• Black Love Gift Guide

    Slip a love note into this handcrafted felt heart by artist Tobiah Mundt. Or buy several and hide them all over the house for a romantic treasure hunt. Red Heart Pocket, Tobiah Mundt, $10. Letters of Marque, by actress Stacey Dash, offers high-end lingerie that will leave him speechless. Letters of Marque Silk Cotton Stretch…

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  • Covering a Century of Crisis

    Throughout the Great Migration, The Crisis was a point of reference for blacks newly scattered across America. The Crisis was an early pioneer in challenging standards of beauty, featuring women of color on the front cover of hundreds of issues. The magazine also explored the role of colored soldiers in Europe during World War I.…

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  • Happy Valentine's Day!

    Have you been wondering why things didn’t work out with you and your ex? Read about contributor Rachel Skerritt’s trip down “ex-boyfriend lane” in “Exit Interviews With My Exes.” In “Woman to Woman,” Mark Anthony Neal explores how R&B singers have used soul music to vent about troubles in the black family. Faith Adiele writes…

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  • You Got Served

    Who wears skin-colored shorts under a tennis skirt that’s likely blow in the air as she serves up 100+ mph tennis balls? Queen of the courts Venus Williams! Now if you think this photo’s bad, check out what the Associated Press has floating around on its wires. In his essay on The Root about the diss…

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  • A Raisin in the Sun @ 50

    “All I want is to be able to stand in front of my boy like my father never was able to do to me and tell him he’ll be somebody in this world besides a servant ad a chauffeur.” ‘Raisin in the Sun’ was the first play by a black playwright to enjoy full theatrical…

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  • How to Draw Noir Politics

    There are no superheroes in the real world. Looking at the American Dream realized in Barack Obama, many Americans see a red cape on his back, flapping in the wind. They imagine him descending from the sky to lift them up, from despair, from poverty, from unemployment, from apathy. Just like the “S” on Superman’s…

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  • Keeping Soul Music Honest

    Dionne Farris lent her voice to Arrested Development’s 1992 summer hit, “Tennessee.” After the group’s lead vocalist Speech completes his final verse, Farris’ gospel-like riff carries the song to the final note. READ Mark Anthony Neal’s essay, “Whatever Happened to Dionne Farris?” When Farris released the pop single “I Know,” a Grammy-nominated song, from the album Wild…

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  • The Black Pack

    Meet Washington’s “Black Pack“: Baptized by fire during the grueling two-year presidential campaign, they counted delegates, crunched polls, spun the press, worked doors and phones, and brought America its first African-American president. Click on to see how far they’ve come. Joshua DuBois was largely responsible for the ground Barack Obama made up among religious voters…

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  • Green Collar Hero: John Moore

    A fifth-generation New Orleanian, John Moore had made up his mind that The Big Easy was behind him. After graduating from Morehouse College in 2005, he settled in Atlanta and had no interest in going back. But Hurricane Katrina gave him a chance to put his experience as an environmental studies fellow at Atlanta’s Southface Energy Institute to…

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  • Green Collar Hero: Daniell 'Danni' Washington

    Daniell Washington is a self-proclaimed water baby. Born and raised in Miami, she’s loved the ocean since she was 6 years old. Now, at 22, she has made it her mission to persuade school-aged kids to love the ocean the way she does. Through seaside scavenger hunts and boat trips to find sharks, Washington wants…

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