History doesn’t just happen. History starts with a vision.  In the early 1980s, Rep. George T. “Mickey” Leland, who was then chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, envisioned a more inclusive telecommunications and media world. A decade later, the late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown recognized that the power of the Internet could unlock a brighter…

Black History Month provides Americans an opportunity to celebrate our successes as a nation, reflect on what might have been and begin to craft a more inclusive future. Recent reports about the paucity of minority professionals in tech are all the more devastating because today’s underemployment has its roots in our collective failure to prepare…

Those advocating for a freer and more just America have always used the latest communications technology to further their aims. In 1841, abolitionist Frederick Douglass launched the North Star newspaper using the advanced communications technology of the 19th century, the printing press, to fight for the freedom of black people. Douglass and the suffragists of…