said she did – or any of the axman murders, for that matter – is irrelevant to the primary motive the media constructed for her fatal violence: religion.

Diverse faith traditions

In Jim Crow Louisiana, various expressions of faith were possible. The state’s history as a French colony – one that also practiced slavery – meant it was home to the largest percentage of Black Catholics in the United States.

At the same time, religions like Voodoo, that originated in West Africa, reached the region on slave ships. Voodoo was not necessarily at odds with Catholicism; enslaved practitioners creatively adapted their ancestral faith to that of their enslavers.

Some displays of faith were not organized religions at all, but folkways. Hoodoo, for example, has West African origins, though it also draws upon European and Native American elements. Hoodoo practitioners – sometimes called doctors – and their clients often practice a religion, yet they also seek comfort in the supernatural possibilities of their craft.

This craft involves the physical manipulation of earthly elements such as graveyard dirt or plants like John the Conqueror root to achieve magical ends, often resulting in conjures – or ritual objects – needed to bring about desired goals. Conjures are believed to help people protect themselves, harm one’s adversaries, alter one’s circumstances, intervene in one’s relationships and more.

In their most powerful form, believers contend that conjures can bring about a person’s death.

For some believers, elements of Catholicism, Voodoo, Protestantism and hoodoo combine into syncretic faith practices. Incorporating multiple systems of beliefs has been an aspect of many Louisianans’ identities for generations. Most of the time, this blending of practices, ideologies and communities is depicted as a quirky – even “backward” – way to make sense of the world.

Yet during the axman’s reign in the early 1900s, a Black woman’s confession to murder was interpreted through the lens of religious deviance rather than diversity.

A timeline of events

When Barnabet confessed in April 1912, it was technically the second time she had done so. The first time was in November 1911 in the aftermath of the Randall family murder. Five members of the Randall family and their overnight guest had been brutally slaughtered in Lafayette, Louisiana at the end of the month.

According to regional newspapers, Barnabet was in the crowd that had gathered near the Randall family’s home after the murders were discovered. Reportedly, she caught the attention of the local sheriff. Not only did she live near the slain, but, according to a New Orleans daily, the authorities found “her room saturated with blood and covered with human brains.”

Barnabet was given a “third degree” examination – meaning she was tortured – by the New Orleans Police Department, and then supposedly confessed that she had killed the Randalls because, according to a Midwestern newspaper, they “disobeyed the orders of the church.” That church would become a topic of scrutiny and sensationalism by regional lawmen and news outlets alike throughout much of 1912.

At that time, Barnabet is also said to have confessed to killing another family in Lafayette.

Thus, Barnabet had already been in jail for over four months before her springtime confession. Between January and March 1912, four more families had been axed to death between Crowley, Louisiana and Glidden, Texas. In April, when Barnabet re-confessed, she added two more families to her victim roster.

In aggregate, the four families Barnabet confessed to killing had been slain between November 1909 and November 1911. Four more families had been murdered between her arrest and second confession, meaning she was in jail when they occurred. After her second confession and while she was still in custody, another three families were attacked with an ax, though for the first time, people survived the axman.

This convoluted timeline, in which more than half of the axman murders occurred after Barnabet had been apprehended, presented a challenge for investigators. They generally believed the crimes were related. Yet Barnabet could not have physically carried out the attacks in 1912.

To explain the continuation of the killings despite Barnabet’s incarceration, local lawmen leveraged the young woman’s own statements that had landed her in jail in the first place: that religion compelled her to murder.

It was this November 1911 confession that gave investigators the motive of religious fanaticism to attach to the axman crimes. Then, in January 1912, when the Broussards – another Black family – were murdered with an ax in Lake Charles, Louisiana, the local police found a Bible verse scrawled on their front door. This overtly religious symbol appeared roughly two months after Barnabet’s first confession and seemed to confirm her claims.

By April 1912, the idea of religiously motivated serial murder had been circulating in the rice belt region for months.

Hoodoo, conjures, and sensationalism

Barnabet’s confession was transcribed by R. H. Broussard (no relation to the victims), a newspaper reporter for the “New Orleans Item,” in April 1912.

According to the report, Barnabet claimed that she and four friends purchased conjures from a local hoodoo doctor one evening while socializing. They paid the practitioner for his services. Supposedly, the group then used the charms to move about undetected while committing murder.

In both her November 1911 and April 1912 confessions, Barnabet offered faith-based motives, albeit different ones. In the first case, it was the victims who reportedly erred in their religious duties. In the second, it was Barnabet’s own belief in hoodoo that facilitated such carnage. White media outlets did not interpret either of these statements as evidence of the region’s deep history of diverse faith expressions.

Instead, they labeled Barnabet “a black borgia,” “the directing head of a fanatical cult,” and the “Priestess of [a] Colored Human Sacrifice Cult.”

Moreover, sensationalized news coverage labeled the church Barnabet mentioned as the “Sacrifice Church.” Not surprisingly, the press depicted it as a cult-like organization, portraying Barnabet as either a low-level member or the “high priestess.” Sometimes, news reports also conflated the Sacrifice Church with Voodoo, thereby criminalizing a legitimate West African-derived religion as a cult.

According to unsubstantiated media accounts, the so-called Sacrifice Church promoted human sacrifice to gain immortality. Simultaneously, newspapers treated the conjure Barnabet possessed as proof of her fanaticism, reporting her claim that the only reason she confessed was because she had lost her charm.

Combined these selective – and sensational – interpretations of Barnabet’s supposed religious beliefs ignored the possibility of diverse spiritual practices that enriched life in the rice belt region.

Jim Crow and Black faith

I have yet to find evidence the Sacrifice Church existed. My research suggests the white press conflated the word “sacrifice” with the word “sanctified.” This might have been due, in part, to both sensationalism and ignorance.

Pentecostalism, a branch of evangelical Christianity that emphasizes baptism by the Holy Spirit and direct communication from God, started growing in popularity in the U.S. in the early 1900s. Many Pentecostal denominations call their adherents saints and their churches sanctified. Since sanctified churches were relatively new to Louisiana and some Pentecostal teachings – like speaking in tongues – challenged more mainstream Protestant doctrine, Pentecostalism might have contributed to the media’s reporting.

Although the Sacrifice Church may have simply been a linguistic error in reference to any number of sanctified churches in the rice belt, it is possible that Barnabet did indeed possess a conjure. The hoodoo doctor she accused of selling her and her comrades their charms was arrested and questioned by the Lafayette authorities. The statements he gave to the police aligned with hoodoo practices even as he denied knowing Barnabet or being involved in such folkways.

Given the variety of faith practices in Jim Crow Louisiana, it is possible both that Barnabet believed in her conjure and that sanctified churches were growing in popularity in the region. Whether she ever attended one is hard to know, just as the legitimacy of either confession is difficult to determine.

What is clear is that faith anchored the statements Barnabet made to the authorities. The other anchor, however, was murder. The consequences of how these events aligned reverberate in how Barnabet has been depicted.

Barnbet was front-page news in 1912. People knew her name, even as they debated her guilt. When she was convicted of murder, she was sentenced to life at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. A little over a decade later, she was released and disappeared from public view.

Today, however, no Black female serial killer occupies a similar place in America’s collective memory.

In recent years, there have been calls for a more serious acceptance of Black women’s experiences, knowledge and beliefs within the dominant culture. This shift also invites, I believe, a fresh look at Barnabet’s confessions and the crimes that were attributed to her.

Lauren Nicole Henley, Assistant Professor of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pharaohs in Dixieland: How 19th-century America reimagined Egypt to justify slavery

Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis via Getty Images Charles Vanthournout, Université de Lorraine

The Conversation

February 19, 2026 

When Napoleon embarked upon a military expedition into Egypt in 1798, he brought with him a team of scholars, scientists and artists. Together, they produced the monumental “Description de l’Égypte,” a massive, multivolume work about Egyptian geography, history and culture.

