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InHAIRitance: Tracee Ellis Ross, Ayanna Pressley and Color Of Change Advocate for Small Black Beauty Businesses and the CROWN Act
Can you believe it’s nearly the end of 2020—and amid everything else, in most states in America we’re still asking for permission to wear our hair as we please? While the freedom to wear naturally textured or traditional Black hairstyles may seem purely aesthetic to the willfully ignorant some, it is in fact part of…
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Got 99 Problems, but a Book Ain't One: Jay-Z's Roc Nation and Random House to Launch 'Roc Lit 101'
If the ongoing pandemic has reignited your passion for reading (or simply deepened it), say no more, Fam. Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter has already Decoded his lyrics in book form, but now, the company he founded will add to its (and his) multimedia entertainment empire, announcing a new publishing partnership with Random House, a division of…
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'She's So Real': The Root Presents: It's Lit! and Michaela Angela Davis Discuss The Meaning of Mariah Carey
Fun fact: we highly considered naming this week’s episode of The Root Presents: It’s Lit! “All I Want for Christmas Is [Truth].” After all, our guest this week is veteran fashion stylist, editor, activist, and now author Michaela Angela Davis, who this year helped bring the long-awaited life story of Mariah Carey to the page—and…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: To Market, to Market
OK, kids—we’re now officially five weeks out from Christmas—and only a week from Black Friday (or, as we’ll be calling it here at The Glow Up, the Blackest Friday). But the pre-deals are already out there and in full effect as TGU rolls out our Wrapping Roll Call—our running list of our favorite Black vendors…
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'We're Better Than This, but Just Barely' The Root Presents: It's Lit Talks Democracy With Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings
“So, it turns out that we’re better than this, but just barely,” laughs Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings in the days after a historic but still contested election, one which her husband, the incomparable Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) unfortunately didn’t live to see. Dr. Cummings’ quip is a play on her late husband’s famous quote and…
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'You Cannot Do Anything Alone': Marley Dias Tells Us How She Gets It Done on The Root Presents It's Lit
When we grow up, we want to be like Marley Dias. At 15, the founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks—which she launched in 2015 at age 10—has already garnered worldwide acclaim and authored a book of her own in 2018: Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You! In 2019, The Root honored her as one of our Young Futurists,…
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'We're Not Some New Anomaly': The Root Presents It's Lit Talks Purpose, Process and Pronouns With George M. Johnson
When The Root first spoke to George M. Johnson (one of our longtime contributors) just ahead of the release of their debut book, All Boy Aren’t Blue: A Memoir Manifesto, we had a feeling they were on the cusp of something groundbreaking. Borne from their own reflections on growing up without the language and representation…
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Deana Lawson Is the 1st Photographer to Win the Guggenheim's Hugo Boss Prize
She was a member of the 2018 class of The Root 100, and now, photographer Deana Lawson is the winner of the Hugo Boss Prize 2020, the biennial award made possible by the luxury fashion label and administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation “to recognize significant achievement in contemporary art,” according to a release.…
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Queen Bey Makes It Reign, Yet Again: Ivy Park Announces a New Drop of 'Drip' in October
You hear that? That’s the pitter-patter of Ivy Park-loving feet rushing to line up for the next drop of merch from Beyoncé’s covetable collab with Adidas, which the brand announced today via a technicolor mountainscape on social media, simply captioned: “DRIP 2 October 30.” That’s right—even before you don your stay-at-home Halloween costume and still…
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'Black People Are America's True Founding Fathers': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Launches With 1619 Project Creator Nikole Hannah-Jones
“I just want people to know the date 1619,” is what New York Times investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones told her editor when pitching the journalistic opus we now know as The 1619 Project. Launched in August 2019, the landmark issue compiled some of the greatest writers and thought leaders of our time to commemorate the…
