Mariam Zuhaib/AP

The Supreme Court, shown on a snowy Jan. 17, 2024, in Washington, will be deciding two cases this term that hinge on whether or not portions of the Constitution are “self-executing.”

For the first time in American history, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next month determining if the Constitution disqualifies a presidential contender from the ballot.

The candidate in question is former President Donald Trump. The clause in question is Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a post-Civil War enactment that bars anyone who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. In a 4-3 decision last month, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that because of his actions on and around Jan. 6, 2021, Mr. Trump cannot appear on the state’s presidential primary ballot.

The case, Trump v. Anderson, poses one straightforward question: Did the Colorado Supreme Court err with its ruling? But beneath that question lies a thicket of complex and unprecedented questions. When the justices hear oral arguments Feb. 8, they will be asked to weigh in on these challenging questions. The decision they make will be among the most important they have ever made.

Among them is the question of whether Section 3 is “self-executing.” Essentially, who enforces this clause in the Constitution? The text simply says that no insurrectionist “shall” hold public office. The specifics of how that is enforced, and by whom, are unclear. If the provision is self-executing, the Constitution compels state officials to enforce it. If it isn’t self-executing, Congress must enact a law detailing how to enforce it.

Those who say it is self-executing point to its text and history, and to precedents holding that other Reconstruction amendments, such as the one granting Black Americans the right to vote, are self-executing. They also point to the legal uncertainty it could provoke if amendments such as those prohibiting slavery suddenly needed Congress to pass a law enforcing them.

Those who say Section 3 is not self-executing argue that the only federal case specifically concerning the clause – an 1869 decision known as “In re Griffin” – ruled that a law was needed to enforce it. The history of how the section was written is muddled, they argue, and the plain text offers no guidance on how it is to be enforced, or by whom.

Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

Republican Norma Anderson, the first female majority leader in the Colorado statehouse, is one of the plaintiffs in the Colorado Supreme Court ruling disqualifying former President Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot under the Constitution’s disqualification clause.

The Griffin case stemmed from the months immediately following Section 3’s ratification in 1868. A district court in Virginia ruled that a state judge was disqualified by the clause. Chief Justice Salmon Chase – hearing the appeal as the circuit justice – overruled the decision. “Legislation by Congress is necessary to give effect to [Section 3’s] prohibition,” he wrote.

Because the Griffin case was not heard by the full Supreme Court, it is nonbinding. But those in the “not-self-executing” camp believe it settles the question.

“We can talk about it for a million years, but it was accepted, no one argued it, and I think it settled the issue,” says Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston who has written extensively about Section 3.

Chief Justice Chase “knew more about the 14th Amendment than we ever will,” he adds.

But beyond the four corners of the Griffin decision lies some notable historical context, according to supporters of the self-executing theory. Chief Justice Chase had been a prominent abolitionist politician before joining the court. However, he steadfastly opposed harsh treatment of former Confederates and, according to reports at the time, was currying favor with southern Democrats in 1868 for a presidential run. 

Are parts of the Constitution more constitutional?

Even if the Griffin case did settle the self-executing question, critics ask, why has Section 3 been applied repeatedly since ratification without legislation from Congress? Since the 14th Amendment’s ratification in 1868, at least eight people have been barred from office. Most recently, in 2022, a New Mexico judge ordered a county commissioner who participated in the attack on the Capitol removed from office and banned for life from holding political positions.

Perhaps more importantly, what could it mean for other provisions of the Constitution – the highest law in the land – if the Supreme Court says Section 3 isn’t self-executing?

The Colorado Supreme Court majority wrote that if the Reconstruction amendments had not been self-executing, “Congress could nullify them by simply not passing enacting legislation. The result of such inaction would mean that slavery remains legal; Black citizens would be counted as less than full citizens for reapportionment; nonwhite male voters could be disenfranchised.”

If the Supreme Court says Section 3 isn’t self-executing, “it can’t be a general rule,” says Gerard Magliocca, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law who has written extensively on Section 3. “How they would [write] that, I don’t know.

“It would to some degree call into question other actions or decisions that were done without any authorization from Congress.”

Opponents of this view have a shorter-term concern. In the petition asking the high court to hear the case, Mr. Trump’s legal team said that even if Section 3 doesn’t “require” enforcement legislation from Congress, more clarity is needed on how Section 3 cases should proceed.

“Section 3 is silent on whether a jury, judge, or lone state election official makes factual determination and is likewise silent on the appropriate standard of review,” his lawyers wrote. “The result is that 51 different jurisdictions may (and have) adopted divergent rulings based on different standards on the same set of operative facts.”

