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Watch: Michelle Carter, the Shot-Put Diva, on Loving Your Body, No Matter Your Size
USA Track & Field star Michelle Carter walks into any space exuding confidence, with a bright smile, carefully combed tresses and a freshly beat face. Carter is the 2016 Olympic gold medalist in the women’s shot put and an entrepreneur. Can you say, #BlackGirlMagic? But life hasn’t always been a crystal stair for this three-time…
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On Maya Angelou’s Birthday, Black Girls Breathe Life Into Her Words
“If I had my druthers, I’d rather be born black, American, female and in the 20th century. And I was. What luck I have,” said Maya Angelou in 2010. With these words, Angelou spoke with the White House on the cusp of receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the highest civilian honor in the United States,…
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Watch: Women at Work: This First Lady Redefines the Role
Editor’s note: For Women’s History Month, The Root is celebrating women from a wide range of professional industries in our video series Women at Work. “People expect women to be a certain way. They expect black women to be a certain way,” says Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. “You…
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Watch: Women at Work: ‘We’re Playing the Game, but at a Different Angle’
Editor’s note: For Women’s History Month, The Root is celebrating women from a wide range of professional industries in our video series Women at Work. Ariel Lopez and Janel Martinez are two Afro-Latinx millennials living in the Bronx, N.Y. And they’re techies, too. “I think tech is the most important industry. It is the lifeline…
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Watch: Michael Eric Dyson Explains How Having White Skin Is the Biggest Handout in History
Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America is Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson’s 20th book—and it was his most difficult to write. Inspired by a July 2016 New York Times essay responding to the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Dyson uses Tears We Cannot Stop as an opportunity to…
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Watch: James Baldwin, in Our Words and His
James Baldwin is unequivocally one of the most prolific writers of his time. A queer black man, he brought life to the African-American experience through his novels, essays, debates and public lectures. And now a new generation is getting to experience the power of those words in the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro.…
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Watch: David Oyelowo Discusses His New Obsession, A United Kingdom
The film A United Kingdom tells the true story of an interracial couple—Seretse Khama (David Oyelowo) and Ruth Williams (Rosamund Pike)—who were drawn together by love but whose relationship was fraught with great trial. The adversities that this couple faced in the late ’40s are no surprise—namely, laws and systems to drive the pair apart…
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Watch: Ava DuVernay on 13th, Her Life's Work and Magnifying the Beauty of Black People
Some might call Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th prophetic. In just over 90 minutes, DuVernay traces the decisions, going as far back as the end of slavery, that led to the creation of the monstrosity known as the prison-industrial complex—and, thus, explains how it is that modern-day slavery exists. Telling the stories of black and brown…
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Have a Very Obama Christmas
The holidays are here, and we’re gushing over the Obamas. C’mon, it’s the end of the year, and people tend to get reflective around this time. Don’t judge. Still, the first family, the first black first family, for the past eight years have lived in a house built by slaves and have represented this country…
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Watch: The Root Staff Executes the Battle of the Fruitcakes
The holidays are here, and what would the holidays be without fruitcake? For many, the answer would be “a time to share love with friends and family, just without a fruitcake.” Touché. Still, here at The Root, we acknowledge that to some, fruitcake is a tradition. So The Root staff decided to put this Christmas…
