• Joyful Noise, Part 2: 25 More Gospel Songs You Need to Hear

    The Stellar Gospel Music Awards honor the best and most inspirational artists in the genre today. From traditional to contemporary, with some hip-hop and R&B thrown in, the artists nominated this year can definitely raise the roof. The 30th annual award show, which is taped on March 28 in Las Vegas, will air on TV…

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  • US Justice Department Will Not Bring Federal Charges Against George Zimmerman  

    The Justice Department will not bring federal charges against George Zimmerman, the 31-year-old Florida man who was tried and found not guilty in the 2012 shooting death of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, the New York Times reports. Federal prosecutors found that they did not have “sufficient evidence” to prove that Zimmerman “intentionally violated Martin’s civil…

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  • We Need a New ‘Straight A’ Strategy to Bridge the Digital Divide

    Black History Month provides Americans an opportunity to celebrate our successes as a nation, reflect on what might have been and begin to craft a more inclusive future. Recent reports about the paucity of minority professionals in tech are all the more devastating because today’s underemployment has its roots in our collective failure to prepare…

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  • What a Black Man’s Cool, Detached Gaze Says About Race in the Early Days of Italy

    This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black Archive & Library at Harvard University’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. From the other side of a narrow ledge, a black man looks out from a picture with an air of…

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  • Reconstruction-Era Voting-Rights Activist Claimed by an Assassin’s Bullet

    In the late 1940s, a historian predicted that one day all of Mississippi’s schoolchildren, black and white, would come to know the name of Charles Caldwell, who gave his life during the Reconstruction struggle for black citizenship, economic opportunity and equal rights for women. It was a bold prediction at a time when the textbooks of…

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  • Meet Being Mary Jane’s ‘Cutty Buddy,’ Thomas Q. Jones

    The closing scenes of last Tuesday night’s Being Mary Jane threw us all for a loop. After shooing away her ex, Mary Jane returned home and seemed to be in for the night. Suddenly she was getting dressed and heading back out to see a man we were introduced to only as “Cutty Buddy,” her…

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  • Apple’s New Emojis of Color Are Almost Here

    Apple unveiled its diverse emoji sets in both OS X 10.10.3 and iOS 8.3 beta 2 Monday, according to The Verge. The new selections are available in six different color schemes that change the hair and skin tones of the previously standard Caucasian options. Consumer demand has been mounting in recent years for Apple to…

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  • Transgender Inmate Sues Ga. Prison for Being Denied Hormone Treatments

    The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit group specializing in civil rights, filed a lawsuit Friday against Georgia’s Department of Corrections on behalf of 36-year-old transgender inmate Ashley Diamond, the New York Daily News reports. The suit seeks to have Diamond’s hormone therapy restored. According to the Daily News, Diamond, a Georgia native, has been…

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  • Watch: 12-Year-Old Ga. Boy Blasts Obama for Being Weak on ISIS and Terrorism

    C.J. Pearson, a 12-year-old middle school student from Georgia, uploaded a video on his YouTube channel Saturday in which he blasted President Barack Obama for not really loving America, because if he did, C.J. claimed, Obama “would call ISIS what it really is—an assault on Christianity [and] an assault on America,” Pearson said. The video…

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  • In Their Moment of ‘Glory,’ Common and John Legend Showed the World Why the Selma Struggle Truly Is ‘Now’

    Despite being nominated in only two categories, Selma stole the Oscars Sunday night by virtue of a best original song victory that was preceded by an electrifying performance of the song, “Glory,” by John Legend and Common. The musical performance added heart and soul to what was an otherwise pedestrian Academy Awards telecast. Accompanied by…

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