Civil rights activists targeted Sunday-afternoon restaurantgoers in California and New York to remind them of the black lives lost to police violence across the country. The event, called “Black Brunch,” began last year in Oakland, Calif., according to Yahoo News, after the tragic police killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in…

We didn’t have to know you to know that you knew us, got us and embodied us. That you spoke like us and got the duality of being both a professional and a poet. That a home run ball leaving the park wasn’t “hi-yoooo!” it was “boo-yahhhh!” And you got the difference for us, the…

The girlfriend of John Crawford III, who was fatally shot by police in a Beavercreek, Ohio, Wal-Mart store, was killed in a car crash Thursday, according to ABC 22 Now. The news station reports that Tasha Thomas, 26, of Fairborn, Ohio, and 30-year-old Frederick Bailey of Dayton, Ohio, both died in the crash around 3…

In November, New York City-based fashion photographer Andre Perry was in the subway on his way to his SoHo office from his Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, home when a plainclothes officer stopped him at the Union Square station because of his fashion accessory. “Do you know you can hurt someone with this?” the officer, Jonathan Correa, asked…

Revlon isn’t having the best start to the new year, with an explosive lawsuit launched against the company claiming that CEO Lorenzo Delpani made several derogatory comments and believes that he can “smell” black people when they enter a room. But the allegations don’t stop there: Delpani, who is Italian, also reportedly hates “small-minded” and…

Cleveland police would like to give the investigation into Tamir Rice’s fatal shooting by a police officer, as well as investigations into all subsequent deadly police encounters, to an outside agency, according to an Associated Press report. AP notes that Michael McGrath, the city’s current safety director and former police chief, has been in talks with…

As millions across the country gather to bid adieu to 2014, several activist groups nationwide continue with their mission to end police brutality and are urging demonstrators to gather for peaceful protests on New Year’s Eve. Marked by a year of unarmed black men, women and children being beaten or killed by white police officers…

An Ellen DeGeneres dance challenge, which centers around people doing fun dances behind unsuspecting strangers, took a brutal turn as a fan attempted to dance behind a New York City police officer who didn’t take kindly to his moves. Like a bad scene out of Footloose, the Free Thought Project notes, YouTube personality Alexander BOK…

A Ferguson, Mo., police spokesman who called the makeshift memorial to Michael Brown “a pile of trash in the middle of the street” has been placed on unpaid leave, according to Yahoo News. According to the Washington Post, the memorial, which included cards, flowers, candles and stuffed animals, was in the middle of Canfield Drive,…

Around 11 a.m. Saturday, a South Los Angeles family was preparing to hold a funeral service for Jonté Lee Reed, 19, at Ebenezer Baptist Church. As the family drove to the church, they received a call from the funeral director telling them that the hearse with Reed’s body had been stolen. According to television station…