At the time, the United States was a young nation with big aspirations, and Americans often viewed their country as an heir to the great civilizations of the past. The tales of ancient Egypt that emerged from Napoleon’s travels became a source of fascination to Americans, though in different ways.

In the slaveholding South, ancient Egypt and its pharaohs became a way to justify slavery. For abolitionists and African Americans, biblical Egypt served as a symbol of bondage and liberation.

As a historian, I study how 19th-century Americans – from Southern intellectuals to Black abolitionists – used ancient Egypt to debate questions of race, civilization and national identity. My research traces how a distorted image of ancient Egypt shaped competing visions of freedom and hierarchy in a deeply divided nation.

Egypt inspires the pro-slavery South

In 1819, when lawyer John Overton, military officer James Winchester and future president Andrew Jackson founded a city in Tennessee along the Mississippi River, they christened it Memphis, after the ancient Egyptian capital.

While promoting the new city, Overton declared of the Mississippi River that ran alongside it: “This noble river may, with propriety, be denominated the American Nile.”

“Who can tell that she may not, in time, rival … her ancient namesake, of Egypt in classic elegance and art?” The Arkansas Banner excitedly reported.

In the region’s fertile soil, Chancellor William Harper, a jurist and pro-slavery theorist from South Carolina, saw the promise of an agricultural empire built on slavery, one “capable of being made a far greater Egypt.”

There was a reason pro-slavery businessmen and thinkers were energized by the prospect of an American Egypt: Many Southern planters imagined themselves as guardians of a hierarchical and aristocratic system, one grounded in landownership, tradition and honor. As Alabama newspaper editor William Falconer put it, he and his fellow white Southerners belonged to a race that “had established law, order and government over the earth.”

To them, Egypt represented the archetype of a great hierarchical civilization. Older than Athens or Rome, Egypt conferred a special legitimacy. And just like the pharaohs, the white elites of the South saw themselves as the stewards of a prosperous society sustained by enslaved labor.

Leading pro-slavery thinkers like Virginia social theorist George Fitzhugh, South Carolina lawyer and U.S. Senator Robert Barnwell Rhett and Georgia lawyer and politician Thomas R.R. Cobb all invoked Egypt as an example to follow.

“These [Egyptian] monuments show negro slaves in Egypt at least 1,600 years before Christ,” Cobb wrote in 1858. “That they were the same happy negroes of this day is proven by their being represented in a dance 1,300 years before Christ.”

A distorted view of history

But their view of history didn’t exactly square with reality. Slavery did exist in ancient Egypt, but most slaves had been originally captured as prisoners of war.

The country never developed a system of slavery comparable to that of Greece or Rome, and servitude was neither race-based nor tied to a plantation economy. The mistaken notion that Egypt’s great monuments were built by slaves largely stems from ancient authors and the biblical account of the Hebrews. Later, popular culture – especially Hollywood epics – would continue to advance this misconception.

Nonetheless, 19th-century Southern intellectuals drew on this imagined Egypt to legitimize slavery as an ancient and divinely sanctioned institution.

Even after the Civil War, which ended in 1865, nostalgia for these myths of ancient Egypt endured. In the 1870s, former Confederate officer Edward Fontaine noted how “Veritable specimens of black, woolyheaded negroes are represented by the old Egyptian artists in chains, as slaves, and even singing and dancing, as we have seen them on Southern plantations in the present century.”

Turning Egypt white

But to claim their place among the world’s great civilizations, Southerners had to reconcile a troubling fact: Egypt was located in Africa, the ancestral land of those enslaved in the U.S.

In response, an intellectual movement called the American School of Ethnology – which promoted the idea that races had separate, unequal origins to justify Black inferiority and slavery – set out to “whiten” Egypt.

In a series of texts and lectures, they portrayed Egypt as a slaveholding civilization dominated by whites. They pointed to Egyptian monuments as proof of the greatness that a slave society could achieve. And they also promoted a scientifically discredited theory called “polygenesis,” which argued that Black people did not descend from the Bible’s Adam, but from some other source.

Richard Colfax, the author of the 1833 pamphlet “Evidence Against the Views of the Abolitionists,” insisted that “the Egyptians were decidedly of the Caucasian variety of men.” Most mummies, he added, “bear not the most distant resemblance to the negro race.”

Physician Samuel George Morton cited “Crania Aegyptiaca,” an 1822 German study of Egyptian skulls, to reinforce this view. Writing in the Charleston Medical Journal in 1851, he explained how the German study had concluded that the skulls mirrored those of Europeans in size and shape. In doing so, it established “the negro his true position as an inferior race.”

Physician Samuel George Morton’s “Crania Aegyptiaca,” an 1844 study of Egyptian skulls, reinforced this view. He argued that the skulls mirrored those of Europeans in size and shape. In doing so, noted the Charleston Medical Journal in 1851, Morton established “the Negro his true position as an inferior race.”

Physician Josiah C. Nott, Egyptologist George Gliddon and physician and propagandist John H. Van Evrie formed an effective triumvirate: Through press releases and public lectures featuring the skulls of mummies, they turned Egyptology into a tool of pro-slavery propaganda.

“The Negro question was the one I wished to bring out,” Nott wrote, adding that he “embalmed it in Egyptian ethnography.”

Nott and Gliddon’s 1854 bestseller “Types of Mankind” fused pseudoscience with Egyptology to both “prove” Black inferiority and advance the idea that their beloved African civilization was populated by a white Egyptian elite.

“Negroes were numerous in Egypt,” they write, “but their social position in ancient times was the same that it now is, that of servants and slaves.”

Denouncing America’s pharaohs

This distorted vision of Egypt, however, wasn’t the only one to take hold in the U.S., and abolitionists saw this history through a decidedly different lens.

In the Bible, Egypt occupies a central place, mentioned repeatedly as a land of refuge – notably for Joseph – but also as a nation of idolatry and as the cradle of slavery.

The episode of the Exodus is perhaps the most famous reference. The Hebrews, enslaved under an oppressive pharaoh, are freed by Moses, who leads them to the Promised Land, Canaan. This biblical image of Egypt as a land of bondage deeply shaped 19th-century moral and political debates: For many abolitionists, it represented the ultimate symbol of tyranny and human oppression.

When the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863, Black people could be heard singing in front of the White House, “Go down Moses, way down in Egypt Land … Tell Jeff Davis to let my people go.”

Black Americans seized upon this biblical parallel. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was a contemporary pharaoh, with Moses still the prophet of liberation.

African American writers and activists like Phillis Wheatley and Sojourner Truth also invoked Egypt as a tool of emancipation.

“In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom,” Wheatley wrote in a 1774 letter. “It is impatient of oppression and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians, I will assert that the same principle lives in us.”

Yet the South’s infatuation with Egypt shows how antiquity can always be recast to serve the powerful. And it’s a reminder that the past is far from neutral terrain – that there is rarely, if ever, a ceasefire in wars over history and memory.

This article has been updated to correctly attribute Samuel George Morton as the author of “Crania Aegyptiaca,” not as the author of the Charleston Medical Journal article. Quoted texts from Phillis Wheatley and William Falconer have also been slightly amended for accuracy.

Charles Vanthournout, Ph.D. Student in Ancient History, Université de Lorraine

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Opinion

Sacred marches and sacred music in a time of empire

(RNS) — Bad Bunny's joyful Super Bowl halftime show, a group of monks walking hundreds of miles for peace, protesters singing in the streets.

