by Lynette Holloway When Desiree Rogers quietly stepped down as White House social secretary last week, it came as no surprise to Chicago’s political movers and shakers, such as U.S. Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., a longtime African-American leader. “I never expected Desiree Rogers to make a career out of being a social secretary,’’ Davis…

Just weeks after Tavis Smiley announced in January that he’d be ending his annual State of the Black Union conference, the PBS talk show host and activist revealed plans to convene a one-day symposium with leaders and prominent thinkers about the African American agenda.  “The conversation is about whether or not there is a need…

Tracey Bruno was fired up and looking for some answers on Saturday when she entered the cavernous convocation center of Chicago State University to hear Tavis Smiley’s much-publicized panel about the black agenda. But all she got was talk, she said. “When you have these panel discussions, there is nothing concrete, like you can do…

In the end, some African-American pro-life and pro-choice advocates see President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care reform measure as a major defeat. Now, both sides have pledged ardent campaigns against elected officials who voted for the landmark health care reform legislation that passed late Sunday and was signed into law on Tuesday by the president.…

This article was updated at 12:39 p.m. Dorothy I. Height, a commanding force in civil rights movement who stood on the platform with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during his historic “I Have a Dream” speech, died of natural causes at 3:41 a.m. at Howard University Hospital in Washington, DC. She was 98…

The funeral for Dorothy I. Height, a torchbearer of the civil rights movement, will be held at 10 a.m. on April 29 at the Washington National Cathedral, according to former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, who is overseeing the arrangements. The service for Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro…

Charles Butler, a black, Chicago-based conservative talk show host, has been in shouting matches and called a traitor to his race because of his affiliation with the largely white Tea Party movement. Lloyd Marcus, a black, Orlando, Fla.-based, conservative folk singer who wears a black panama hat, leather vest, white shirt and black pants, has…

“National Guard troops patrolled the streets of Chicago’s Negro West Side last night and early today. For the first time in four nights there was no major violence in the riot-torn ghetto area.” That was the first paragraph of a New York Times article that ran on Saturday, July 16, 1966. If Illinois state representatives…