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Of Course There Are Black Serial Killers
When 57-year-old Lonnie Franklin Jr. was charged with 10 murders in the grisly Los Angeles “Grim Sleeper” case last week, it begged the question — at least in my mind — about other black serial killers, because there’s a popular, media-driven perception that such crimes are usually committed by clever white men. So I set…
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6 Myth-Crushing Murderers
News of the horrific alleged crimes of “Grim Sleeper” Lonnie Franklin Jr. undercuts the persistent myth that there are no black serial killers. Below are snapshots of six of the nation’s most prolific serial killers of African descent. Jake Bird (1901-1949), a transient, might have been one of the most prolific serial killers in the…
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In the Aftermath of the Oscar Grant Verdict: What Now?
“My son was murdered. He was murdered,” Wanda Johnson said repeatedly, forcefully, as she spoke out against the verdict in the trial against former transit officer Johannes Mehserle, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter but acquitted of second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter in the videotaped shooting death of her unarmed son, Oscar Grant. A Los…
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Bad Luck for Chicago's Bloody Summer
Just last weekend, a veteran Chicago law enforcement officer said he was hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the city’s longstanding handgun ban because it would help address the city’s intractable gang problem. “That way everybody would be able to carry a gun,” said the veteran officer, who patrols the border of…
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Arizona's Immigration Law Is Only the Beginning
With anti-immigration sentiments overtaking the nation like bad reality television, it should come as no surprise that lawmakers in at least 19 states are considering or have passed laws similar to Arizona’s statute that targets illegal immigrants. William Gheen, a conservative who is president of Americans for Legal Immigration, a nonpartisan political action committee based…
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Another Former Presidential Contender Goes Green
The last time The Root checked in with former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, it was to get her thoughts on what it takes for black women to make it in politics. She was, after all, the first black female senator in Congress, serving in Illinois from 1993 to 1999. She was also ambassador to New…
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Love on the Flip Side of the Down Low
All the hype about closeted ”down-low” brothers a few years back sent a chill through the bedrooms of quite a few women and men. Now, a New York City-based documentarian could dislodge an iceberg with an online video series that explores the experiences of some self-identified straight women who date openly bisexual men. Arielle Loren,…
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When the Police Fail, Then What?
“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…
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Black Tea Partiers Speak
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…
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Funeral Services for Dorothy Height, Civil Rights Pioneer
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…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