Bad Bunny performs during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl 60 football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara, Calif. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

Kaitlin Curtice
February 20, 2026
RNS


(RNS) — A combination of recent events has illuminated for me, once again, the power of sacred resistance in the face of cruelty and oppression. Sacred resistance is more than just protest, more than social media posting, more even than advocacy. Sacred resistance can include those things, but it is also embodied, it is done in community, it is aspirational in its call to joy, to the celebration of humanity, to justice. It embraces the prophetic power of art — in music, in poetry, in paintings, in film — alongside the strength of a crowd with a common purpose. Sacred resistance is subversive, but it is wholly human.

I have witnessed this sacred resistance in Bad Bunny’s defiantly joyful Super Bowl halftime show, in a group of monks walking hundreds of miles for peace, in protesters singing in the streets and in our very homes as we care for one another in a time of immense violence.

Each offers an example of how we can resist the status quo of hate, greed, colonialism, racism, xenophobia and sexism — by showing up with joy, movement, poetry, long walks, music, online and in-person presence and by holding space with one another to rest and to heal along the way.

During Bad Bunny’s halftime show — itself a stunning tribute to Puerto Rico — Ricky Martin sang the lyrics to “Lo que le paso a Hawaii,” a story of survival, grief and dreams living on despite colonialism.

Hawa’ii and Boricua, what we call Puerto Rico today, share a history of brutal colonialism. Puerto Rico has lived under colonial rule since 1493, when Columbus arrive on Taíno land. Today, the island holds the status of “territory” in the United States, with little agency and no congressional representation. The United States overthrew the monarchy of Hawa’ii in 1893, devastating the Native Hawaiian population and culture, which continues today through an extravagant and extractive tourist industry.

A few of the lyrics in Ricky Martin’s song spoke to the struggles in both Puerto Rico and Hawa’ii:

Quieren quitarme el río y también la playa (They want to take away the river and also the beach)

Quieren al barrio mío y que abuelita se vaya (They want my neighborhood and they want grandma to leave)

Que no quiero que hagan contigo lo que le pasó a Hawái (I don’t want them to do to you what they did to Hawa’ii)

Benito Ocasio’s halftime show was about more than music; it was a celebration of Puerto Rican culture and community, a celebration of the whole of the American continents, looking to the future while also speaking the truth about the past and about the present that we find ourselves in.

Buddhist monks participating in the “Walk For Peace” are seen with their dog, Aloka, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Saluda, S.C. (AP Photo/Allison Joyce)

And then there was a group of Vietnamese Buddhist monks, nuns and their dog, Aloka, who walked from Texas to Washington, D.C., for peace, marching on bruised feet because they believed the world needed to bear witness not just to violence but to the power of spiritually grounded practices. Every time I saw the monks in a reel on Instagram or in the news, I was reminded of the power we hold in our very bodies — that our spiritual life, our commitment to justice and care in the world, happens not just through prayer but through action rooted in kinship and belonging. When we begin to understand the threads of community that build webs of resistance in the world, we can prepare ourselves for whatever is next.

I was recently with an elder who is the tribal chairman of the Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, and he talked to me about The Long Walk, a march organized by the American Indian Movement in the 1970s from Alcatraz to Washington, D.C., over five months. They gathered together with their allies who joined them along the way to protest the United States government’s broken treaty promises, especially around land sovereignty and water rights. What began with around 3,000 people ended in more than 30,000, speaking to the power of building community through movement. The march was a political statement, but, like the monks’ walk, it was also a spiritual one. Along the way they passed a peace pipe, they danced, sang and educated the masses on Indigenous rights and care for the earth.

And now, Indigenous peoples dance in the streets of Minneapolis, holding vigil, praying and caring for their community through sacred resistance. Earlier this month, a group of Indigenous peoples led by Migizi Spears of the Red Lake Nation set up a prayer camp in front of the Whipple building, a building tied to the oppression of the Dakota and Ho-Chunk people, to protest the violence and wrongful detention of people by ICE. They held vigil, prayed, sang and named the truth of history so that it won’t be repeated. It was a form of sacred protest and a vision for who we should be in this time.

Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both recently fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

In an era in which Donald Trump is president, the necessity of resistance is visceral and clear. But how do we show up to this moment in ways that will create change?

Maybe it begins with looking up the lyrics to a song in Spanish or learning about the history of places like Puerto Rico, Cuba or Hawa’ii, histories that will make clear how borders are a colonial construct. We learned this in Bad Bunny’s halftime show, and as a lesson that many Indigenous people have taught again and again. Constructed borders keep us from recognizing the humanity present in those beyond our colonial boundaries and markers.

Listen to the stories of the oppressed. Read books and celebrate art created by those on the margins, whose stories don’t often get told. When we diversify the stories we take in, especially during a time when those stories are being suppressed, we expand our perspective and grow our community.

Grieve what America isn’t — and never has been. Many people are afraid to grieve the loss of an image of America they deeply wanted to be true. We have to come to terms with the foundational violence of this country: the genocide of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement of Black people. Those violences did not simply end; they are perpetuated through racist policing strategies, discriminatory housing and lending practices, the extraction of natural resources from Indigenous lands. Grief is essential in resistance work.

But you don’t have to do it alone. Show up to a community meeting, to a vigil, to a march, get involved in resistance art (like this Philadelphia art community knitting anti-ice hats once a week). Our resistance movements fall apart if they aren’t sustained by communal care and joy.

One of my favorite elders, Choctaw teacher Steven Charleston, writes in his book “Ladder to the Light”:

“When we share our questions together, we become our own answer. We discover there is no one right way to do everything. We understand that no single plan will encompass the way forward. If we seek to bring light into darkness, then we must rely on the wisdom of us all.”

May we ask the questions we need to ask, and may we realize we are also capable of the answer.

(Kaitlin B. Curtice is an award-winning author and poet. She is the author of several books, including “Native: Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God” and “Living Resistance: An Indigenous Vision for Seeking Wholeness Every Day.” She is also the director of the Aki Institute. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

THE EPSTEIN CLASS

Opinion

King Charles exposes Pam Bondi’s shame

Amanda Marcotte

SALON
Fri, February 20, 2026 



Photo illustration by Salon / Getty Images / Dan Kitwood / Tom Williams / Tim Graham


Donald Trump is very pleased with himself for being president during the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution. Hijacking a Black History Month event on Wednesday, he gloated that, along with the Olympics and the World Cup, “I get the 250th year.” This wasn’t just the latest in a series of tacky gestures toward the nation’s semiquincentennial from a man the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein claimed as his “best friend.” It ended up being another disturbing reminder that Trump is on a mission to destroy everything the revolutionaries fought for, and not just because he continued to push his belief that he was entitled to steal the 2020 election. Because a few hours later, the literal British Crown took a stand for equality under the law and elite accountability that Trump and Pam Bondi, his lackey attorney general, have been doing everything they can to avoid.

On Thursday morning in the United Kingdom, Thames Valley Police took the unprecedented move of arresting Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles III and son of the late Queen Elizabeth II, on what was his 66th birthday. Theaction was historic. The former Prince Andrew is the first senior royal in the modern era to be arrested by law enforcement. The last was Charles I, who was arrested in 1646 and executed three years later for treason.

Mountbatten-Windsor has already been stripped of his titles, styles, public role and home due to the fallout from his lengthy relationship with Epstein, including accusations of sexual abuse of minors. The ex-prince was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office in the wake of newly-released Epstein files from the American Justice Department that showed he may have been sharing confidential government documents with Epstein while serving as a British trade envoy. Held in police custody for 11 hours, which would have included questioning under caution, Mountbatten-Windsor was released while the investigation into his conduct continues.

