AARON MORRISON

Race and ethnicity news editor

Morrison runs the Associated Press team covering race and ethnicity in the U.S. and around the world. He previously was a national writer on the AP’s race and ethnicity news team.

A man carries a Black Lives Matter flag in Lafayette Square outside the White House on the fourth night of the Republican National Convention, Aug. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

Justice Department investigating fraud allegations in Black Lives Matter movement, AP sources say

The Justice Department is investigating whether leaders in the Black Lives Matter movement defrauded donors who contributed millions of dollars during racial justice protests in 2020.

Local GOP official’s social media post draws backlash in Kentucky for its depiction of the Obamas

A local Republican leader in Kentucky has drawn a strong backlash after sharing a social media video depicting former President Barack Obama and his wife as apes.

Community members hold candles as they gather for a vigil honoring the life of Iryna Zarutska, who was fatally stabbed on a commuter train last month, Monday, Sept. 22, 2025, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Nell Redmond)

A train stabbing in North Carolina becomes fuel for old racial tropes in politics and media

After a Ukrainian woman who fled war in her homeland was stabbed to death on a commuter train in North Carolina, the alarming act of violence has ignited bitter racial and political rhetoric about crime victims and perpetrators in America.

The Rev. Jacqui Lewis, senior pastor at Middle Collegiate Church, speaks during an interfaith gathering outside of the Judson Memorial Church near Washington Square Park in New York, Nov. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Emily Leshner, File)

Black church leaders reject Charlie Kirk martyrdom and point to his race rhetoric

A debate has been sparked among Black pastors who are trying to square a heroic view of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative activist who was gunned down in Utah this month, with the insulting statements about people of color that were key to his political activism.

Artist Patrisse Cullors poses for a portrait at her studio, March 24, 2023, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, file)

BLM co-founder debuts homeless youth documentary as Trump sweeps encampments in DC

Artist and author Patrisse Cullors has written a love letter to a younger version of herself who knew what it was like to be homeless.

The north wing of the Nottoway Plantation starts to collapse as crews battle the fire on Thursday, May 15, 2025 in White Castle, La. (Michael Johnson /The Advocate via AP)

Video of the Nottoway Plantation fire sparks jubilation. It’s about anger and pain over slavery, too

A fire that engulfed a mansion at Louisiana’s Nottoway Plantation, destroying one of the largest remaining pre-Civil War houses in the Deep South where scores of enslaved Africans labored, has sparked mass jubilation and consternation.

This March 29, 2019 photo provided by the New Market Fire and Rescue Team shows a fire at the main offices of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tenn. (Sammy Solomon/New Market Fire and Rescue Team via AP)

Feds charge alleged white supremacist over 2019 arson at Tennessee school that trained Rosa Parks

A suspect whom authorities have linked to white supremacist movements has been arrested in the March 2019 fire that destroyed an office at a storied Tennessee social justice center.

People wait in line to enter the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Cultural on the National Mall in Washington, Mat 1, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

What is the Smithsonian, and why is President Trump unhappy with it?

The Smithsonian, which oversees numerous museums and cultural centers, including the Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, is coming under criticism from President Donald Trump.

Democratic Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks cheers during an election night watch party Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024, in College Park, Md. (AP Photo/Jess Rapfogel)

Black women notch historic Senate wins in an election year defined by potential firsts

For the first time ever, two Black women have been elected to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Senate.

Faith leaders and other supporters pray over New York City Mayor Eric Adams, center, during a rally and prayer vigil on the steps of City Hall in New York, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

How Black leaders in New York are grappling with Eric Adams and representation

The indictment of New York City mayor Eric Adams on federal bribery charges has sparked debates among Black leaders and community advocates about whether to stand behind a figure who, for many, represents a milestone of Black representation in government.

Organizers with the National Action Network put up banners for a Get Out the Vote event as the prepare to depart on a bus tour toward Philadelphia in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on Friday, Sep. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Noreen Nasir)

Sharpton and Central Park Five members get out the vote in battleground Pennsylvania

With less than 40 days until Election Day, the Rev. Al Sharpton’s choice of a battleground state for a get-out-the-vote bus tour made sense.

Reflected in a mirror, people watch the presidential debate between Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, at the Gipsy Las Vegas in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Harris addresses Trump’s false claims about her race and his history of racial division

Kamala Harris has addressed false claims by former President Donald Trump about her racial identity, calling his remarks about race a “tragedy” for someone seeking the office of the presidency.

Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) holds his hands behind his back as if he is handcuffed as Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (17) unlocks them after Hill scores against the Jacksonville Jaguars in the second half during an NFL football game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald via AP)

Tyreek Hill’s traffic stop revives discussion about the realities faced by Black drivers

After his traffic stop in Miami, Tyreek Hill talked about “the talk.” That is, the instructions passed down in Black families for generations about what to do when pulled over by police.

Tomas Machac, of the Czech Republic, returns a shot to Sebastian Korda, of the United States during the second round of the U.S. Open tennis championships, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

Civil rights lawyer Ben Crump advertises his firm on patches worn by US Open tennis players

Prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump is advertising on players’ outfits at the U.S. Open Grand Slam tennis tournament this week by placing his firm’s name on sponsor patches worn during matches.

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, center, hugs her grand-niece Amara Ajagu surrounded by family during the Democratic National Convention Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Kamala Harris’ racial and cultural firsts were onstage throughout the Democratic convention

On the night she became the first woman of Black and South Asian heritage to be a major party’s nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris didn’t explicitly mention the racial and gender firsts she would set if elected to the White House.

FILE - Marcelle Stewart, left, confronts police officers during a march and rally in downtown Ferguson, Mo., Monday, Aug. 11, 2014. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings, File)

Michael Brown’s death transformed a nation and sparked a decade of American reckoning on race

Michael Brown has been dead for a decade. The Black teenager’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted an eruption of protests in the suburban city and gave a boost to a then-nascent Black Lives Matter movement.

FILE - San Francisco district attorney candidate Kamala Harris, left, serves meals while volunteering in San Francisco, Nov. 27, 2003. Vice President Harris and other politicians of color have often had to code-switch, or purposely adjust one's speech style and express to optimize relatability and ensure their message had cultural resonance. To imply, as former President Donald Trump did Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, that Harris and others are inauthentic for doing so speaks to a belief that whiteness is still the default in politics and democracy. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Analysis: Donald Trump questioning Kamala Harris’ race shows he doesn’t understand code-switching

Kamala Harris and other politicians of color have often had to code-switch, or purposely adjust their speech style and expression to optimize relatability and ensure their message had cultural resonance.

Pulitzer Prize-winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis, right, and Bryan Stevenson, a trained pianist and and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, right, pose for a photograph, Thursday, June 13, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Andres Kudacki)

Jazz, justice and Juneteenth: Wynton Marsalis and Bryan Stevenson join forces to honor Black protest

Civil rights lawyer and jazz pianist Bryan Stevenson and Pulitzer-winning jazz artist Wynton Marsalis are debuting a new live performance album of historic jazz records created in time for Juneteenth to protest racial injustice.

Former President Donald Trump walks to make comments to members of the media after a jury convicted him of felony crimes for falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election, at Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, Pool)

Black leaders call out Trump’s criminal justice contradictions as he rails against guilty verdict

Donald Trump lambasted the guilty verdict of his hush money trial this week from the same Manhattan courthouse that was the site of one of the most notorious examples of injustice in recent New York history that he had a part in.

CORRECTS SERVICE BRANCH TO U.S. AIR FORCE INSTEAD OF U.S. NAVY - Chantemekki Fortson, mother of Roger Fortson, a U.S. Air Force senior airman, holds a photo of her son during a news conference regarding his death, along with family and attorney Ben Crump, Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. Fortson was shot and killed by police in his apartment, May 3, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Who gets to claim self-defense in shootings? Airman’s death sparks debate over race and gun rights

The death of Senior Airman Roger Fortson in Florida this month reignited a complicated debate about race, gun laws and self-defense – namely, who is typically afforded deference when it comes to using guns in self-defense and who is not.

President Joe Biden speaks to the National Action Network Convention remotely from the South Court Auditorium of the White House, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Biden tells racial justice meeting, ‘We’ve kept our promises,’ as he looks to energize Black voters

President Joe Biden has virtually addressed the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference, telling a sympathetic crowd “we’ve kept our promises” as he ramps up efforts to energize Black voters who will be vital to his reelection bid this fall.