A case that might offer clues

Which arguments will appeal most to which justices is unclear, but earlier this week, court watchers may have gotten a hint in a case out of Texas.

That case, Devillier v. Texas, bears little outward resemblance to Trump v. Anderson. Texas farmers are suing for payment after the state constructed a highway barrier that they say resulted in the flooding of their land. The farmers argue that they should be recompensed by Texas under the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment. But one similar issue is whether the takings clause is self-executing. During oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito posed potential inconsistencies.

“Does it make sense to view the Fifth Amendment as providing a right ... but your ability to vindicate that right is totally dependent on Congress’ discretionary choice?” he asked. “That sounds like a very weak right if it’s subject to limitation in that way.”

Whether he and his fellow justices will feel similarly about Section 3 remains to be seen.

Another day, another military strike involving Iran, part of the escalating regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

On Thursday, Pakistan fired a rocket and drone barrage at what it called “terrorist hideouts” inside Iran, reportedly killing nine people, in retaliation for an Iranian strike Tuesday against what Tehran called a separatist “terrorist” base inside Pakistan.

All week, Iran’s proxies and allies of its anti-U.S. and anti-Israel “Axis of Resistance” have been kinetically engaged, most notably Yemen’s Houthi rebels, whom the U.S. military targeted Wednesday for the fourth time since Jan. 11 in a so-far-unsuccessful bid to deter attacks on Red Sea shipping.

Does the expanded military activity point to a strategic benefit and new boldness for Iran and its allies? And have Tehran’s calculations changed since it gave cautious praise to – yet also distanced itself from – Hamas’ attack Oct. 7, which triggered a massive Israeli onslaught in Gaza?

In other military action this week, Iran struck what it alleged is a headquarters of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency in northern Iraq, as well as “terrorist” bases inside Syria. Also, Hamas is still putting up stiff resistance in Gaza, including a volley of at least 25 rockets fired into Israel Tuesday, and Hezbollah has been exchanging fire on Israel’s northern border.

Since October, as the war in Gaza has unfolded and spread across the region, analysts say Iran has amply demonstrated far-reaching capabilities, but has also doubled down on its unwillingness to engage in an all-out war with the United States and Israel.

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA/Reuters

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prays next to the coffin of Razi Mousavi, a general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, during his funeral in Tehran, Iran, Dec. 28, 2023. General Mousavi was killed in an Israeli airstrike outside the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Tehran and its allies have incurred key losses, with targeted killings by Israel and the U.S. But the lack of an equal counterpunch from Iran is also raising questions about its strategy.

“There is a lot of effort right now to portray Iran as this extraordinary mastermind, that ... through its network of partners and proxies, [it] is 10 feet tall and winning all over,” says Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. “I don’t see it that way at all.”

Iran’s policy since Oct. 7 has been “improvised and reactive,” he says, and “entirely driven by their reluctance to enter into the fray, or lose any of their key strategic assets for anything less than defense of their homeland.”

Significant losses for the “Axis” include Israel’s killing of a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander in Damascus – a veteran operative so revered that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attended his funeral. Others include the likely Israeli assassination of a senior Hamas leader with a drone in Beirut, the killing of a key Hezbollah commander in southern Lebanon, and the U.S. killing a senior commander of an Iran-backed militia in Baghdad, who the Pentagon said had mounted multiple attacks on U.S. forces.

“In response to all this, Iranians themselves have not done anything that matches the level of escalation that we have seen from the U.S. and Israel,” says Mr. Vaez.

“Deterrence is not just about capabilities, but also the will to deploy those capabilities, and Iran has clearly proven itself reluctant to use those capabilities,” he adds. “That’s why, overall, the credibility of their deterrence has diminished.”

Julia Zimmermann/Metrography/AP

Emergency services clear the rubble of the house of Peshraw Dizayi, a prominent local businessman; the house was hit in Iranian missile strikes in Irbil, Iraq, Jan. 16, 2024. Mr. Dizayi was killed along with members of his family.

Some argue that Iran benefited from Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, which shocked Israel and exposed a “massive” security and intelligence failure that “broke the myth of invincibility” of the Jewish state, says Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of the London-based news website Amwaj.media, which focuses on Iran, Iraq, and Arabian Peninsula countries.

