Breaking News! History in the Making
Michelle Alexander’s Book May Give New Hope
By Sky Obercam for Clutch Magazine Do you ever wonder if many of us have been brainwashed into believing that impoverished Blacks, men in particular, are solely to blame for much of the problems we face as a community? Civil rights lawyer and scholar Michelle Alexander’s tireless research indicated just that, as well as a heartbreaking…
I Am Congo: Amazing Lives in a Place the World Left for Dead
From the home page of Raise Hope for Congo, an !Enough Project For more information about the Raise Hope for Congo campaign, visit this site.
Stop the Pity, Unlock the Potential! A Campaign to Break Stereotypes of African Men
From the home page of MAMA HOPE Read more about Mama Hope’s campaign here.
This Day in Black History: Louis Farrakhan is Born
The Encyclopedia of African-American Heritage by Susan Altman On this date in 1933, Louis Farrakhan was born. He is an African-American religious leader in the Muslim community. in New York City, he was an outstanding student at Boston English High School and then attended Winston-Salem Teacher’s College. Farrakhan was an excellent musician; he played the…
This Day in Black History:Young Demonstrators March in Birmingham
From Black First: 2,000 years of extraordinary achievement On this date in 1963, young demonstrators marched on the Birmingham, AL City Hall for civil rights. Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the protest began in the middle of bomb blasts and police brutality. City Commissioner of Public Safety, “Bull” Connor, ordered the arrest of…
Obama Backs Same-Sex Marriage
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and MICHAEL BARBARO of the New York Times President Obama declared for the first time on Wednesday that he supports same-sex marriage, putting the moral power of his presidency behind a social issue that continues to divide the country. “At a certain point,” Mr. Obama said in an interview in the Cabinet…
Research suggests infants begin to learn about race in the first year
To MedicalExpress.com from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Research by psychology researcher Lisa Scott and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst suggests that throughout the first year of life, babies are developing highly specialized perceptual abilities in response to important people in their environment, such as family members. This focus of attention to familiar groups of…
Rosa Parks Statue Installed In National Cathedral
From the Huffington Post Washington National Cathedral is preparing to dedicate a new carving of civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks in a section of the church devoted to human rights. The Episcopal cathedral formally installs the new sculpture Thursday with a ceremony of evening prayer songs. The carving of Parks will join others on the…
Hate Crime Numbers Rise in U.S.
By Marian Wright Edelman for the Huffington Post In the first week of May a sixteen-month-old girl was shot and killed along with her mother, grandmother, and her mother’s boyfriend allegedly by Arizona white supremacist, border vigilante and longtime neo-Nazi J.T. Ready. The murders were the apparent result of domestic violence but were tragically little surprise…
Room4Debate: Are Public Schools Safe for Black Children?
By: Lynette Holloway of theroot.com On Tuesday the U.S. Department of Education released the Civil Rights Data Collection sample, which found that public school educators unfairly punish minority students. The Associated Press had previously reported on a preliminary release of the report. The survey of 7,000 school districts and 72,000 schools was conducted during the…
Room4Debate: Are Black Women Fat Because They Want to Be?
In an opinion piece for the New York Times, author Alice Randall describes the obsesity epidemic in the black community and argues that many black women want to be fat. Randall states: “What we need is a body-culture revolution in black America. Why? Because too many experts who are involved in the discussion of obesity…
This Day in Black History: The Chicago Defender was Founded
From the EBONY Pictorial History of Black America The Chicago Defender was founded on this date in 1905. The brainchild of Robert Abbott, it was one of the first African-American newspapers in this country to reach a circulation of more than 100,000. During the era classified by the historians as the “Great Migration,” 1915 to…
Kentucky Supreme Court Upholds SPLC’s Crushing Legal Victory Against Notorious Klan Leader
from the Southern Poverty Law Center e-newsletter The SPLC’s case against the Klansmen responsible for the savage beating of a Latino teen concluded with a victory this week when the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to reconsider a verdict against the former leader of the Imperial Klans of America (IKA). Ron Edwards, the former IKA leader, had appealed his $1.3 million…
This Day in Black History: The Freedom Rides Began
Taken from pbs.org Despite two earlier Supreme Court decisions that mandated the desegregation of interstate travel facilities, black Americans in 1961 continued to endure hostility and racism while traveling through the South. The newly inaugurated Kennedy administration, embroiled in the Cold War and worried about the nuclear threat, did little to address domestic civil rights.…
Kehinde Wiley Takes on Women in New Portraits
By: Joshua R. Weaver for theroot.com Contemporary painter Kehinde Wiley is set to debut his latest exhibition, “An Economy of Grace,” at New York’s Sean Kelly Gallery on Saturday, May 5. In the painter’s first exhibition featuring female subjects, Wiley uses his urban baroque style to celebrate the beauty of black women, who, he claims,…
Study Finds Racial Bias Among Doctors
By Jessica Cumberbatch Anderson for the Huffington Post In a study published in a March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, researchers found that two-thirds of doctors harbored “unconscious” racial biases toward patients. When those biases were present, researchers found that doctors tended to dominate conversations with African-American patients, pay less attention to…
Black breast cancer survivors report not getting enough information
A study finds that Black women with breast cancer are not offered information or the chance to join trials for new medications and treatments.
Saluting Julian Bond, Civil Rights Icon
By: Charlayne Hunter-Gault for The Root With Bond set to be honored, a friend recalls how the college activist became a social-justice legend. If ever there was a man for all seasons, Julian Bond certainly fits the bill — a man whose college-student activism challenged the lie of “separate but equal” all over the South and…
This Day in Black History: Elijah McCoy is Born
From the African American Registry By James Michael Brodie Elijah J. McCoy was born on this date in 1843. He was an African-American inventor and his work may have been the beginning of the phrase the “real McCoy.” Born in Colchester, Canada, Elijah McCoy was one of 12 children of a family of runaway slaves…
Too Many African-American Babies Born Too Soon
By Lisa Gittens-Williams, M.D. for the Huffington Post Nearly one out of every six African-American babies in the United States is born premature. In Newark, New Jersey it’s one in five. I am a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, and every day I see women who are at risk of delivering early. Preterm birth is a serious and…
Room4Debate: Do barriers to interracial marriage still exist?
By Kevin Noble Maillard of thegrio.com Do barriers to interracial marriage still exist? Despite recent media reports that we are living in a “post-racial world” as the face of the American family changes, the numbers do not lie when showing that there is still resistance to black/white relationships. Formally, all prohibitions on black/white interracial marriage have…