FILE - In this Oct. 3, 1995 file photo, attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. holds O.J. Simpson as the not guilty verdict is read in a Los Angeles courtroom during his trial in Los Angeles. Defense attorneys F. Lee Bailey, left, Robert Kardashian look on. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76. (Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Daily News via AP, Pool, File)

In death, 3 decades after his trial verdict, O.J. Simpson still reflects America’s racial divides

For many people old enough to remember O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, his 1994 exoneration was a defining moment in their understanding of race, policing and justice.

FILE - President Joe Biden, left, and the Rev. Al Sharpton attend a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Aug. 28, 2023. Organizers of Sharpton's annual National Action Network Convention announced Thursday, April 11, 2024, that Biden will give a live virtual keynote address to a racial justice conference in New York City on Friday. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Biden will give a live virtual address at Sharpton’s annual civil rights conference

President Joe Biden is expected to give a live virtual keynote address to the Rev. Al Sharpton’s racial justice conference in New York.

Protesters raise their hands as they face police officers during a rally in Paterson, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in reaction to the death of Jameek Lowery. Lowery, 27, who recorded a frantic video at police headquarters, wound up unresponsive after being taken to a hospital in an ambulance with police officers inside. He died two days later. (Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record via AP)

Takeaways: AP investigation reveals Black people bear disproportionate impact of police force

The Associated Press found that Black people make up a disproportionate number of those who died after being restrained, beaten or shocked with stun guns by police officers over a decade.

Protesters raise their hands as they face police officers during a rally in Paterson, N.J., Tuesday, Jan. 8, 2019, in reaction to the death of Jameek Lowery. Lowery, 27, who recorded a frantic video at police headquarters, wound up unresponsive after being taken to a hospital in an ambulance with police officers inside. He died two days later. (Danielle Parhizkaran/The Record via AP)

He didn’t trust police but sought their help anyway. Two days later, he was dead

Records show Jameek Lowery, a 27-year-old Black man from Paterson, New Jersey, died two days after he was restrained and repeatedly punched by officers.

FILE - Demonstrators from a nearby pro-Palestinian rally join a protest in New York on Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2014 against the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

Black American solidarity with Palestinians is rising and testing longstanding ties to Jewish allies

A growing number of Black Americans see the struggle of Palestinians reflected in their own struggles for racial equality and civil rights.

Anthony Day, wearing a hoodie commemorating Korryn Gaines, attends a welcome dinner for the annual Families United 4 Justice Network Conference, hosted by the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation at its mansion in the Studio City neighborhood of Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 28, 2023. Gaines was fatally shot by a Baltimore County police officer in 2016. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

$6M Black Lives Matter house welcomes families into space of freedom and healing

A national Black Lives Matter nonprofit that was widely criticized for purchasing a sprawling California mansion with donated funds recently opened the property to dozens of families who lost loved ones in incidents of police violence.

FILE - Tulsa Race Massacre survivors Hughes Van Ellis, left, and Lessie Benningfield Randle ride in a carriage at a remembrance walk during centennial commemorations of the Tulsa Race Massacre, May 28, 2021, in Tulsa, Okla. Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” died on Monday, Oct. 9, 2023. He was 102. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Hughes Van Ellis, youngest known survivor of Tulsa Race Massacre, dies at 102

Hughes Van Ellis, who was the youngest known survivor of the Tulsa Race Massacre and who spent his latter years pursuing justice for his family and other descendants of the attack on “Black Wall Street,” has died.

B-Boy Nebz competes during the Breaking for Gold Big Apple breakdancing regional competition Saturday, April 22, 2023, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The hip-hop dance form makes its official debut at the Paris Games in 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

US breaking pros want to preserve Black roots, original style of hip-hop dance form at Olympics

U.S. breaking pros who hope to compete in the Paris Olympics next year have a challenge. As ambassadors to the country where the hip-hop dance form originated, they want to preserve breaking’s focus on originality and its ties to Black and Latino culture.

Rev. Al Sharpton addresses the audience as he gives the Eulogy during the memorial service for Dollar General shooting victim Angela Carr, as Bishop Rudolph McKissick, Jr., back, and his wife Pastor Kimberly McKissick, listen during a memorial service at The Bethel Baptist Church, Friday, Sept. 8, 2023, in Jacksonville, Fla. Uber driver Carr was one of three people killed in the racially motivated shooting. (Bob Self/The Florida Times-Union via AP)

As Jacksonville shooting victims are eulogized, advocates call attention to anti-Black hate crimes

The motivations of a shooter who recently targeted and killed Black people in Jacksonville, Florida, have revived concerns about the threat of hate violence and domestic terrorism.