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Was It Tanzania, Not Britain, Where the Miniskirt Was Invented?
In the 1960s, young women of all races around the world made the miniskirt a racy, fashion statement. The garment grew in popularity in the 1970s. The mainstream fashion industry claimed the miniskirt as a British original popularized by Mary Quant, owner of the chic London boutique Bazaar. Yet, when I was doing research on…
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How a Look Inside a Slave Ship Turned the Tide Toward Abolition
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. Reduced to its essential details, the slim lines of an 18th-century sailing vessel reveal the shocking accommodation of its interior…
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Marie Laveaux: The Vodou Priestess Who Kept New Orleans Under Her Spell
There is a painting from 1920 of New Orleans Vodou priestess Marie Laveaux. The solemn woman in the portrait gazes, almost mournfully, at us with just a hint of the power and mayhem that resided behind those eyes. It was in 1830s New Orleans that Marie Laveaux emerged as a prominent spiritualist and healer. She…
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August Wilson: He Wrote About the ‘Frustration and the Glory’ of Being Black
American Masters—August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand, airing on PBS Feb. 20, gives an inside look at a private man referred to by many as an outsider. Wilson, the brilliant Pittsburgh-born playwright who wrote 10 plays—nine of which took place in his hometown—covering 10 decades, explored the cultural ideas and attitudes of what…
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Black Tributes That Aren’t in the Hood
Much like American history, memorials tend to be segregated along racial lines, with buildings and streets bearing the names of prominent African Americans appearing primarily in communities of color. Raise your hand if you’ve driven down a Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard or a Malcolm X Way while going to visit the relatives. So today…
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Cigar-Smoking, Gun-Toting Mary Fields Carried Montana’s Mail
Who was the first African American to drive a U.S. mail coach? Cascade, Mont., was the quintessential frontier town of the Wild West, packed with saloons and home to a handful of settlers and gold seekers who built up the area after the railroad arrived. As statehood was approaching in 1889, all of Montana had…
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Watch: Stars of The Book of Negroes on Importance of History
A little-reported episode of history is the subject of a new miniseries this week on BET. The Book of Negroes, based on Lawrence Hill’s 2007 novel, tells the story of 3,000 slaves who worked for the British during the American Revolution in exchange for freedom in Canada. Unlike previous films about slavery, the protagonist of The…
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Miss. Judge Delivers Lesson to Men Sentenced in ‘Jim Crow-Style Lynching’
A federal District Court judge in Mississippi delivered a powerful lesson last week to two men sentenced in the brutal 2011 death of a 49-year-old auto-plant worker, which occurred after the two men decided to “go [f—k] with some [n—gers],” according to Raw Story, which cites various media reports. Three of the defendants—Deryl Dedmon, Dylan…
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Moral Mondays’ Barber Says America’s Political System Suffers From a ‘Heart Problem’
Raleigh, N.C., Saturday, Feb. 14: An African-American Muslim imam, Oliver Muhammad, offered the call to prayer; members of black Greek-letter fraternities served as event marshals; and as marchers in North Carolina’s Moral Monday movement began their walk across downtown Raleigh, the state’s capital, Chapel Hill Town Council member Maria Teresa Palmer announced—in Spanish—that “interpreters will…
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NYC Public Schools to Overhaul Discipline Code
In an effort to curb severe punishments that have mostly targeted minorities, Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration on Friday announced changes to New York City public schools’ discipline code, according to the New York Times. Under the new plan, principals will have to seek Department of Education approval for suspensions of any student from kindergarten…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
