The deaths of two New York City police officers are tragic. They were two men of color who likely experienced the realities of a racist society and were unjustifiably slain. Ismaaiyl Brinsley killed Asian-American and Hispanic-American officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos by shooting them at point-blank range while they sat in their police vehicle…

Watching the demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., I couldn’t escape thinking what impact they might be having on protesters’ employment status. Fifty-two years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer lost her home and her job as a sharecropper because she dared to attempt to register herself and 17 other blacks to vote in Mississippi. Hamer said of losing these…

I am a Christian and a black man. My wife and I wife attend a majority-white church in central New Jersey. We are not an anomaly. The few majority-white churches I’ve visited over the past several years had significant sprinkles of black folks in their pews. Our faith has served an important personal, communal and…