What is truly remarkable is how Charles immediately came out in support of the notion that his younger brother is not above the law. “What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities,” the king said in a statement issued by Buckingham Palace. “In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and cooperation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”

On the other side of the pond, Trump was, unsurprisingly, unwilling to take a hard stand against a fellow close associate of Epstein’s. “I think it’s very sad,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I think it’s so bad for the royal family.” The president did not express sympathy for the victims or explain what was sad — the alleged crime itself, or that Mountbatten-Windsor may eventually face prosecution, trial and punishment for what he reportedly did.

Charles also strongly diverged from Bondi, who is supposed to be the top law enforcement official in a nation founded on the rejection of monarchy and the belief that rule of law should apply equally to all.

To state this more plainly: The literal throne America rebelled against is now honoring the nation’s constitutional principles and ideals better than those who swore an oath to uphold them.

That Bondi is using her power to shield Trump and his rich friends from accountability was underscored yet again last week when the attorney general testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee about the department’s failure to release all of its files on the Epstein case as required by law. She was repeatedly asked — mostly by Democrats, but also by GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky — about the withheld documents and seemingly illegal redactions of the names of potential Epstein co-conspirators. Instead of explaining these discrepancies, many of which work to hide information about Trump and his wealthy allies — including some members of his very administration — Bondi deflected by yelling, filibustering and calling members of Congress names.

One thing is certain: The cover-up isn’t being conducted in the shadows. When Lex Wexner, the former Victoria’s Secret CEO and massive political donor, was deposed last week by the House committee in an effort to examine his extensive relationship with Epstein, no Republican representatives bothered to show. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was recently forced to admit that, after claiming he had cut off contact with Epstein in 2005, he was in fact involved with the financier for years later. The White House shrugged this off, just as they did with Epstein’s ties to multiple administration officials including Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Commissioner Mehmet Oz, Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.

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Then there’s Trump himself, whose name appears thousands of times in what has been released of the documents, including one time when he reportedly told Florida law enforcement that “everyone has known” about Epstein’s crimes following the sex offender’s first arrest. (It’s also important to remember that Epstein got an infamous sweetheart deal from federal prosecutor Alex Acosta, who later served as labor secretary under Trump in his first administration.) Then there are the redactions that seem to be about Trump. These include at least one photo from the lengthy time period he was partying constantly with Epstein. According to Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a search of the unredacted Epstein files revealed “more than a million” references to the president. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche denied that the Justice Department is covering up mentions of Trump, but from an administration that appears to lie about everything, his statement means nothing.

The actions taken by British police — which also included raids on residences belonging to former U.S. ambassador Peter Mandelson, a Labour Party stalwart with deep links to Epstein — only makes the Justice Department’s inaction look worse by comparison. Before he died in jail in 2019, Epstein had friends all over the world, but he was an American. Most of his alleged crimes took place in the U.S., and most of the people suspected of being involved were also Americans. Yet while top federal officials appear to be shielded from consequences in what is purported to be the world’s oldest democracy, real accountability can be seen overseas. Norway’s former Prime Minister Thorbjørn Jagland has been indicted on corruption charges. The son of the country’s crown princess is awaiting trial on 38 charges, including four counts of rape. Top officials from the UK, Sweden, France and Slovakia have all lost their jobs due to having Epstein connections. But only a handful of people in American business or academia have faced professional consequences, and aside from Epstein’s associate and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, there have certainly no legal consequences.

Trump built his political career on laughable claims that he is an anti-elite actor who wants to drain Washington’s swamp and serve the interests of everyday Americans. To his detractors, who tend to engage real news at much higher rates than Trump voters, this was always an obvious lie. The president is the heir of a massive real estate fortune who spent his whole life defrauding investors and the government, as was proved in court, in a lifelong bid to buy his way into fancy New York circles. As the Epstein files definitively show, it worked. Trump spent years as Epstein’s shadow while the sex criminal hobnobbed his way through the world of the rich and powerful — and yet he managed to hoodwink millions into thinking he isn’t the living embodiment of a corrupt elite.

When organizers of the nation’s biggest anti-Trump protests landed on the “No Kings” branding, they got a lot of criticism from those who argued it was both hyperbolic and weirdly old-fashioned to suggest Trump wants to be a king. But it’s increasingly obvious that “king” — even more than “dictator” — captures Trump’s view on what he should be. By running the Justice Department like it’s a royal spy agency serving a 16th century king and his court rather than a civilian-controlled law enforcement agency, Bondi is reinforcing Trump’s anti-democratic ambitions.

“If a Prince can be held accountable, so can a President,” tweeted Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M. According to the Constitution and the values that fueled the American Revolution, this is an understatement. The president is supposed to be a citizen representative held to the rule of law, not a medieval monarch placed above it.

But now, in our topsy-turvy world, the literal King of Great Britain and Northern Island is standing against his own brother to uphold equality under the law, while the attorney general of the United States runs cover for a whole mess of wannabe aristocrats in what is supposed to be a democracy. Trump may gloat about being the president on our country’s 250th anniversary, but his presence there is a travesty that will resonate through history.

The post King Charles exposes Pam Bondi’s shame appeared first on Salon.com.

Investigation into Andrew could be complex and long

Dominic Casciani - Home and legal correspondent

BBC
Fri, February 20, 2026 


Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested and released on suspicion of misconduct in public office. [PA Media]


If anyone thought that Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor would be leaving a police cell and going to court, they were seriously wrong.

That's because he is now under investigation for misconduct in public office. The offence, essentially an allegation of corruption, is one of the most difficult crimes to investigate, charge, prosecute and convict.

We do not know what Thames Valley Police put to Andrew during the 11 hours he was under arrest, but highly involved legal questions over whether an offence may have been committed will be at the heart of the investigation.

Detectives will be going through a four-step process, assessing which actions, if any, by the former prince amounted to misconduct in public office.

First, was the suspect a public officer?

Second, did they wilfully neglect to perform their duty and/or wilfully misconduct themselves?

Third, was that neglect or misconduct so bad that it amounted to "an abuse of the public's trust" in the office holder?

Peter Stringfellow of Brett Wilson, a firm that works on complex criminal cases, says that a case last year underlined the challenges that any investigation into alleged misconduct faces.

In that prosecution, a man who worked in the Metropolitan Police pound was accused of taking pictures of human remains found in a crashed vehicle.

A judge concluded the man had not committed misconduct in a public office because the man was not a public officer carrying out a role involving public trust.

"Even though [the defendant] worked for the police, he did a very menial job," Stringfellow says.

"The judge had to look at what position the defendant held and what duties were attached to that position.

"Did those duties amount to a responsibility of government, in which the public has a significant interest beyond those directly affected?"

The allegations being levelled in public at the former prince concern claims that he passed confidential documents to Jeffrey Epstein - while working as a trade envoy.

Detectives may now be looking in close detail at what precisely that role involved and line by line and the nature of the information he passed to the sex offender.

"A public office is primarily defined by its functions, not its status," Stringfellow says. "It does not need to be an 'office' in any technical sense or be a permanent position.

"The position does not need to be subject to specific rules of appointment, and does not need to be directly linked, by way of appointment, employment or contract, in terms of status, to either the Government or the 'state'."

This level of complexity means that if someone is convicted, each case is sentenced differently, even though in theory the maximum is life imprisonment.

"The problem that you have with this type of offence is it's incredibly wide - it covers all manner of public offices," Stringfellow adds.

"It equally would cover all manner of offences. Some of them could be deemed much more serious than others. Sentences will be incredibly varied."

The reason why this offence is so complicated is an accident of history - and the Law Commission, the body that advises government on big legal changes, called five years ago for the offence to be completely reworked.

Misconduct in Public Office is part of England's "common law" - which means judges came up with it hundreds of years ago, rather than Parliament.

Back in the 13th Century, there was a law that said local sheriffs should not receive "for favour borne to such misdoers".

That developed along with other ideas about corruption - arriving at a turning point in 1783.

