✉️ FROM THE EDITOR
What's underneath the headlines this week.
I kept trying to find five different stories this week and kept ending up in the same place. Congo, Jamaica, Memphis, South Africa, Black ranchers out West. I stacked them up and realized they're all the same argument. Somebody wants what's underneath you. The mineral. The vote. The shoreline. The acre. And the institution that's supposed to protect you either looked away or signed the paperwork.
The Big Story this week is Congo, but not the version you've seen. US government money is tied up in mining deals with a sanctioned billionaire. And a Congolese civil society group called "Congo Is Not for Sale" is the only one saying it plainly.
— Corey // Louisville, KY
Sunday, May 10, 2026
📰 THE BIG STORY
🌍 [Africa· Congo]
The map is being redrawn. Congo's holding the pen last.
Trump signed a minerals deal with the DRC in December. The war in the east kept going. Those two facts sitting next to each other tell you everything the press release won't. This was never about peace. It was about copper, cobalt, and who controls the supply chain for every EV battery and AI data center being built right now.
Three things happened that nobody's connecting. Erik Prince, Blackwater founder, now operating through a new company called Vectus Global, showed up in eastern Congo in January alongside government forces and right next to the minerals. US federal money is backing Orion CMC, a mining consortium that PPLAAF investigators linked to Dan Gertler, a billionaire the US Treasury sanctioned in 2017 under the Magnitsky Act for corrupt Congo dealings. And "Congo Is Not for Sale," the Congolese civil society collective watching all of this unfold, said it plainly. Anti-corruption has been thrown aside entirely by the American administration. These aren't coincidences. They're components.
China currently controls around 80% of Congo's mineral wealth. The US is moving to reclaim ground. What neither side is negotiating is what percentage stays in Congolese hands. Meanwhile the people displaced by that same instability are rebuilding their lives in Kampala, powering Uganda's informal economy while their home country's resources get carved up by foreign consortiums. Same fight, different soil. Memphis, South Africa, Jamaica, Black ranchers out West. Who governs the land. Who profits from it. Who gets left holding it when the deal is done.
🌐 AROUND THE DIASPORA
Five things, five places.
🇺🇬 Uganda — Refugees are the engine, not the burden
Urban refugees in Kampala aren't waiting on aid that isn't coming.
2026 funding cuts slashed settlement rations to near zero, so they built
their own economy instead. Tailors, market vendors, and savings collectives
in Makindye are paying city taxes and training their Ugandan neighbors.
The "burden" narrative has never been more wrong.
Global Voices → https://globalvoices.org/2026/05/06/the-invisible-migration-how-urban-refugees-are-powering-ugandas-economy/
🇯🇲 Jamaica — The fight for the shoreline
Informal coastal residents and fishermen are pushing back against Jamaica's
new NaRRa Bill, warning it opens the door to land dispossession without
compensation or legal recourse. The fight for the beach isn't about
recreation, it's about the right to exist and work on your own coast.
🇺🇸 Memphis — Being carved up
Tennessee Republicans are moving to dilute Black voting power in Memphis
by redrawing district lines. Classic play: if you can't win the argument,
change the boundaries of the room.
Blavity → https://blavity.com/tennessee-republicans-carve-up-memphis-set-to-dilute-states-black-voting-power
🇿🇦 South Africa — Title deeds aren't enough
Critics are warning that South Africa's land reform is focused too heavily
on historical restitution while neglecting water rights and post-settlement
support for farm workers. A title deed means nothing if you can't afford
to work the land.
Mail & Guardian → https://mg.co.za/thought-leader/opinion/2026-04-28-has-south-africa-focused-too-heavily-on-restitution-at-the-expense-of-broader-land-redistribution/
🇳🇬 Lagos is tearing down its own people for luxury development
UN human rights experts condemned Nigeria's mass demolitions in Lagos this February, thousands of residents forcibly evicted to make room for upscale urban development, with no compensation and no relocation plan. They called it "domicide." The city is being rebuilt. Just not for the people who built it.
🔦 UNDERREPORTED
Stories that deserved more oxygen.
Black Ranchers and the Law of the Land
When Black ranchers in the West had their cattle stolen, they didn't
get a detective, they got a shrug. So they took it a step above: fought to change the law itself. This isn't just about cows. It's about the historical exclusion of Black property owners from the basic protections of the state.
We spend a lot of time watching the scramble for land in Congo and
South Africa. Don't sleep on the quiet version happening right here,
Black acres, Black water rights, Black coastal access. Same fight,
different soil.
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