An African American blog of politics, culture, and social activism.
You know you’re watching a groundbreaking documentary when it not only forces you out of your comfort zone but also manages to persuade you to reassess your point-of-view without resorting to potentially-alienating polemic.
This is the case with Biracial, Not Black, Damn It!, a poignant, thought-provoking and ultimately most-enlightening film directed by the brilliant Carolyn Battle [...]
If you learn how to read, you will be forever free~Frederick Douglass
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
Carole C. Marks is a professor of sociology at the University of Delaware and the coauthor of The Power of Pride: Stylemakers and Rulebreakers of the Harlem Renaissance.
Robert Stepto’s fields of interest include early African American narratives (Equiano to Douglass and Jacobs), American Renaissance [...]
Dear Senators Cornyn, Grassley, Kyl, and Sessions,
I am writing you all to express my disappointment concerning your recent comments regarding the late Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall. All of you described Justice Marshall service (1967-1991) on the Supreme Court as “activist,” “result oriented,” and outside the “mainstream.” Unfortunately for the American people, whose historical memories are [...]
Dr. Anthea Bulter is an Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making A Sanctified World (UNC Press, 2007). Source Religion Dispatches
President Obama’s recent announcement of his intent to nominate the Rev. Dr. Suzan D. Johnson Cook, [...]
The Gulf Coasts of Louisiana is being damaged by oil just as the Nigerian Delta has been contaminated by oil for years. In the case of Nigeria, the culprit has been Shell Oil. For years, most people in the United States did not pay attention. The only thing known about Nigeria, the most populous [...]
In 1933 W. E. B. DuBois, the editor of the NAACP’s Crisis magazine wrote an essay titled “On Being Ashamed Oneself.” In it he described how living in Jim Crow America made Black folk feel ashamed of themselves because of the overall economic and impoverished conditions of their communities. He observed a small, yet growing [...]
It is Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day is a civil holiday that dates back to the Reconstruction era in American history. It is the day we honor our dead who have given national service, especially those who have served in the armed forces. It is a day we set aside to go to the cemetery [...]
West Wing Week gives a brief summary of President Obama’s first week in May. The President delivered a commencement speech at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on Saturday May 1st 2010.
(Via Our Sister Site www.JackandJillPolitics.com)
The number of African-Americans who say they trust the U.S. government is nearly twice the number of whites who say that. The finding, from a recent poll on trust in America, is a sharp turnaround from previous years.
Blacks have never trusted government in the same way whites have, though the ups [...]
Tavis Smiley and Al Sharpton Face Off
Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is the host of “The Salim Muwakkil” show on WVON, Chicago’s historic black radio station, and he wrote the text for the book HAROLD: Photographs from the Harold Washington [...]