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Martin Luther King

September

Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at North Carolina Aviation Museum.

Trump’s ‘black Nazi’ porn scandal is a stunning gift for Democrats

The former president is now stuck with an embattled candidate in the critical swing state of North Carolina, in a race that previously looked extremely close.

  • Tony Diver
Law enforcement officers arrest Ryan Routh, the man suspected in the apparent assassination attempt.

Why violence against Trump is the new normal

The latest assassination attempt against the former president shows how much the US political landscape has been shaped by anger stirred by him and against him.

  • Peter Baker

July

Assassinations have made even democracies into darker places.

How toxic talk turns too easily to assassin’s bullets

A more centrist political culture doesn’t make Australia immune to the language that has inflamed American politics in recent times.

  • Georgina Downer
The Republican National Convention opens this week with Donald Trump as its star.

Trump’s survival will turbocharge the Republican convention

The former president’s narrow escape from death is giving new life to his campaign, and Joe Biden’s address calling for unity won’t fix the extreme division in America.

  • Jennifer Hewett
Donald Trump is helped off the stage after an apparent attempt on his life.

Is America entering another age of political violence?

Let’s hope that the voices of American moderation, who have been cowed by extremes on both sides of the political spectrum, step back into the arena.

  • Peter Spiegel
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May

President Joe Biden, gets a hug from a supporter at Mary Mac’s Tea Room in Atlanta.

Biden’s Atlanta trip highlights duel with Trump for black voters

While overwhelming support from black voters was key to Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, there’s concern among his supporters that Donald Trump is making inroads.

  • Skylar Woodhouse, Nancy Cook and Akayla Gardner

April

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators outside the Stern School of Business at New York University on Sunday.

The ghost of the 1968 antiwar movement has returned

The sense in the Biden campaign that it can simply wait out the protests by Democratic voters is a reckless gamble.

  • Charles M. Blow

August 2023

Trump joins Bill Gates and Al Capone in famous mugshots gallery

Donald Trump surrendered to a courthouse in Atlanta, becoming the first former US president to join those with a police photograph.

  • Roland Oliphant

June 2023

The gateway to Harvard University has been open to some but less to others.

A great court victory for meritocracy

The US Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action has important lessons for the Voice debate in Australia.

  • Steven Schwartz

January 2023

Davos caption

Davos: a pointless elitist indulgence or inspirational agenda-setter?

The annual World Economic Forum meeting is about to get underway in Davos. European correspondent Hans van Leeuwen and special contributor Peter Holmes a Court go to head-to-head on whether the world should care.

  • Hans van Leeuwen and Peter Holmes à Court

June 2022

Demonstrators listen to speakers during a March For Our Lives rally near the Washington Monument.

‘Scared and tired’: thousands across the US rally against gun violence

With their signs and chants, they condemned the drumbeat of mass shootings and renewed a call for federal legislation to limit military-style weapons.

  • Michael Wines, Anne Barnard, Sean Keenan and Dave Montgomery

January 2021

Joe Biden starts the job of repairing America.

New President's success depends on lifting growth

President Biden's speech did not conceal the difficulties facing Americans. But he has no plan to drive the prosperity that will sideline Trumpist discontents.

  • The AFR View

Film MLK/FBI explores how FBI tracked Martin Luther King jnr for years

Extensive official monitoring of the black rights leader is revealed just when America is reeling from violence against black communities.

  • Rodney Ho

September 2020

David Rowe illustration
COVId big government 
Frydenberg Morrison

Australia must now become the plucky country

If 'the lucky country' is indeed a thing of the past, what does the future hold as we stumble through these tumultuous times?

  • Andrew Clark

June 2020

A protestor wearing a face mask to protect against coronavirus, takes part in a Black Lives Matter protest rally in Bristol, England.

Can Gen Z succeed where others failed?

An emerging consensus on the need to address racial injustice has allowed a movement to take hold at the unlikeliest of times.

  • Jeremy Cliffe
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Reverend Al Sharpton: "God took the rejected stone and made him the cornerstone of a movement that is going to change the whole wide world."

Floyd hailed as 'cornerstone of a movement' at funeral

Family members, clergy and politicians exhorted Americans to turn grief and outrage at his death into a moment of reckoning for the nation.

  • Updated
  • Jennifer Hiller and Gary McWilliams
Mourners react as they visit the casket of George Floyd in Houston

US protesters heartened by swift reform, but vow broader change

In the two weeks since George Floyd's killing, police departments have banned choke-holds, Confederate monuments have fallen and officers have been arrested and charged.

  • Updated
  • Juan Lozano and Nomaan Merchant
Demonstrators near the White House protest the death of George Floyd.

Massive day of rallies in Washington

More than 10,000 people poured into the nation's capital on the ninth day of protests over police brutality, but what awaited them was a city that no longer felt as if it was being occupied by its own country's military.

  • Samantha Schmidt, Jessica Contrera, Rebecca Tan and John Woodrow Cox
Protesters march on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York on Thursday as demonstrations continue following the death of George Floyd.

America has been here before but this time it is weak

The US has been rocked by the worst race riots since 1968. The main difference is that its great institutions were stronger back then.

  • Andrew Clark
Civil rights activist Reverend Al Sharpton speaks at a memorial service for George Floyd in Minneapolis.

'Get your knee off our necks': Floyd memorial demands historic change

The Reverend Al Sharpton called George Floyd's death emblematic of oppression black people have faced since America's founding and announced a new March on Washington.

  • Holly Bailey, Sheila Regan, Marisa Iati and Hannah Knowles

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/person/martin-luther-king-4a4