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What Mumia's Case Said About Us
To many inmates at a prison in western Pennsylvania, Mumia Abu-Jamal is “Pops” because he has been around for so long. To various human rights activists and celebrities — including the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, professor Cornel West, members of Amnesty International and the actress Susan Sarandon — he has been a cause and…
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What's Next for Duane Buck on Death Row?
While his presidential campaign is a disaster — and great fodder for late-night jokesters — Texas Gov. Rick Perry still receives hearty ovations when he brags about the number of executions he has presided over during his tenure: 235 and counting. He is probably salivating at the chance to add Duane Buck to his body…
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Blacks and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Blacks in the United States have a complicated history with the Middle East. We identify with the Jewish Old Testament history. Think how many times we’ve crossed the Jordan River or told Moses to tell Pharoah to let our people go. In Moses’ time, Egyptians — Africans — held Jews in captivity. In the mid-20th-century…
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Which Came First: The Chicken or the Waffle?
Like Christopher Columbus, IHOP has “discovered” something that has been around a very long time. For Columbus, of course, it was the New World. For IHOP, it is that venerable dish of fried chicken and waffles. The International House of Pancakes is offering “juicy chicken tenders, crispy Belgian waffles. Both delicious on their own, but…
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Why African Americans Should Care About Social Security
Unemployment seems to be budging very little, especially for blacks, where it hovers around 15.7 percent. Millions of so-called baby boomers are nearing retirement. More people, not fewer, are relying on Social Security benefits, especially African Americans. And as President Obama and Congress begin the process of hammering out a budget for 2012, with standoffs…
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The Carlina White Abduction: Could It Happen Today?
How could a baby go missing from one of the most public of public hospitals in the United States? Almost 24 years after Carlina White was abducted from Harlem Hospital in New York City as a 19-day-old newborn, that question still haunts people who have had connections to public medical centers serving a mostly poor…
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Let's Not Give Haley Barbour Too Much Praise
Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s governor, wants everyone to believe he is the good guy in the case of two black women who have spent nearly 20 years in prison because of an $11 robbery that they may not have even committed. Once the heat over his recent civil rights flap got a little too warm for…
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Restarting the Civil Rights Movement
Ask most Americans to name the most powerful image of the civil rights movement, and it would probably be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Lincoln Memorial sharing his dream of a color-blind society. The masses at the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and his landmark speech symbolized a…
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What Now for Charlie Rangel?
The New York Times has said that, by storming out of his House ethics trial Monday, Rep. Charles Rangel chose to avoid a public airing of the embarrassing charges against him and to instead make his case “in the court of public opinion.” But as Al Sharpton and others point out, Rangel has already done…
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Terri Sewell: From the Black Belt to the House
From Selma to the Ivy League to Oxford to Wall Street to Congress — that is the improbable but impressive arc of Terri Sewell’s life. On Tuesday, Nov. 2, she became the first black woman elected to Congress from Alabama. Bull Connor must be writhing in the afterlife, and his nemesis Martin Luther King Jr.…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
