Jamil Smith جميل كريم

Montgomery Square, the newest @eji_org Legacy Site, memorializes the Montgomery bus boycott and modern Civil Rights Movement. It is also a warning to all of us. I talked with Bryan Stevenson about memory, erasure, and what history demands for @GuardianUS. theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j…

@GuardianUS ICE has suspended vehicle stops nationwide while it reviews recent fatal shootings. That’s welcome, but it doesn’t solve the problem. My question remains: how can a government legitimately demand instant obedience while concealing its own identity? theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j…

A government confident in the legitimacy of its actions should never be afraid to show its face. How long will this nation let ICE hide theirs? My latest for @GuardianUS. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

We have another example, unfortunately. ICE killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, 26, in Maine. He also reportedly was not the man agents were seeking. The facts are still emerging, but the pattern is clear. And no, ending traffic stops isn’t the solution. (More on that in a bit.)

ICE was allowed to mistake Lorenzo for another man. He was expected to recognize ICE instantly. Only one side was permitted an error. Legitimate power makes itself recognizable when it recognizes the humanity of those over whom it has power. Trump’s government does the opposite.

But on July 7, ICE agents—in unmarked vehicles, wearing no body cameras—mistook him for someone else. Lorenzo’s son believes that when armed men in unmarked vehicles pursued him, his dad thought they were thieves after his work tools. How was he supposed to know, exactly?

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo spent 35 years in Houston. He built homes, raised three American sons, and gave the government his fingerprints while attempting to work legally. Still, his family had a plan if ICE ever came: sign nothing, stay calm, work through lawyers. He was prepared.

I open my new @GuardianUS column with the most intimate kind of recognition: a son knowing his father by voice. Ronaldo Salgado couldn’t identify Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by sight. He heard his cry for help. A government that demands obedience should be at least as recognizable.

Graham Platner should obviously drop out and I think he will drop out, but jesus christ, men -- if you've raped, abused, or otherwise badly mistreated women or anyone in the past, can you please just sit out running for office? Even if you believe you've changed, maybe work on a campaign or help someone you believe in, but perhaps one cost of your bad behavior is that you don't get to hold a position of extraordinary power.

This is precisely what I wrote about after I visited @eji_org’s Montgomery Square. The question isn't whether we'll interpret our history. What Trump is trying to change is who gets to interpret it — and what he and his allies need the country to forget. nytimes.com/2026/07/05/art…

Now that the Fourth’s #America250 pageantry is over with, it feels worth returning to what commemoration asks of us after the fireworks. I wrote for @GuardianUS about Bryan Stevenson, @eji_org’s new Montgomery Square, and the fight over American memory. theguardian.com/us-news/2026/j…

Credit to @ezraklein for knowing precisely the right person to speak with about America, particularly at this fraught moment in its history. Please make the time to watch and listen to this conversation with @eji_org’s Bryan Stevenson. youtu.be/LSn5zdg9-t4?si…

@GuardianUS I also talked through some of this with @SykesCharlie — the Fourth, the Court’s latest rulings, Trump’s attacks on voting and citizenship, and what it means to defend the American idea without pretending the United States has fulfilled it. youtu.be/u38sP_VqB-o?is…

I like fireworks, but celebration doesn’t help. Neither does despair. We must note what is damaged and being broken—and then get busy fixing it. That’s what I want the Fourth of July to be about, this and every year. I wrote about that for @GuardianUS. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Calling this Fourth “America’s 250th birthday” indulges a comfortable fiction. Juneteenth is our more honest Independence Day, and the American experiment dates back well before 1776. Yet we’re getting a birthday party when what this nation needs is us focused on repair.

Thread, with new writing from me at the end.

“The 250th anniversary is arriving among Black communities as a whisper instead of a roar.”@MorganJerkins wrote something beautiful and necessary about Black Americans, the Fourth of July, memory, refusal and freedom withheld. Read her in @GuardianUS. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

@byjoelanderson @Haleaziz Same here. Best day of my life as a fan.

I forgot how many shots both teams missed in the last few minutes and there’s a Bron close out with 2:18 left that is almost as incredible as The Block seconds later. The best NBA Finals of my life, man.

“Juneteenth is the closest thing there is to an honest Independence Day. Yet… I view this holiday somewhat mournfully. It marks a precise tipping point when America had a choice to go right and failed. Emancipation was not freedom, and it never has been.”