But the negative side for Iran is an undermining of “core interests,” he says, which include “normalization of Iran as a regional power,” U.S. sanctions relief, and U.S.-Iran talks that last year led to a prisoner exchange, release of frozen Iranian funds, and a mutual de-escalation agreement.

“So, now what? If you look at hard interests, it has not been good for Iran,” says Mr. Shabani. “What the Oct. 7 attacks did was to bury any prospect, for the foreseeable future under [President Joe] Biden, of genuine talks between the U.S. and Iran.”

Events since then have also underscored a credibility crisis for Iran’s leadership that had come into sharp relief in January 2020, when an American drone in Baghdad killed Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, architect of the “Axis.”

Iran’s strikes in Iraqi Kurdistan and Pakistan are “defensive and reactive,” says Mr. Shabani, but may also be an effort by Mr. Khamenei “to establish a deterrence that, because of his own actions, particularly since January 2020, has been obliterated.”

“Four years after Soleimani, there is no ‘harsh revenge,’” as Iranian leaders vowed to exact, says Mr. Shabani. “Khamenei went out and said, ‘The Houthis don’t fear the U.S.; they have no fear of them.’ I actually believe that. The problem is whether Khamenei himself is projecting that image.”

Indian Navy/AP

The U.S.-owned ship Genco Picardy is seen Jan. 18, 2024. The ship came under attack Wednesday from a bomb-carrying drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels in the Gulf of Aden.

Indeed, as the Iran ally that has attracted American and British military attack – and a re-designation this week by Washington as a “terrorist” group – the Houthis have seen their targeting of ships, in stated solidarity with Gaza, yield a surge of popularity and a claimed 45,000 new recruits.

“The Houthis are not deterrable,” says Nadwa al-Dawsari, a Yemen expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

“If the actions are limited to airstrikes and a [terrorist] designation without a long-term strategy to weaken the Houthis militarily, then this will all play into the hands of the Houthis,” says Ms. Dawsari.

And in the case of Yemen, even Iran has limited influence over a militia that it helped arm with ballistic missiles, drones, and some 10 types of anti-ship missile systems.

“I would not be surprised if Iran says, ‘Stop, you can’t do that,’ and the Houthis went ahead anyway,” says Ms. Dawsari. “They are strong allies, but the Houthis are extremely ambitious – they want to be a great player in the region.”

And that lack of control may be one thing that keeps Iranian leaders awake at night.

“The Houthis have a long track record of ignoring Iranian advice, so I don’t think there is a way for Iran to rein them in,” says Mr. Vaez.

“It may be just a matter of time before the Houthis manage to target a U.S. or Western warship, and cause the kind of fatalities that would result in tensions spinning out of control,” he says. “This is exactly where the risk lies, that they might take actions that Iran might not even be aware of, but end up paying the price for.”

Dilawar Mondal gently bends the stems of a centuries-old myrtle plant to examine its aromatic leaves, used in the Jewish ritual bath for the dead. It is among the myriad plants, shrubs, and trees that he has tended to for the last eight years in Kolkata’s only Jewish cemetery, established in the early 19th century by Jewish merchants from Baghdad and Aleppo.

He pauses to check the time – the sun is overhead, which means he’ll soon need to take a break to perform Zuhr, the afternoon Muslim prayer.

Many of the city’s Jewish institutions – including synagogues, schools, and the cemetery – are maintained by Muslim caretakers. The intertwined communities have offered each other hope, security, and strength amid rising global hostilities following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. 

“We must remember that alongside antisemitism, there has been a sharp increase globally in Islamophobia, too,” says Jo Cohen, secretary for Jewish Community Affairs in Kolkata. “Jewish and Muslim people need to come together to advocate for peace now more than ever.”

History of solidarity

The camaraderie and respect between the Jewish and Muslim communities of Kolkata can be traced back to the establishment of the cemetery, says Owaiz Aslam, founder of the Kolkata-based Indian Pluralism Foundation, which promotes interfaith harmony among Indian youth.

Historical records show Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen, the founder of the Baghdadi Jewish community in Kolkata, reached out to a Bengali Muslim friend regarding the cemetery.

“They were new to the country and needed help,” Mr. Aslam says. “The Muslim friend offered him a plot of his own land free of cost, but ... Cohen insisted on giving his friend a gold ring as a token of solidarity between the two communities, which continues even today.” 

The cemetery houses around 8,625 graves, including that of Cohen.

Sarah Aziz

The grave of Shalom Aaron Obadiah Cohen, the founder of the Baghdadi Jewish community in Kolkata, is in the city's Jewish cemetery.

