For generations, Carroll High School has stood as a beacon of achievement, resilience, and pride, but something troubling is happening. Founded on an unwavering standard of excellence by former enslaved individuals who recognized education as the ultimate catalyst for progress,…
By Garry Blanson Recently, I learned that several U.S. states are being sued by private prisons, “because the states have failed to maintain the percentage of prisoners agreed upon in the prison contracts.” After watching a short video about the…
By Garry Blanson Not so long ago, “in most Black communities, in Monroe, Louisiana,” it was the Black churches that served as the main headquarters for voting education, citizenship classes, and voter registration drives within our Black neighborhoods. Regretfully, for…
When the Monroe City Council adjourned abruptly on Tuesday, September 22, 2026, without addressing a single agenda item, municipal governance hit a dangerous brick wall. While the resulting stalemate freezes vital city business, the responsibility for breaking this deadlock ultimately…
For nearly half a century, Louisiana Revised Statute 51:224 has sat quietly on the books. Enacted in 1979 to govern the commercial use of school logos, it remained unused for good reason: enforcing it at the high school level causes…
By Garry Blanson The White Louisiana Bourbon Democrats, the 1898 Louisiana State Constitution, and the Voting Disenfranchisement of Colored Citizens in Louisiana “History is being repeated before our very eyes, and the saddest thing about it is that most of…
When news broke that the local Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation’s annual banquet would be displaced from its home of over a quarter-century at the Monroe Civic Center, concern was understandable. The B.D. Robinson Conference Hall holds decades of history and…
