African Americans and Madison Avenue share a complex and often contentious history. As The Root’s article “The Other Mad Men” showed, Madison Avenue was not as lily white as the popular cable-TV show implies. A small number of blacks worked in advertising as early as the 1940s and founded their own agencies in the 1950s.…

With 400-plus members, 10 drum majors and more than 100 years of zigzag formations and booty-shakin’ tunes, Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 continues to strut its excellence on the field. Watch here as the band performs K.P. and Envyi’s “Swing My Way” and Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” at 2010’s Honda Battle of the Bands. At…

By the late ’20s, Armstrong’s influence as a trumpeter and vocal stylist was central to what jazz was and would become. According to the writer Albert Murray, by the early ’30s, his celebrity and status as a culture hero had men across the United States imitating his dress style, too. Captions by Greg Thomas Ellington,…

This moving scene on the edge of the Boston Common depicts black volunteer soldiers and their white colonel as they set off for battle against the Confederate Army in 1863. The 1989 film Glory, starring Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman, told the story of the courageous black regiment. Captions by Gary Lee Opened in 1835…

At the 1999 VMAs, Afeni Shakur and Voletta Wallace, the mothers of slain rappers Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G., appeared, along with Will Smith, to present Best Rap Video (Jay-Z won). Though their sons had been embroiled in a long-running feud, Ms. Shakur said goodbye to all that, declaring, “We stand united as mothers preserving…

The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, featuring fascinating details about local, national and international rights movements, should be the first stop for any visitor to the city. Captions by Gary Lee Tourists tour a permanent exhibition at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. A sculpture in Birmingham’s Kelly Ingram Park depicts two schoolchildren jailed for demonstrating against…

Obama told NPR last month, “What I really want right now is to get a debt-ceiling deal for my birthday.” His birthday wish came true — but only at the last possible moment, after months of resistance from certain GOP lawmakers with a “my way or the highway” approach to governing. Rather than employ the…

Married to Milwaukee Bucks point guard Keyon Dooling, Dooling is the founder of a nonprofit that supports disadvantaged young women, the editor-in-chief of an online sports magazine and a published author. Dooling says that she wrote My Eyes & My Hair, My Journey Overcoming Challenges of Daily Endeavors to encourage and motivate every young woman…