More than a century later, the Baghdadi Jews in Kolkata assigned a Muslim family from the neighboring state of Odisha the job of caring for their synagogues, explains Navras Jaat Aafreedi, an expert in Jewish history who teaches at Presidency University in Kolkata.

Since then, several generations of that family have continued to serve the three synagogues in Kolkata – Beth El, Maghen David, and Neveh Shalom – even as the Jewish population here has dwindled.

Fewer than 15 Jewish residents remain, most of them older. But women’s rights activist Jael Silliman, who grew up Jewish in Kolkata, says that the synagogues still hold special significance.

“These three beautiful spiritual spaces mark our presence in the city, and recall and embody our history in a place where we flourished and prospered through trade and business endeavors,” says the scholar, noting with pride that Kolkata is home to the only two synagogues protected by the Archaeological Survey of India as important heritage sites.

Today, the synagogues draw tourists from all over the world, and in November, Mr. Aslam initiated an interfaith Jewish-Muslim prayer ceremony at the Beth El Synagogue, where he prayed for the safe return of the hostages taken from Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7.

“As a Muslim, my heart cries for innocent children and adults suffering in Israel as well as Gaza,” he says.

At the same synagogue, Shaikh Wasim shows up for work in his pristine uniform, “Beth. El” embroidered on his breast pocket and a white topi, or Muslim skullcap, on his head.

Shaikh Azizur Rahman

The Beth El Synagogue in Kolkata, shown here, hosted an interfaith ceremony praying for the safe return of hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7.

With reports of a global uptick in antisemitic attacks against synagogues and other Jewish institutions, Mr. Wasim and the five other caretakers who currently oversee Kolkata’s synagogues are no strangers to fear. 

“I am afraid, like any other human being,” he says. “But the deep love that the Jewish and Muslim people in Kolkata share always pulls me back to the synagogue, no matter the circumstance.”

Anchor amid growing anxieties

Ms. Cohen, the secretary of Jewish Community Affairs, says the Oct. 7 attack profoundly affected the Jewish community in Kolkata, but failed to sour Jewish-Muslim relations.

“The Muslim caretakers of the synagogues and the cemetery, alongside my Muslim friends, are as close to me as ever. The Israel-Gaza situation has not affected our relationships in the slightest,” says Ms. Cohen, who also serves as honorary secretary at the city’s Jewish Girls’ School, where the majority of the students are Muslim. 

Later, while cleaning around the synagogue, Mr. Wasim echoes Ms. Cohen’s sentiments. 

“I pray for the violence and bloodshed to end, so that Jewish and Muslim communities can coexist in peace like they do in Kolkata,” he says.

He goes on to explain how, during the pandemic, Ms. Cohen and other Jewish residents helped provide urgent financial support to the caretakers’ families in Odisha.

“We are determined to stand by them in these difficult times,” he adds, walking to a raised platform with a roof to the right of the synagogue premises. There, Mr. Wasim unfurls a blue prayer mat in the same spot where his father, who worked at the synagogue for decades before bequeathing the position to his son, prayed five times a day.

Ms. Cohen, who grew up in a family that always employed Muslim cooks and other staff, believes that Judaism has more in common with Islam than any other faith, considering dietary restrictions and prophets, among other things. 

“Ultimately, a Jew and a Muslim are praying to the same God, even if they call Him by different names,” she says. “And that is the same God who is listening to all our hopes, fears, and earnest requests.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Navras Jaat Aafreedi's name.

Gleb Garanich/Reuters

Ukrainian servicemen attend anti-sabotage mock drills at the border with Belarus, amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Iowans this week braved record-cold temperatures to kick off the race for this year’s Republican presidential nomination. And their verdict – a comfortable win for Donald Trump – sent political shivers through America’s key allies in Europe.

Their immediate concern was what a second Trump presidency would mean for Ukraine. The Iowa result has brought a new sense of urgency to Europe’s efforts to find a “Trump-proof” way of ensuring Kyiv has the arms and ammunition to keep fending off Russian forces, even if Washington were to back away.

But there is also a far deeper worry.

It is that the entire fabric of the decades-old trans-Atlantic alliance – involving trade and tariffs, defense and security – could unravel should Mr. Trump follow up his Iowa victory with further primary wins and ultimately return to the White House.

The key concern is NATO, the military alliance that has long provided bedrock security. Europe is still far short of having a credible Plan B, either for arming Ukraine, or to safeguard itself against an emboldened Vladimir Putin if Washington were to retreat from its European commitments.