That year, Lord Mansfield, one of the most celebrated chief justices in English legal history, reviewed the conviction of Charles Bembridge, a government accountant, who was accused of knowingly cooking the books.

The defendant had appealed, saying he had committed no identifiable crime. But the judge said Bembridge had a public role and had failed to carry out his duties on behalf of the King for a corrupting motive.

That, he said, was a crime.

The rules in force today - the four tests being followed by detectives - were set out in an important Court of Appeal judgment in 2003. In the centuries between the Mansfield ruling and that, the offence was sparingly used - maybe as few as 72 times, according to the Law Commission's research.

That meant the crime was little understood by the lawyers and courts dealing with it - and that led to a very modern controversy.

From 2011 the offence was used to pursue journalists and the public officials they were said to have paid for stories in the wake of the closure of the News of the World.

The then Lord Chief Justice eventually stopped the pursuit of some journalists , saying they were being unjustly treated like criminal conspirators, concluding the law was ancient and difficult.

As a result, only 34 of the 90 people arrested in relation to payments from newspapers to officials were ultimately found guilty.

That led the Law Commission to propose a complete rewrite to make sure the offence was only used when appropriate. It suggested that Parliament should make clear that misconduct must include proof that someone has used their position to improperly benefit from their action.

The last government did not act on that 2020 recommendation, but Sir Keir Starmer's government is now, coincidentally, putting that plan through Parliament.

Assuming the law passes, the ancient offence will be confined to history, and the investigation into the King's brother may be the last chapter in a very messy and contested legal saga.

Opinion: Why a Royal’s Arrest Exposes Trump’s Shameful Perversion of Justice

David Rothkopf
Thu, February 19, 2026 

Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

The U.S. justice system is a national embarrassment.

That actually understates the problem. A justice system that was an example to the world, one that pursued and prosecuted scandals without fear or favor, is now itself perhaps the greatest of all scandals in the United States.

This was never clearer than today, Thursday, as Americans awoke to news that in the United Kingdom, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince and favored son of Queen Elizabeth, was arrested for his apparent involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. At the same time, headlines spoke of a former Korean president getting a life sentence for leading an insurrection akin to that led by President Trump on and around January 6, 2001.

Former Prince Andrew was arrested on his 66th birthday. / WPA Pool / Getty Images

Police Officers patrol near the gates of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor's former residence. / Leon Neal / Leon Neal/Getty Images

Trump, of course, the most central figure in the Epstein scandal other than Epstein himself, and the primary inciter behind the attacks on the U.S. Capitol, sits ensconced and apparently above the law at the White House.

Rather than investigating or prosecuting him for those crimes or the myriad others of which he has been credibly accused—from stealing national secrets, to attempting to defraud voters and meddle with the results of the 2020 election—our Justice Department is actually serving as personal lawyers helping with Trump’s defense and directing its efforts to attacking, without grounds, his enemies and rivals. Furthermore, another arm of Trump law enforcement, is now summarily executing Americans in the street, throwing innocent people in jail, denying them thousands due process, incarcerating children and innocents in concentration camps (again often without due process) and serially violating the rights of Americans.

Ousted South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was sentenced to life in prison. / Kim Hong-ji/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

That is to say nothing of the efforts afoot by Trump, DoJ, and even the Trump intelligence community to conspire to deny Americans of their right to vote or the serial, egregious corruption at the center of the Trump Administration, corruption that has siphoned billions into the personal accounts of the president, his family and his close aids.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the world, we see a far different picture. Not only was Andrew whisked off to a police cell, with a statement of support for the investigation by his brother the King, but multiple former members of the Starmer government are under investigation for their Epstein ties. That is also true in Norway where an ambassador has had to resign and other officials are feeling the heat. Further, across the private sector from the Middle East to U.S. corporate suites, individuals with ties to the sordid Epstein saga are losing their jobs or under intense pressure to leave them.

Have Epstein’s victims received their share of justice or even the day in court they deserve? No. Have Trump associates who have lied about their ties to Epstein, like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick felt pressure? No. Has former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr whose name has come up in the released Epstein files been called to testify? No. Has troubling evidence that is emerging surrounding the circumstances of Epstein’s death received further investigation? No.

Donald Trump has denied knowing about Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes while the pair were good friends. / Davidoff Studios/Getty Images

Trump’s name appears in the Epstein files more than a million times, according to a Democrat who reviewed the unredacted version of the files. / Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images

Indeed, those files concerning Epstein that have been released—although heavily redacted—have raised new questions about Trump (who is accused in some sworn testimony of rape and threatening to kill young girls), about Epstein and his ties to foreign governments, and about why with so much evidence in circulation, many of the cases that could be brought were not and indeed, were not even investigated.

Nonetheless, the Department of Justice seems to be involved in a massive cover up, with the assistance of parts of the U.S. Congress and the White House. They not only did not comply with the law passed to require the release of the Epstein files in a timely manner, they have to date only released about half the known files and those were, as noted above, extensively blacked out. Meanwhile, Congress’ investigation into Epstein has been turned into a sham by Republicans. This week, when Epstein associate Les Wexner was deposed, no Republican members attended the deposition. While great pressure is being placed on Bill and Hillary Clinton to testify—which they have agreed to do—there is no such pressure concerning Trump.

The bad news for those involved in the Trump-Epstein cover up is that the world has different standards. Should Andrew or others go to trial, what could be revealed might be very damaging to Trump. Furthermore, despite Trump’s weak claim a couple of days ago on Air Force One that the Epstein case is over and that he has been exonerated, the growing scandal and possible prosecutions that could occur elsewhere ensure that it will be front and center for a long time to come—through the 2026 elections. That’s bad news not only for Trump but for members of the Republican Party who have aided in trying to burying the Epstein scandal.

The Yoon case in Korea raises other deeply disturbing questions for Americans who once had faith in their system of justice. A president is apparently not above the law in the Republic of Korea. Insurrections led by presidents are seen as the most grave sort of crime. Yoon could die in prison. And what’s more, we have seen months ago, a similar result in Brazil for another similar case, this one involving a close Trump friend, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, now serving a 27-year sentence for his own failed insurrection.

Ex-Prince Andrew laughs with Melania Trump, Gwendolyn Beck, and Jeffrey Epstein at a party at the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. / Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images

Here in the US, not only has Trump walked despite his involvement in an unprecedented assault by a sitting president on the U.S. government, he pardoned all the insurrectionists and some of them are now actually working in the Trump government. Indeed, some are now part of the roving bands of masked thugs, the American gestapo, fielded by Trump’s lawless Department of Homeland Security, an agency that has not only violated the rights of countless thousands but one that has regularly failed to comply with court orders to act within the law.

There is some comfort that many of Trump’s efforts to use the Department of Justice to prosecute his opponents—from James Comey to Letitia James to the six members of Congress who committed the unspeakable “crime” of urging service members to adhere to their oaths of office and the law—have been quashed in the courts. But there is absolutely no sense that such cases will not be brought again in the future, costing the targets immensely in terms of reputation and money, regardless of their final outcomes.

This disaster for America, this blight on our reputation, this failure of our institutions, this danger to our society, has many authors. Trump, of course, tops the list. His top aides from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Stephen Miller to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem to Tom Homan are all involved in what has to be seen as an assault on our system that, while an extension of what happened on January 6, 2021 is even graver. Members of Congress including the Speaker of the House are actively involved. The manifold prosecutors who failed to act on the Epstein evidence and helped insure the impunity of the billionaires and other elites involved are also at fault. And of course, profound blame goes to America’s worst chief justice, John Roberts, who with his right wing colleagues have placed Trump and all future presidents above the law.

On the pediment of the U.S. Supreme Court it reads “Equal Justice Under Law.” That may be true in some parts of the world. Here in America, we know that’s a lie.

