In the wake of Trayvon Martin’s brutal death, Donna Britt has written an opinion piece in the Washington Post about her brother, who was shot and killed by police officers three decades ago in Gary, Ind. The cases are hauntingly similar.  The unavoidable question — Which image is accurate? — is especially difficult when you’re…

From Brothers (& Me): A Memoir of Loving and Giving:  We think of “black history” as the triumphs and challenges of past centuries — slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights movement. But history is more intimate than that, as much about yesterday as 1965. Because every woman frets about whether she’ll be embraced or rejected…

Losing a friend to sudden death is a shocking and confusing event. Losing a friend whose unexpected death is newsworthy is even more bewildering, I recently learned while reading recollections of a departed loved one and barely recognizing him. It’s been a week since I heard that my longtime friend, Emmy-winning TV writer David Mills,…