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Meeting Mandela
Twenty years ago, I was in Cape Town, South Africa covering the release of Nelson Mandela for TIME Magazine. It was one of the highlights of my journalistic career. Just hours after this great man walked out of Victor Verster Prison, I was sitting in the Cape Town City Hall just a few feet away…
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The Mandelas, Obama, Tavis and Black Expectations
It may have seemed that Winnie Madikizela-Mandela was talking out of both sides of her mouth or being “two-faced” as one South African newspaper blasted her for publicly criticizing her ex-husband, Nelson. But in fact, much of what she said was true—regardless of which face it came from. Some might have felt the way listening…
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Atlanta and the Powers That Be
When I moved from Los Angeles to Atlanta in 1994, a good friend and colleague told me that I would love the city. ”You’re going to love it here,” he said. ”Just remember one thing. When you leave [the city limits of] Atlanta, you’re in Georgia.” He was right on both counts. I did love…
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Getting Shot at in Chicago
Last week a 13-year old boy named Robert Freeman was shot 22 times while riding his bicycle in front of his home on Chicago’s far south side. Last night I almost became a statistic while taking my daily walk in another south-Chicago neighborhood not far from where Freeman was killed. For the past few months,…
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The Root Cities: Chicago Then and Now
The Second City, the City of Broad Shoulders and the City That Works was Frank Sinatra’s “kind of town.” It is also my hometown. I came here with my mother when I was about 6 months old. Like countless thousands of others from the deep South in the late 1940s and early 1950s, we took…
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Why Jesse Jackson Jr.'s Win Won't Save His Career
In the immortal words of the great New York Yankee pundit Yogi Berra, “It was like déjà vu all over again.” Under a blinding media glare, yet another prominent American politician squirmed to sweep aside a damaging extramarital affair. This time it was Illinois Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., deflecting questions about a two-year-old indiscretion with…
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Closing Cabrini-Green
Sometimes, moving is a happy event. Sometimes it’s not. Last week, when Annie Ricks and five of her children left the 11th-floor apartment in the dilapidated, 15-story high-rise complex where she has lived for the past 22 years, it was a media event. And Ricks, the last tenant in Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green public housing project,…
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Lessons From the Great Compromiser
With the repeal of the controversial “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prevented homosexual soldiers from serving openly in the U.S. military, ratification of the new START Treaty and a surprise 11th-hour passage of the 9/11 first responders’ health care bill, President Obama is being hailed as “the Great Compromiser.” But just a couple of…
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The Root Cities: Who's Got the Money in La La Land?
When Oprah Winfrey decided to throw her billionaire celebrity behind a presidential candidate for the very first time, it was no coincidence that she did it in Los Angeles. Nor was it surprising that while her home is in Chicago, the world’s richest black woman decided to host the 2007 fundraiser for then-Democratic contender Barack…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