5 takeaways from the arrest of Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor

Niall Stanage
Thu, February 19, 2026

THE HILL

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew, was arrested by British police Thursday morning local time, in an investigation focused on his links with Jeffrey Epstein.

The former prince was released after about 12 hours. No charges were pressed for now, but a police statement said he remained “under investigation.”

Mountbatten-Windsor has always been among the most famous of Epstein’s associates.

The late Virginia Giuffre alleged that she had been trafficked and forced into sex with then-Prince Andrew on three occasions, including when she was 17. Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied this. He settled a civil lawsuit Giuffre brought against him in 2022.

The arrest Thursday was not in relation to any alleged sexual matters, but instead focused on suspicions that Mountbatten-Windsor had disclosed sensitive information to Epstein, apparently while he was serving as a trade envoy for the U.K.

President Trump told reporters on board Air Force One on Thursday that the arrest of Mountbatten-Windsor was “a shame” and “a very sad thing.”

Here are the main takeaways.

The arrest was a historic moment

Until police came calling for Mountbatten-Windsor, no British royal had been arrested in almost 400 years.

It will be cold comfort to the former prince that he is not at risk of suffering the same fate as King Charles I, who was arrested during the English Civil War. Charles was arrested in 1647, convicted of treason, and beheaded in 1649.

Still, it is a seismic moment for any modern-day royal to be arrested.

To be sure, cultural deference to the monarchy has been on the decline for decades, driven in part by personal drama, lurid media coverage, and some landmark moments — including the popular perception that the royal family was overly cold in its response to the death of Princess Diana almost 30 years ago.

Still, the prospect of a man who remains eighth-in-line to the British throne potentially facing criminal charges is of a different order of magnitude.

King Charles III released a statement reacting to his younger brother’s arrest in which he said he had learnt about it “with the deepest concern.”

The monarch added that the authorities “have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation” and continued, “Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.”

But there could yet be more troubles ahead for the royals, especially if information suggesting they tried to protect Mountbatten-Windsor were to emerge.

It has been reported that the family, including the late Queen Elizabeth II, helped finance Mountbatten-Windsor’s settlement with Giuffre, for example.
Democrats sharpen questions about lack of US accountability

The arrest of such a high-profile figure drew questions about whether adequate scrutiny had also been applied to figures in the United States with a connection to Epstein.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.) put that case especially sharply when she wrote on social media, “If a Prince can be held accountable, so can a President.”

Trump last year resisted a full release of the Epstein files until it became clear congressional pressure would force his hand.

Trump also often notes that he cut off a previous friendship with the disgraced financier roughly two decades ago. The president has always vigorously denied any wrongdoing or specific knowledge of Epstein’s crimes.

The latest batch of the Epstein files, however, did include a reference to a 2019 FBI interview with a former Palm Beach, Fla., police chief who apparently said Trump had called him in 2006 to thank him for investigating Epstein, adding “everyone has known he’s been doing this.”

The new files also include lurid and uncorroborated accusations against Trump.

During his Thursday remarks on Air Force One, Trump claimed of the Epstein matter generally, “I’m the expert in a way because I’ve been totally exonerated. That’s very nice.”

The issue isn’t just Trump, however.

The latest files forced Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to acknowledge he and his family visited Epstein on his island in 2012. Lutnick had previously indicated he had cut ties with Epstein in 2005.

Lutnick has not endured any real pressure to surrender his government role.
The list of foreign figures to suffer Epstein consequences grows

The Epstein matter has had more far-reaching consequences, so far, in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has come under serious pressure because of his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the U.S. in late 2024, even though it was known Mandelson had some past connection to Epstein.

Mandelson, a central figure in the ruling British Labour Party since the mid-1980s, was fired in September after new details of his friendship with the disgraced financier came to light.

There is no suggestion Mandelson was involved in, or aware of, Epstein’s sexual predations. But he faces investigation under the same law as Mountbatten-Windsor: alleged misconduct in public office. Mandelson, like Mountbatten-Windsor denies wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, a former prime minister of Norway, Thorbjørn Jagland, has been charged with corruption over his dealings with Epstein, an ambassador from the same nation resigned, and so too did the national security adviser to the prime minister of Slovakia.
Giuffre family claims vindication

Even though the current investigation is into Mountbatten-Windsor’s communications with Epstein, rather than anything of a sexual nature, Giuffre’s family claimed vindication from the arrest.

“Today our broken hearts have been lifted at the news that no one is above the law, not even royalty,” Giuffre’s siblings said in a statement shared with several news outlets. They also expressed “gratitude” to British police and added, “He was never a prince. For survivors everywhere, Virginia did this for you.”

Virginia Giuffre died by suicide last year, aged 41.

Even before Thursday’s arrest, Mountbatten-Windsor had faced fresh questions after the latest batch of Epstein files included photos that appear to show him kneeling over an unidentified woman.
New demands for Mountbatten-Windsor to testify to Congress

Demands that Mountbatten-Windsor testify to Congress have been sharpened by his arrest.

Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-Va.), who sits on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Sky News that Mountbatten-Windsor could testify from the U.K. if he wished. “He can testify remotely, he can testify in person — and in the U.K.,” the congressman said.

In a separate interview with the U.K.’s Channel Four, Subramanyam acknowledged the U.S. Congress had no subpoena power over a foreign national, but said of Mountbatten-Windsor, “We’ve been wanting him to come to us and tell us what he knows.”

On social media, the congressman wrote that it was the committee investigation that had “let to real accountability of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the UK. Now, we need that justice and accountability here in the United States.”

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

Former Prince Andrew was arrested. Bill Gates backed away from a speech. For these power players, the Epstein walls are closing in

Eva Roytburg
Thu, February 19, 2026 
FORTUNE

A photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is displayed as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Judiciary Committee, Feb. 11, 2026.

(Win McNamee—Getty Images)

Since the Justice Department released the latest tranche of Jeffrey Epstein’s emails, a number of political and business leaders have come under renewed scrutiny for maintaining contact with him long after his 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

From the arrest of a former royal to billionaires, diplomats, and academics stepping away from public roles, here are the most significant figures facing fallout.

Prince Andrew

British police on Thursday arrested the king’s younger brother, former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, on suspicion of “misconduct in public office.” Authorities said they carried out searches at properties in Berkshire and Norfolk, an escalation from what had previously been described as a review of claims arising from the latest tranche of Epstein-related documents released by the DOJ.

Andrew has long faced allegations tied to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, most notably from Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s most outspoken accusers, who died by suicide last April. In her posthumously published memoir, Giuffre alleged she was trafficked to have sex with Mountbatten-Windsor when she was 17. “He believed having sex with me was his birthright,” she wrote, recalling that afterward Ghislaine Maxwell allegedly told her, “You did well. The prince had fun.” Andrew has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and previously reached a civil settlement with Giuffre without admitting liability.

But the current arrest is not centered on those allegations. Instead, investigators are examining whether Mountbatten-Windsor improperly shared sensitive government material during his tenure as British trade envoy. Emails released by the U.S. Justice Department appear to show him forwarding confidential trip reports and investment briefs to Epstein soon after receiving them. King Charles has signaled that there will be no royal intervention, saying, “The law must take its course.”

Bill Gates

Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates abruptly withdrew from a keynote appearance at India’s high-profile AI Impact Summit just hours before he was set to speak, citing a desire to “ensure the focus remains” on the summit itself.

The latest DOJ tranche includes emails and communications showing that Gates met with Epstein multiple times between 2011 and 2014, several years after Epstein’s Florida conviction. The two discussed philanthropy, including a proposed fund that would have pooled money from Gates and other billionaires to support global health initiatives. That plan ultimately collapsed, and Gates has said he cut off contact after concluding Epstein’s ideas were a “dead end.”