All this may sound like the kind of apocalyptic scenario spun by pundits in search of a catchy headline.

But political leaders across Europe have been sounding the alarm in recent weeks as Mr. Trump’s front-runner status for the nomination has solidified.

The morning after the vote in Iowa, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo addressed the Parliament of the 27-nation European Union as his country assumed the bloc’s rotating presidency. A return to an “America first” policy in Washington, he warned, would leave Europe “on its own.”

Others have been even more outspoken.

Ukrainian Presidential Press Service/Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (second from left) and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg (second from right) attend a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Late last year, Germany’s defense minister said a Trump victory would be a “catastrophe” for Europe.

Earlier this month, Thierry Breton, France’s representative on the European Commission, was quoted as telling colleagues of an exchange Mr. Trump had with the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, in the final year of his presidency in 2020.

“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and support you,” Mr. Breton reported Mr. Trump as saying. “By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave; we will quit NATO.”

Last week, the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, departed from her usual reticence on political matters to sound a warning of her own. Judging from Mr. Trump’s first term, she said, a return to power would be “clearly a threat” to Europe.

Just look, she said, at his trade tariffs, his weak commitment to NATO, and his refusal to join the fight against climate change.

The prospect of a weakened NATO is especially alarming for the countries nearest Russia and Ukraine: Poland and the formerly Soviet Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

They are urging heightened military preparedness, warning that Mr. Putin’s rearmament drive could position him to threaten Europe’s eastern flank within the next three to five years, especially if he prevails in Ukraine.

A top Polish security official said recently that Europe urgently needed sufficient strength to “deter [Russian] aggression.” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas echoed that message this week, calling for another critical deterrent: intensifying, not just maintaining, military support for Ukraine.

Susan Walsh/AP

Republican representatives speak to reporters after hearing President Joe Biden's arguments for maintaining U.S. aid to Ukraine.

The momentum behind Mr. Trump’s presidential bid has focused attention on the critical role European countries may need to play in that effort.

There are some signs that they are taking the challenge seriously.

A British official told the London-based newspaper The Times that the United Kingdom and other European NATO members are “cranking through the gears” to ensure Ukraine continues to get the arms it needs, adding that Mr. Putin “can’t be allowed to win ... just because Trump says ‘no more dollars.’”

The EU has pledged to deliver a million urgently needed artillery shells to Ukraine by March.

European countries have accounted for around half of Western support for Ukraine since the February 2022 invasion. They’ve also increased military spending. But outside of NATO, there is no effective mechanism for EU countries to plan, agree, and coordinate a joined-up defense policy.

That’s one reason the EU seems likely to fall well short of the promised number of artillery shells. The bloc needs to expand production more quickly. Besides, nearly half of all arms made in the EU are still exported abroad, to customers other than Ukraine.

There’s another problem, too. Europe at present cannot supply the amount of more advanced weaponry that Ukraine has said is essential to turning the tide against Russian forces.

Belgium’s prime minister gilded his post-Iowa warning that Europe might find itself “on its own” with an upbeat call to “embrace it, by putting Europe on a more solid footing, stronger, more sovereign, more self-reliant.”

Much the same message came from a leading businessman at this week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Commenting on Ms. Lagarde’s worries about the effects of a Trump return, the vice chair of the world’s largest investment fund, Blackrock, said there might be a more positive “flip side.”

A Trump return could be “a wake-up call for Europe,” said Philipp Hildebrand. A spur for it to become more independent.

Because for the time being, he said, when it comes to defense, “Europe is just not there yet.”

It’s past daybreak on a muggy July morning when Konda Mason reaches the farm, a 5-acre plot in rural Louisiana. Mindful of the heat to come, several workers are already weeding, and Ms. Mason – her daily meditation and yoga done – is ready for a busy day. She’ll field calls from farmers and suppliers, check the progress of the industrial rice mill she’s building, and meet with a journalist curious about why a Black Buddhist from Oakland, California, is growing rice in a red county of a very red state. But right now, in the calm of the still-early hour, Ms. Mason bends to pluck a stray weed or examine a new bud. 

A slender, muscled woman with waist-length dreadlocks, Ms. Mason sees the farm as the apex of her efforts as a social entrepreneur and eco-spiritual activist. Today she’s sporting a red bandanna to shade herself from the sun, but in her nearly 70 years, she has worn many hats. She’s been a concert promoter, filmmaker, and supporter of Black innovators and problem-solvers. As with her other endeavors, this new project manifests the values that have guided her life: love, justice, community, and a willingness to leap into the unknown.

