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When the Krewe of Zulu parade rolled out onto Jackson Avenue to kick off Mardi Gras festivities on Feb. 25, the party started for black New Orleans. Tens of thousands of people lined the four-and-a-half-mile route, reveling in the animated succession of jazz musicians, high-stepping marching bands from historically black colleges and universities and loose-limbed dancers dressed in Zulu costumes, complete with grass skirts and blackface makeup, an homage to the Zulu people of South Africa and, for some, a satirical spit in the eye to the past, when Mardi Gras was put on by clubs of white men who barred black people from taking part. (Villarosa, 4/29)

As Southern governors are reopening the region this week, black activists are joining with local and federal lawmakers to sound the alarm about what they see as a looming threat to the Black Belt. They say the mostly white, male Republicans — who were reluctant to close their states but are now eager to reopen — are effectively issuing a “death sentence” for millions of black Americans who have been disproportionately impacted both economically and medically by coronavirus. (Haines, 4/28)

Tanya Fields had textbook COVID-19 symptoms. She was lethargic, and experienced chills, body aches, fever and a dry cough. Rather than going to the hospital, she opted to recover in her three-bedroom South Bronx apartment with no real way to isolate from her six children. "Black folks don’t get treated well in hospitals and so if I can stay at home and get better, if I don't need a prescription from the hospital, why the hell am I going?," Fields, an activist, told ABC News. (Harper, 4/28)

With social distancing here to stay for the foreseeable future, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the next stage of the pandemic is going to change many lives for the worse. Specifically, it’s going to exasperate existing inequalities, as the privileged buffer themselves against its pernicious effects while the world’s most vulnerable struggle not to fall through the rapidly widening economic fissures. Take schools. Even as some countries reopen classrooms — some with limited attendance, or alternated timetables — there’s still uncertainty about how and when a generation of young people, from nursery age to postgraduate, will be able to get their education permanently back on track. (Cooper, 4/28)