The document release also includes a series of inflammatory claims—including allegations about Gates’ extramarital conduct with “married women” and drug use—that appear in emails Epstein sent to himself. Gates, through the Gates Foundation, has categorically denied those accusations, calling them “absolutely absurd and completely false.” No documents released to date allege that Gates was involved in Epstein’s criminal activity or had knowledge of sex trafficking.

Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson’s Epstein exposure, like the former Prince’s arrest, has triggered political fallout in Britain. The former British ambassador to the United States lost his diplomatic post, resigned from the Labour Party, and stepped down from the House of Lords after details of his buddy-buddy relationship with Epstein became clearer after the release of the files.

The DOJ tranche revealed that contact between the two continued for years after the financier’s 2008 prison term, with Mandelson referring to Epstein’s release as “liberation day.”

As with the former Prince Andrew, London’s Metropolitan Police have opened a criminal investigation into whether Mandelson improperly shared confidential government information with Epstein.

Larry Summers

Larry Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and Harvard president, stepped back from multiple public roles after the newly released emails showed he continued communicating with Epstein after the late financier faced sex trafficking charges, often asking him for advice on romantic relationships.

A 2019 email to Epstein showed Summers discussing interactions he had with a woman, writing: “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy.’ I said awfully coy u are.”

Epstein replied, “You reacted well … annoyed shows caring … no whining showed strength.”

Summers resigned from the board of OpenAI and took leave from Harvard while the university reviewed the ties. He also stepped down from positions at think tanks and saw his contract as a contributing writer at the New York Times end.
Kathryn Ruemmler

Kathryn Ruemmler stepped down as lead counsel of Goldman Sachs last week after the Epstein emails showed she shared nonpublic White House communications with the disgraced financier.

The emails indicate that Ruemmler, who served as White House counsel under President Barack Obama, forwarded Epstein internal material related to the administration’s handling of the 2012 Secret Service prostitution scandal, asking for his input in communicating with reporters. She wasn’t in government at the time, but was still managing the fallout.

Her spokesperson said she “has done nothing wrong” and emphasized that, knowing what she knows now, she would not have interacted with Epstein.
Joichi Ito

Joichi Ito’s resignation as director of MIT’s Media Lab served as an early template for the fallout that has since resurfaced across institutions. In 2019, Ito admitted to concealing financial ties to Epstein and stepped down amid backlash over how donations were handled and characterized.

He resigned from multiple boards and academic posts, setting an early standard for accountability in elite academic circles.

Thomas Pritzker

Thomas Pritzker announced on Feb. 16 that he would retire as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corp., acknowledging what he described as “terrible judgment” in maintaining ties to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

The latest Justice Department files detail years of cordial correspondence between Pritzker, Epstein, and Maxwell after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. In one message, Pritzker wrote to Epstein about a meeting at the Louvre.

Casey Wasserman

Casey Wasserman announced on Feb. 13 that he has begun the process of selling his talent agency after his name surfaced in the latest Epstein files, triggering defections from high-profile clients like singer Chappell Roan.

The Justice Department documents show that Wasserman flew on Epstein’s private jet at least once, alongside a group that included former President Bill Clinton. The files also contain flirtatious emails exchanged between Wasserman and Maxwell in 2003. In a memo to staff announcing the sale, Wasserman said he regretted that his correspondence with Maxwell had become “a distraction.”

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem was replaced as chairman and CEO of Dubai-based logistics giant DP World on Feb. 13 after emails between him and Epstein surfaced, showing a close relationship. DP World, owned by Dubai’s royal family, operates one of the world’s largest port and logistics networks, including Jebel Ali, the Middle East’s busiest port.

The newly released emails show Epstein describing bin Sulayem as a “close personal friend” in a 2010 message, and that they often talked about women.

The Trump team downplayed the Epstein files. Andrew’s arrest and other probes show how rash that was.

Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN
Thu, February 19, 2026 at 11:38 AM MST



President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House on February 13, 2026. - Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg/Getty Images


In mid-2025, when the Trump administration suddenly felt compelled to downplay the Jeffrey Epstein files, officials said they didn’t have enough evidence to prompt any additional investigations of third parties.

The memo didn’t just say there wasn’t evidence to charge anyone else, mind you; it said there wasn’t even evidence to investigate “uncharged third parties.”

That broad assertion in an unsigned FBI memo has proved to be a rather rash conclusion — most recently and emphatically by Thursday’s arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew, in the UK.

While we only know at this stage that Andrew was arrested on suspicion of “misconduct in public office,” the Thames Valley Police previously said they were looking at claims that Andrew shared sensitive information with Epstein while serving as the UK’s trade envoy in the early 2000s. Andrew has denied all allegations of misconduct related to Epstein, and his name appearing in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.

And there’s more than just Andrew’s arrest on the international stage. The Epstein files that the administration were ultimately forced to release have proven to be of great interest in Europe, where we’ve seen a criminal charge against another high-profile figure and investigations in at least three other countries besides the UK.

Norway’s former prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland was charged last week with “aggravated corruption” after investigators said they were probing “whether gifts, travel and loans were received in connection with his position.” Jagland has denied “all charges.”

UK police have also searched two properties linked to former ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, amid accusations of Mandelson sharing market-sensitive government information with Epstein while he was business secretary of the UK.

Norwegian police are also investigating a prominent diplomat.

Prosecutors in Paris opened two new investigations into potential sex abuse and financial wrongdoing related to Epstein on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

Latvia has also opened a human trafficking investigation linked to the files’ release.

A police officer passes the gate of the Royal Lodge in Windsor, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026 after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested by British police on suspicion of misconduct in public office. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali) - Alberto Pezzali/APMore

We have yet to see where these investigations lead. The laws in European countries are also different than in the United States. And in some cases, the investigation is not necessarily linked to sexual misconduct — allegations that can be notoriously difficult to prove.

But it’s become clear that authorities in other countries see plenty of potential misconduct unearthed by the files in a way American authorities initially claimed they didn’t, and it’s leading to a reckoning across the pond.

It’s also worth noting that the FBI memo’s assurance has wobbled even domestically.

Despite the assurance that nothing warranted further investigation, Attorney General Pam Bondi nonetheless announced in November that the Justice Department would investigate Epstein’s relationships with prominent Democrats like Bill Clinton. The announcement came after Trump called for such probes. Bill Clinton has repeatedly denied wrongdoing related to Epstein.

Fast forward to last week, when Bondi signaled during testimony to the House Judiciary Committee that more investigations were happening.

Asked “whether another individual will be indicted and prosecuted,” Bondi replied: “We have pending investigations in our office.”

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on February 11, 2026 in Washington, D.C. Bondi is facing criticism over the Department of Justice's handling of the release of the Epstein files. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images) - Samuel Corum/Sipa USA/APMore

Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, seemed to throw some cold water on Bondi’s comments Wednesday, suggesting there were no active investigations. But Bondi has now said there were Epstein-related investigations twice since the FBI assured the public that there was no evidence to warrant them.



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Those assurances went beyond the memo, too. In testimony to the House in September, FBI Director Kash Patel said DOJ had released “all credible information.”

Patel added that there were “no investigative leads that were credible to prosecute and investigate any others.” And he suggested the Obama and Biden administrations had agreed with that assessment.

It’s fair to point out that Bondi and Patel are only responsible for enforcing domestic law, and that could have been what the FBI statement was referencing.

Still, Bondi’s confirmations of further domestic investigations are awkward in that context. She’s also repeatedly said things about the Epstein files that seemed convenient in the moment, regardless of how true they were. (Think: supposedly having the Epstein client list on her desk.) There is little evidence of robust investigations involving Bill Clinton or anyone else.

