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The Root Presents It's Lit!: What We Read to Get Us Through 2020
Merry Christmas or whatever you’re celebrating this holiday weekend, Bibliophiles! Understandably, you may not be able to celebrate in person with loved ones this year, but we hope you’re still finding comfort and joy—perhaps in the pages of a good book? There may not have been much to celebrate in 2020, but there was an…
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How to Get Away With Making Viola Davis 'Disappear': Ma Rainey's Hair and Makeup Leads Talk Transformation
If you’ve yet to watch the Netflix-produced adaptation of August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, you are missing out on a moment in Black history—both long past and very recent. While the title evokes one of the great blues singers of nearly a century ago, what is already being considered one of the play’s seminal…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: Help Them Heal for the Holidays
At this point, all of us likely know someone—or several someones—who contracted and hopefully survived COVID-19, as well as some “long haulers,” those who experience symptoms long-term. While this holiday is most certainly hitting different for all of us, for those who’ve endured the uncertainty and terror of this unpredictable and debilitating virus, they deserve…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: In Celebration of the Essentials
What do you get the person who has given so many so much—in many cases, the gift of care, comfort and survival—this year? As 2020 comes to a close, the indisputable heroes in our midst are essential workers, especially those who’ve risked their own health, lives, and constant burnout to care for those with COVID-19.…
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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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'We Write to Tell the Truth': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Talks the Poetic Justice of 2020 With Nikki Giovanni
Of all the adjectives we’d use to describe 2020, “good” wouldn’t exactly top the list. But as this most eventful year comes to a close, hosting literary icon and activist Nikki Giovanni on our new podcast, The Root Presents: It’s Lit! will undoubtedly be one of its high points. Ironically, to hear the legendary poet…
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'It’s the Right Thing to Do': Gabrielle Union Tells Us Why Amplifying Black Businesses Feeds Her Soul
You may have been pleasantly surprised to see Gabrielle Union urging you to make it a #BuyBlack Friday on Facebook Live this year, but like her now-decades-long career in the industry (“I’m almost 50 and [they] treat me like an ingenue,” she jokes), don’t call it a comeback—or a trend. She’s been about that #BuyBlack…
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Wrapping Paper Roll Call: Give Their Hustle Some Glow
If there’s one gift the work-from-home set would likely love to receive this season, it’s boundaries. While there are definite benefits to eschewing the commute and daily lunch budget for comfortable pants (or none at all) and working from bed (if you insist), there are also significant downsides as the lines between that aforementioned work…
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OK, Are We Ready to Talk About Jenna Bush Hager Hosting 'A Celebration of Toni Morrison'?
“Say what, now?” has been the typical (if not most explicit) response to an announcement made this week that Jenna Bush Hager, former first daughter-turned-Today with Hoda and Jenna co-host, would be hosting “A Celebration of Toni Morrison” on the morning show December 21, 2020. Yes, you heard that right: Jenna “My Dad Is George…