“I was taught by my family that I had a role to play in making this world a better place,” Ms. Mason told listeners in her keynote address at the 2015 Wisdom 2.0 forum in San Francisco. “I’m continually digging into that and figuring out what it means and how it shows up and it changes over time.

“The question I ask myself is, how can you go deeper, what do you have to let go of in order to do that, and are you willing to do it?”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Members of the Jubilee Justice team (from left) Myles Gaines, Juan Manuel Hernandez, and Bernard Winn weed a rice field in Alexandria, Louisiana.

This time, going deeper meant leaving her home, her sister, her partner, and her friends to promote what she hopes is a revolution in rice production. Her goal is to support a more sustainable and less expensive way to grow rice, in hopes of staunching the loss of Black-owned farmland. Working alongside an agronomist from Cornell University, she uses what’s called the System of Rice Intensification, common in developing nations but new to American farmers. Going deeper has also meant mastering the complexities of soil and weed management, crop rotation, fertilization, the milling of rice, and bringing it to market. Equally complex, of course, is working in a region where race relations are historically fraught.

A Black Buddhist

Threading through Ms. Mason’s ventures is her commitment to Buddhism. She began the practice by happenstance, but her bond, deepened over 40 years of study, fuels a fierce desire to leave the world more just and loving than she found it. The majority of American Buddhists are white or Asian; only about 3% of the community is Black. Yet despite their modest numbers, these practitioners have had an outsize impact on American Buddhism, challenging the taken-for-granted individualistic focus, white privilege, and political detachment that have characterized many sanghas (Buddhist communities). 

Ms. Mason is a leader in these changes, adopting some practices common to Asian Buddhism and others that reflect her African heritage. Chief among the latter: prioritizing community, honoring ancestors, and embodying spiritual engagement by working for social and political change. 

Though deeply committed to Buddhism, Ms. Mason is not an evangelist. At the farm, she rarely discusses her practice, and if she does, she talks about mindfulness, not Buddhism.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

“I was taught by my family that I had a role to play in making this world a better place. ... The question I ask myself is, how can you go deeper?” – Konda Mason, a social entrepreneur and eco-spiritual activist

“Konda’s had many lives, and I never thought there would be a home for her,” says Dianne Houston, a longtime friend. “But the combination of working on the land with people who share her beliefs about social justice – all the boxes are checked.” 

Ms. Mason’s work on the 3,700-acre former plantation is equal parts passion project, spiritual mission, and response to the loss of 12 million acres of Black farmland over the past century. More than 1 million people – or 98% of Black farm owners – have been dispossessed by U.S. Department of Agriculture policies and regional racism. President Joe Biden’s attempt to redress years of unfair policies was contested by white farmers, who complained of racial discrimination. In response, Black farmers launched a class-action suit in hopes of restoring government funding for debt relief. 

Since arriving in Louisiana in 2020, Ms. Mason has grown a network of nearly a dozen Black farmers whom her team visits regularly. Her agronomy colleagues offer technical assistance, and she provides rice seed and access to loans. She secured a centrally located, solar-powered industrial mill for processing the plants, and has a distributor to help with marketing. When she’s not working the land or promoting the project, Ms. Mason sometimes dons another hat, leading intentional conversations across racial and economic divides.

Both the farming project and the conversations are part of Jubilee Justice, a nonprofit Ms. Mason created to help change a system that she says has profited by discriminating against people of color and despoiling the planet. It’s the natural outcome of her lifework.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Jubilee Justice farm manager Myles Gaines takes a break while weeding a rice field.

An introduction to racism

Initially, Ms. Mason grew up in San Bernardino, California, in a Black and Mexican neighborhood, where residents were friends. But in February 1968, everything changed. Her family moved to a nearby white suburb, but it may as well have been a foreign country.

“There were probably about four Black families in the whole town,” Ms. Mason recalls. “Suddenly I became aware of racism.”

The family moved so she and her siblings could attend better schools, which, Ms. Mason now says, was the right thing to do. But the relocation coincided with a bleak period in American society, and, at the time, she rued the change. 

That spring, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and two months later presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down. During the Summer Olympics, two Black American medalists raised their fists during the national anthem, a provocative demonstration of Black power and pride. 

“So much was happening,” Ms. Mason says. “All the pain of that became dead center of my life.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Konda Mason handles rice from a partner farmer.

