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Oprah Winfrey to Interview Michael Jackson Accusers After Leaving Neverland Airs
As we all wait with bated breath for yet another one of our childhood heroes to go down in flames, Oprah Winfrey plans to be there every little step of the way, like Bobby Brown. According to reports, Winfrey will be hosting a panel discussion with Michael Jackson sexual abuse accusers Wade Robson and James…
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‘The Obama Effect’: POTUS and Forever First Lady Portraits Draw More Than 1 Million Visitors to Museum
Let’s be clear, before The National Portrait Gallery unveiled the presidential portraits of Barack Obama, by Kehinde Wiley, and Michelle Obama, by Amy Sherald, most of us had not checked the 50-year old museum on our D.C. things to do list. However, like the world, the Obamas changed things. In fact, according to the Washington…
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For Us, By Us: Newark’s Blackness Doing It for the Culture, the Politics, the People
Newark is so black that during the Great Migration, folks thought it was “New York,” got off the train, and stayed. True story. Newark so black they gotta mayor named Ras, a royal title in Amharic, and you know how black people love grand names (also see: NWK native Queen Latifah— who named herself). New-Ark,…
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This Black History Month, Let’s Recognize the African-American Prisoners Who Helped Build America
Like much of the rest of the discourse around jails, prisons and mass incarceration, Black History Month is not usually a time when we talk about the thousands of black prisoners that were forced to build America after the Civil War. It’s time to recognize them because the postwar South was literally rebuilt on their…
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Jussie Smollett Charged With Felony by Chicago Police Department [Updated]
The Empire has fallen! Or, more like, the Jussie Smollett disaster that is reading like a Lee Daniels script continues to give us enough plot turns to make us sick. Chicago police, who are not the most credible outfit because of this, this, this, this, and this (that last one stretching back more than 50…
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Harlem’s Blackness Is Triumphant. When It Comes to Blackest City, There Is No Competition
There are very few words synonymous with blackness. “Harlem” fits that bill. Harlem is a place, yes, but it is also an idea; it is an exhortation. It is our very own Oz. In fact, Harlem, unlike most things in America that signify blackness—“inner city,” “urban,” “welfare”—is triumphant. It represents the very best of us,…
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Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Jermaine Dupri Talk Super Bowl LIII, While the Mothers of the Movement Walk From Participating in the Festivities
On yet another cold winter day in New York City, high above the West Side Highway, a small group of luminaries representing the ATL descended on Manhattan to talk Super Bowl LIII. Among them: Kate Atwood, Executive Director of ChooseATL; Dan Corso, Super Bowl LIII Host Committee Board of Directors and President of Atlanta Sports…
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Dear Black Boy: You Can Fly Even If You Can’t Run, Shoot or Dribble, Says Martellus Bennett
More than two years out, many of us still can’t stomach the sickening shooting deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling by police. That senseless carnage, caught on video for all to see, sent millions reeling and many into action. Some marched, some knelt, some prayed, wept and/or raged on social media. Some, like NFL…
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Black Artists Unite to Revive Black Wall Street’s Legacy
At the turn of the 20th century, the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, known as Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, Okla., was an epicenter of black wealth in the United States. From 1905 to 1921, it was a flourishing community filled with black families who owned businesses, homes, newspapers and churches. It was also the site…
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Stacey Abrams Exemplifies the Kwanzaa Principle of Imani—Consciously Moving Forward Against Forces Seen and Unseen
The last day of Kwanzaa is represented by the principle of Imani, or faith—the essence of what has gotten us through when there seemed no way out. Black people, in general, are a spiritual people. But we are also a people of faith, which is not necessarily attached to formal religion. In the words of…
