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    Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, evacuated from school after bomb threat

    Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, evacuated from school after bomb threatSecond gentleman was at Dunbar high school in DC for Black History Month event when he was escorted out Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice-President Kamala Harris, was whisked out of an event Tuesday at a Washington high school by Secret Service agents following an apparent bomb threat.Emhoff was at Dunbar high school for an event in commemoration of Black History Month. He was in the school’s museum for about five minutes before a member of his security detail approached him saying, “We have to go.” Emhoff was removed from the building into his waiting motorcade.Students and educators at the school were instructed to leave the school, with an announcement saying, “Evacuate the building.”District of Columbia public schools spokesman Enrique Gutierrez said there was a bomb threat. It was not known if it was related to Emhoff’s visit or the Black History Month event.Emhoff spokesperson Katie Peters said the school alerted the Secret Service about what she termed a “security incident or a report of a potential security incident”.“US Secret Service was made aware of a security threat at a school where the Second Gentleman was meeting with students and faculty,” Peters added in a later tweet. “Mr Emhoff is safe and the school has been evacuated. We are grateful to Secret Service and DC Police for their work.”The Secret Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Students at the school were dismissed for the day, since it was expected to take several hours for security officials to sweep the building, principal Nadine Smith said.TopicsWashington DCBlack History MonthKamala HarrisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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    Fight to vote: the woman who was key in 'getting us the Voting Rights Act'

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    Happy Thursday,
    During the final week of Black History Month, I wanted to continue to look at the people who helped shape the Voting Rights Act, the powerful 1965 law that offered unprecedented protection for voting rights in America. As the country faces another surge of efforts to make it harder to vote, it’s a reminder of how hard Black Americans had to fight to gain and protect the rights to vote that are in place now.
    Last week, I wrote about Bloody Sunday, the March 1965 protest that led directly to the Voting Rights Act. The heroes of that march – people like John Lewis, Hosea Williams and Martin Luther King Jr – have become lions of American history. But until recently, one of the most overlooked people in the march was Amelia Boynton (later Amelia Boynton Robinson), who had been organizing in Selma for years before Bloody Sunday and was the one who called in King to bring national attention to the voter suppression in the now historic city.
    “She got us the Voting Rights Act,” said Carol Anderson, a historian at Emory University.
    “It’s one of the ‘failings’, and I’ll put that in quotes, of the writings of the civil rights movement, is that women who are key in organizing are written out,” she added. “The grassroots work of Mrs Boynton just didn’t get the kind of respect and honor that it deserved.”
    By the time Lewis, King and others arrived in Selma, Boynton was already one of the most well-known and respected people in its Black community. She came to the city in 1929 when she got a job with the US Department of Agriculture, traveling around the state to show African Americans how to improve their farming, but also talking to them about voting. She and her then husband, Samuel Boynton, held meetings in homes and churches, showing people how to register to vote as they faced literacy tests and poll taxes, Jim Crow era obstacles that prevented Black people from registering to vote. More