Only in 1973, when she arrived for her first year at the University of California, Berkeley, did things improve. A new friend introduced her to yoga and broadened her taste in music. Soon Ms. Mason was running the Berkeley Jazz Festival, a well-funded community program sponsored by the university. Ultimately, she left school to team up with the manager for Sweet Honey in the Rock, a Black, female a cappella group whose music blended blues, gospel, and jazz. The two joined forces to promote female musicians. 

“We would put a Native American group with a Black group or a lesbian group,” she says. “We kept building coalitions. We did it all over the country.” 

In her 30s and 40s, while working in music and film, Ms. Mason won a Grammy as a manager for vocalist Caron Wheeler and scored an Oscar nomination for “Tuesday Morning Ride,” a film she worked on with Ms. Houston. But the arts and entertainment path wasn’t enough for her. 

Visiting the Bay Area, Ms. Mason decided that the city of Oakland was ripe for change. She moved there and, in 2014, opened the Oakland Impact Hub, a 1,600-square-foot space with room for conferences, exhibitions, concerts, and community events. Her goal was to incubate social entrepreneurs, especially those of color, in an atmosphere where business acumen, social justice concerns, and spiritual practice could inform their work. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

A worker finishes installing machinery for the Jubilee Justice rice mill in Alexandria, Louisiana. It is the first Black-owned mill cooperative in the United States.

Needed: love

Stitching together the various parts of Ms. Mason’s journey are love and community. That was clear when she spoke about her goal for the Impact Hub at the Wisdom 2.0 forum. Stepping away from the podium, she let loose an a cappella version of Tina Turner’s hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” At the conclusion of her talk, she repeated the lyric, but this time with an answer: “Love,” she said, “has everything to do with it.” 

Ms. Mason’s quest to put love at the center of her work took an unexpected turn several years later. She helped organize a gathering of progressive women; most of the wealth-holders were white, and the activists people of color. Among the attendees was Elizabeth Keller, a white woman and devout Christian. Her grandfather had purchased a former plantation in Louisiana, hoping to “redeem” the land, but he never did. When he died, he left all 3,700 acres to her.

At the gathering, Ms. Keller spoke about the farm and her desire for healing there. She had prayed for someone to show her the way, and, to her surprise, Ms. Mason seemed to be the answer to that prayer. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The main house at Inglewood Plantation stands on the land Elizabeth Keller inherited and is letting Jubilee Justice farm as a way of redeeming it from its role in slavery.

The plantation could be redeemed, Ms. Mason realized, by using the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) to cultivate a pilot crop and develop a network of Black farmers to adopt the technique. 

Ms. Keller, acknowledging that Ms. Mason “saw something I couldn’t,” agreed to let her use the land. 

Now Ms. Mason needed expertise. She cold-called Erika Styger, the Cornell agronomist, who knew from working with farmers around the world how SRI increases crop yields, improves the soil, cuts costs, enhances profits, and reduces the environmental impact of rice production. It took some convincing, but in the end, Ms. Mason’s vision and practicality persuaded her to provide technical assistance.

Dr. Styger regularly joins Ms. Mason for farm visits. During a first meeting, they explain what they’re doing and why the farmer may want to try SRI. They suggest cultivating a small plot to see if it works for them.

“We have a very transparent and honest exchange,” Dr. Styger says. “We invite the farmer in as a partner so they feel ownership.”

Donna Isaacs is one of the farmers trying the new growing system.

“Konda called, and we hit [it] off,” says Ms. Isaacs, who co-owns a 14-acre diversified farm in Eros, Louisiana. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Farmer Donna Isaacs, a member of Jubilee Justice, pauses on her farm in Eros, Louisiana, May 7, 2023.

Ms. Isaacs worried that the cost would be prohibitive, but Ms. Mason had an answer for that: Potlikker Capital, “a social justice charitable loan fund supporting farmers of color,” as the website explains.

When Ms. Mason realized that farmers would not have the resources to invest in the necessary equipment, she co-founded Potlikker with Mark Watson, who’d left a lucrative career on Wall Street to focus on socially responsible investing.

Thus far, the fund has deployed $2.5 million. Mr. Watson’s 10-year goal is to secure $50 million to support Black, Indigenous, and Latino farmers nationwide. Potlikker’s first loan went to Ms. Isaacs: $50,000 at 1.5% interest for seven years. Mr. Watson says Potlikker leverages its loans to gain additional support for their partners, as clients are called. Since its inception, the fund has helped almost two dozen farmers with loans running from $50,000 to $250,000.

