The late-night host detailed how the Florida liberal arts college became a testing ground for a rightwing agenda

John Oliver dedicated Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight to examining how Florida’s New College has been taken over by the conservative state governor, Ron DeSantis, and his allies.

New College used to promote itself with videos that emphasized its inclusive community and unique academic program – a rarity for a US state college.

Marvin Dunn moves with surprising agility among the beds of lettuce, cabbage, and potatoes on his community farm in Overtown, a historic Black neighborhood in Miami that was fractured by the construction of the interstate highway in the 1960s. The farm, squeezed between I-95 and the high-rises packed into nearby downtown, is a kind of oasis where the 85-year-old historian — one of the most recognized voices on the history of segregation in Florida — hosts talks, distributes banned books, and is now preparing a new legal battle to stop construction of Donald Trump’s presidential library a little over 1,000 meters away.

Seguir leyendo

The redrawing of electoral districts, or gerrymandering, in the United States is reaching unprecedented levels. After the Supreme Court’s late-April ruling changed electoral rules and curtailed minority rights, Republicans have stepped up efforts to dismantle majority-Black districts, especially in the South, though the strategy extends to states beyond that region.

Seguir leyendo