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Landmark Affirmative Action Case in Court Again
The buildup was big: First the Supreme Court eviscerated a portion of the Voting Rights Act. Then it declared that a federal ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional. But when the justices ruled back in June on a case challenging an affirmative action program at the University of Texas at Austin, they sent the case,…
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Activists Battling 'Stand Your Ground' State by State
The hearing in room 417 started a lot like any other. The chairman took roll call. A stream of Florida elected officials spent a half hour paying almost impossibly earnest homage to the democratic process and the importance of civil debate. Then, a host of student activists, gun rights and gun control advocates took their…
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Renisha McBride Is Dead, and ‘Stand Your Ground’ Questions Emerge
Editor’s note: This story has been updated from an earlier version to reflect new developments. A Michigan woman’s death has joined the ranks of shootings that gun control advocates and those concerned about the dangers of racial profiling attribute to a gun owner emboldened by a “Stand your ground” law. On Nov. 3, Detroit…
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A Year After Sandy: Poor Still Out in Cold
(The Root) — In the year since Hurricane Sandy, a Category 2 storm, washed ashore in New Jersey, it has been Mike McNeil’s job to help people access federal aid to help restore storm-damaged homes or just find a solid and mold-free place to live. On Monday McNeil, who is chairman of the NAACP New…
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Girl, 5, Kills Herself With Gun
(The Root) — It was supposed to be a quick trip to the store, a 10:30 a.m. walk for a gallon of milk. On June 23 in New Orleans, Brandajah Smith — a dark-chocolate confection of a 5-year-old with a mind full of questions — needed milk for her cereal. But getting to the store…
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Man Paralyzed by Cops Faces 20 Years
(The Root) — On Nov. 11, 2012, just before 10 p.m., Leon Ford Jr. looked in his rearview mirror and saw flashing lights. Ford pulled to the side of the road. Almost everything that happened next — whether Ford should have been stopped, what happened when Pittsburgh police officers approached Ford’s car, what Ford and…
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Gun Violence's No. 1 Target: Black Children
(The Root) — In the weeks since the Washington Navy Yard shooting, the city of New Orleans reached a tragic milestone. All told, 108 people have been murdered in the Crescent City so far this year. In September two black girls, one 11 years old and the other age 2, were shot and killed. And…
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What the 1963 Church Bombing Taught Us
(The Root) — In 1988, not long after civil rights lawyer, and Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder, Morris Dees won a case against the Ku Klux Klan that bankrupted one of the hate group’s major arms, Dees took the podium at a national NAACP gathering. He talked about 19-year-old Michael Donald’s 1981 death at the…
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Black Political Operatives on 'Scandal'
When ABC’s Scandal returns Oct. 3, political operative and crisis manager Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) will undoubtedly wrestle with a whole new slate of clients and political controversies. But this season she will do it while at the center of her very own scandal. Her ongoing affair with the president has been exposed. The Root reached…
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'Boardwalk Empire': Dressed to Impress
When the fourth season of Boardwalk Empire premieres on HBO this Sunday, Sept. 8, at 9 p.m. EDT, fans of the show will have another opportunity to glimpse a fictionalized account of power, politics and personal struggles in Prohibition-era Atlantic City, N.J. This season Jeffrey Wright joins the cast as Harlem gangster Dr. Valentin Narcisse,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