“Our impact is not just the number of loans we make, but also building community resiliency,” Mr. Watson says. “It’s all about connections.”

Mr. Watson and Ms. Mason agree that connections are crucial for social change. They don’t want to Band-Aid social ills but to reform unjust systems through personal transformation. 

“How do we as individuals change our hearts and minds so that we are no longer complicit in a system?” asks Ms. Mason, explaining the goal of the Jubilee Justice journeys she started. “And then how do we become active members of creating another system?”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Young rice shoots peek above the hay in a field.

The journeys began with the gathering where Ms. Mason and Ms. Keller first talked about rice farming. But after a few successful conversation circles among racially and economically diverse groups, Ms. Mason realized the gatherings needed to go deeper. 

“We as Americans are reluctant to go backwards before we go forwards, to go back and understand what happened and heal,” she explains. “But if we don’t do that, we don’t have a chance. We can’t build on a faulty foundation.

“Race is key, because it is the faultiest part of our system.”

Ms. Mason decided the next journey would be a two-year commitment and that the participants, whom she selected, would dig into their genealogies.

“Our Ancestral Journey” started in September 2021 with a socioeconomically diverse group of 25 white people and 25 people of color. They met yearly at the farm and every three weeks on Zoom. Sometimes they had speakers talking about race, but most of their time was spent discussing their genealogical research.

“This is quite an experiment because this is white folks looking at their genealogies as slaveholders and Black folks looking at their genealogies as formerly enslaved,” says Ms. Mason, who ran the group along with a storyteller. Hearing about each other’s background “has been painful,” Ms. Mason says, quickly adding that there was also a lot of love.

Adriane Rozier, who met Ms. Mason at a retreat for Buddhists of color, joined the group to learn more about her family tree. The genealogical discoveries were exciting, but she found so much more.

“Descendants of slaves and descendants of enslavers came into healing together to repair relationships and build partnerships,” she says. “I felt I knew these people, and I almost didn’t want to leave.”

Although the two-year genealogical conversations ended a few months ago, Ms. Rozier says some participants plan to continue their journey together.

For her part, Ms. Mason was exhausted and exhilarated after the final gathering. But she was also that much closer to the vision she had articulated years earlier in San Francisco. “What’s love got to do with it?” she’d asked. The answer? “Love has everything to do with it.” 

Reuters

Elderly people spend time with children at a park in Beijing, China Jan. 12,

Censors in China have been busy since Saturday after Taiwan held yet another free and democratic election. Despite a government firewall on the internet designed to control what passes for truth, many Chinese citizens offered rare and favorable commentary about the election. For a brief time, the #TaiwanElection hashtag was No. 11 among trending topics on social media – before being deleted.

One internet user noted that the Chinese Communist Party can hardly criticize the outcome of the election “when you don’t even allow elections at home.” Another netizen wrote, “We would only get such an intense battle when electing our class captain [in high school].”

This brief expression of interest in Taiwan’s democracy is the latest example of a public hungry for transparent and accurate information in a country where even basic statistics about the economy have lately been censored. Another example is the rise of “citizen historians” who have challenged the party’s account of past atrocities and even its claim to rule without opposition. Economy watchers have learned how to use available data, such as of urban pollution and night-light density, to challenge the party’s often dubious claims on national development.

“Resistance in China is more persistent and sustained than many people realize,” China expert Ian Johnson told Psychology Today this month. “The fact that there are still people ... fighting for a more open, tolerant society shows that the roots of opposition in China run deep and are harder to wipe out than many people anticipate.”

The level of opposition is difficult to detect because independent polling is mostly banned in China. Widespread fear of reprisal prevents people from speaking freely to pollsters. Yet one unusual survey technique, in which people express sensitive opinions indirectly, was used by the University of Southern California to gauge what people really think about their rulers.

The survey, conducted online with two groups of 2,000 each and published this month in The China Quarterly, found that support for the party and China’s system of government may be as low as 50%. The government’s surveillance of the internet and repression of dissent discourages some 40% of citizens from participating in anti-regime protests.

“There are truths that I believe Chinese citizens have the right to know,” one Chinese banker told The New Yorker last year. “We’ve all been educated to say, ‘Better to keep our mouths shut.’ But this is wrong. When information doesn’t flow, the whole country will go backward.”

Ordinary Chinese citizens, wrote Mr. Johnson in Foreign Affairs, “may increasingly be ready to question the official narratives,” especially about China’s history, “and develop new understandings of the forces that are shaping the country’s present and its future.”