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Once You Learn How to Read, You Will Be Forever Free~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Robin Blackburn is a British socialist historian, a former editor of New Left Review (1981-99), an author of essays on Marx, capitalism and socialism, and of books on the history of slavery and on social policy. His most celebrated works, “The [...]

Teju Cole, 35
‘‘Open City’’ (Random House, $25)
The book: A hypersensitive Nigerian-German psychiatry resident sizes up the emotional cityscape of post-9/11 New York.
The back story: Cole is American by birth but grew up in Nigeria. His first published work — a cartoon — appeared in a magazine in Lagos when he was 15. [...]

David W. Blight, a professor of history and the director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale, is the author of the forthcoming “American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era.”
Source: NY Times

MOST Americans know that Memorial Day is about honoring the nation’s war dead. [...]

We want to thank the Daily Show with John Stewart for giving us perspective on the upcoming celebration of the Civil War. Read the documents on southern States Declarations of Secession.

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Most African migrants attempt to head to Europe, but there is a small number who go to Israel. The Israeli response is as xenophobic and racist as those in Holland, France, Italy or Spain where most W. African asylum seekers and laborers attempt to locate.Our friends on twitter hipped us to the web site Migrants [...]

By Keantre Malone
Source Black Youth Project

These days I’m feeling more and more like a bastard when I hear “hip hop,” because the Hip Hop that raised me was intellectually gangsta. Guess that explains the initial hunger that goes through me when I hear a song by Somali emcee, K’naan. His debut single, “TIA: This Is [...]

Why does it feel like Déjà vu all over again. Most of you will not know what the convict leasing system was, but you should. This Arizona law reminds me of what happened in the South between 1880-1920. Check out David Oshinsky’s book Worse Than Slavery to educate yourself about the convict leasing system. Only [...]

Elon James White is a Brooklyn-based comedian, writer and host of the award-winning web series This Week in Blackness, a satirical look at race, politics and pop-culture in a so-called “post-racial” America. White has been a featured commentator on VH1’s “Black to the Future” & “The Great Debate.”His commentary on race and politics has been [...]

Big differences in health for African American, Latino boys
By Heather Gilligan on Friday, Jul 2, 11:46am
Source: Crosscurrents from KALW News
Health disparities between men of different races are stark, according to a recent report funded by the California Endowment.
The report detailed significant health differences between black and Latino young men and boys and [...]