At the very least, the developments of the past few weeks betray the very different views on Epstein accountability between the US and Europe. Prosecutors in the UK and Norway especially seem to feel compelled to hold the powerful accountable, while the Trump administration’s animating principle since the middle of 2025 has been “time to move on” — a view most bluntly conveyed by the president himself, who keeps calling the Epstein files a “hoax.”

The problem with that latter approach is that, in your haste to assure there’s nothing to see here, you can miss something quite substantial. And when you’re forced to release the files you tried so hard not to release, that evidence can undermine your hard-and-fast claims about what it said.

That breeds distrust regarding any future assertions you make about the files — a persistent problem the Trump administration hasn’t been able to shake.

Bill Gates pulls out of India's AI summit over Epstein files controversy

Cherylann Mollan; 

Liv McMahon - technology reporter BBC

Fri, February 20, 2026

Gates is currently in India and there was speculation over whether he would attend the summit amid a renewed scrutiny of his ties to Epstein [Getty Images]

Bill Gates will not deliver his keynote address at the India AI Impact Summit in Delhi, his philanthropic organisation said hours before the Microsoft co-founder was due to speak.

The Gates Foundation said the decision was made after "careful consideration" and "to ensure the focus remains on the [summit's] key priorities", but did not elaborate.

Gates's withdrawal comes amid a controversy over his ties to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after he was named in new files released by the US Department of Justice in January.

Gates's spokesperson has called the claims in the files "absolutely absurd and completely false", and the billionaire has said he regretted spending time with Epstein.

Gates has not been accused of wrongdoing by any of Epstein's victims and the appearance of his name in the files does not imply criminal activity of any kind.

The Gates Foundation said Ankur Vora, president of its Africa and India offices, would speak at the summit instead of Gates.

The organisation added that it remained "fully committed" to its work in India to advance "shared health and development goals".

Gates's decision to not speak to the summit came after days of uncertainty over whether he would attend.

He is currently in India and had visited the southern state of Andhra Pradesh on Monday, where he reportedly discussed initiatives for boosting health, agriculture, education and technology.

After media reports speculated he would pull out of the summit, his foundation said on Tuesday he would deliver the address as scheduled.

Gates's withdrawal is a blow for the summit, which India has pitched as a flagship gathering to position the country as a global AI hub.

The five-day summit features policy discussions, start-up showcases and closed-door meetings on AI governance, infrastructure and innovation.

The event has also seen investment pledges by companies, including Microsoft, to expand AI access and infrastructure in countries such as India.

Delegates from more than 100 countries, including several world leaders, are attending the event.

But it has already been marked by some controversies over mismanagement on the first day and an Indian university's claims to have developed a robot dog - which turned out to be made in China.

AI democratisation calls

Though Gates is not attending, other big names are appearing at the Summit.

OpenAI boss Altman said in a speech the world should "urgently" look to regulate AI.

"Democratisation of AI is the best way to ensure humanity flourishes," he said, adding that centralising the tech in one company or country "could lead to ruin".

"This is not to suggest that we won't need any regulation or safeguards," Altman added.

"We obviously do, urgently, like we have for other powerful technologies."

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron made similar calls for AI's democratisation and for a shared approach to innovation.

Modi and Macron are among many world leaders and tech executives speaking at India's AI Impact Summit [Reuters]

Addressing the Summit, Modi said there was a need to share technology "so that humans don't just become a data point for AI or remain a raw material for AI".

"AI must become a medium for inclusion and empowerment, particularly for the Global South," he said.

Macron, who earlier held bilateral talks with Modi, said there was a need to change the discussion around AI from "let's do more" to "let's do better together".

This theme was addressed by other speakers as well, including UN chief Antonio Guterres - who stressed the future of AI should not be "decided by a handful of countries" or left to the "whims of a few billionaires".

Google's chief executive Sundai Pichai underscored India's growing role in the AI landscape.

He said his firm was working on establishing an AI hub in the southern city of Vishakhapatnam, which he said would help bring jobs and cutting-edge AI to Indians.

Billionaire Mukesh Ambani meanwhile pledged to invest $110bn (£81.4bn) over the next seven years to build India's AI ecosystem, while Anthropic boss Amodei said it would like to work with India on "testing and evaluation of models for safety and security risks".

BBC News India 

Bill Gates is shrinking his $132 million Xanadu compound amid sudden public withdrawal and Epstein revelations

Nick Lichtenberg
Thu, February 19, 2026 at 9:40 AM MST


Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist Bill Gates at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Jan. 21, 2026.(Fabrice COFFRINI—AFP/Getty Images)

Bill Gates is trimming his real estate footprint around his famed Xanadu 2.0 estate outside Seattle, as renewed scrutiny of his past ties to Jeffrey Epstein coincides with a quieter public profile and a rare no‑show at a major AI summit.

Property records show Gates has listed for sale a $4.8 million four‑bedroom home in Medina, Wash., that sits directly beside his primary 66,000‑square‑foot Xanadu 2.0 mansion on Lake Washington. The 2,800‑square‑foot house, purchased for about $1 million in 1995 via an LLC shortly after his marriage to Melinda French Gates, is one of several smaller properties that form a privacy buffer around the main estate. Over three decades, Gates has amassed much of the wooded hillside, turning the area into a heavily fortified enclave anchored by a residence last appraised at roughly $132 million in 2025.

Gates bought the Xanadu land in 1988 for around $2 million and poured about $63 million into a seven‑year build that produced one of the world’s most recognizable tech mogul compounds, complete with multiple garages, a trampoline room, an indoor pool, a private theater, and extensive digital displays. French Gates told Fortune in 2008 the project was “a bachelor’s dream and a bride’s nightmare” and considered not moving in, underscoring how closely the property has been associated with Gates’ personal tastes and outsize ambitions.

A reversal on downsizing

The listing marks a notable shift from Gates’ own insistence just a year ago that he had no intention of shrinking his residential footprint. In 2025, he told the London Times that, unlike his siblings, he could not imagine downsizing from the “gigantic” Seattle home, saying he liked the houses he owned and that his children still enjoyed coming back. Real estate analysts now see the sale as a modest first step in unwinding the layers of property that protect Xanadu 2.0, more pruning of the hedges than a wholesale exit from Medina, but striking given how central the compound has been to his image.

Gates also controls an $18 million equestrian ranch in Rancho Santa Fe and a golf retreat in Indian Wells. A representative for Gates told Fortune that Gates does not own property in Del Mar, Calif., or Wellington, Fla., as previously reported. The decision to sell one of the Medina buffer homes therefore barely dents his balance sheet, but it does signal a new willingness to unspool parts of an empire he once described as nonnegotiable.
Epstein files and a potential retreat

The real estate move comes as millions of pages of investigative files related to Epstein have reignited questions about Gates’ past meetings with the disgraced financier.

Gates has acknowledged meeting Epstein several times between 2011 and 2013, saying he was seeking funding for global health initiatives and later calling those meetings a “serious error in judgment” that he regrets “every minute.”

French Gates has publicly said his association with Epstein was one factor in their 2021 divorce and described Epstein as “abhorrent” and “evil personified” after meeting him once. The latest document release has pushed those past interactions back into the spotlight, just as Gates appears to be stepping away from highly visible stages.

On Thursday, the Gates Foundation confirmed Gates would no longer deliver the keynote address at the high‑profile India AI Impact Summit, a reversal framed as an effort to keep the focus on the event’s agenda but widely read as a response to the renewed Epstein furor. A senior foundation official will appear in his place, as spokespeople reiterate that the new files show Epstein’s attempts to leverage Gates’ name rather than evidence of wrongdoing by the billionaire.

For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. This report has been updated with a statement from a representative for Gates that he does not own property in Del Mar, Calif., or Wellington, Fla.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com