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Leak? It Probably Means That Darren Wilson Won’t Be Charged In Michael Brown’s Death
When I read in last Friday’s New York Times that some of the testimony in the investigation of Ferguson, Mo., police Officer Darren Wilson was leaked, I cringed and then uttered a few expletives because I knew something bad was coming soon. In my years of being a trial lawyer and legal analyst, I’ve seen…
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Laura, the Black Model Who Graced the Art of 19th-Century France
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. No more self-assured statement of middle-class domesticity could be imagined than this charming tableau of maternity and childhood bliss set…
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Did a Black Man Invent Crest Toothpaste?
Editor’s note: For those who are wondering about the retro title of this black-history series, please take a moment to learn about historian Joel A. Rogers, author of the 1934 book 100 Amazing Facts About the Negro With Complete Proof, to whom these “amazing facts” are an homage. Amazing Fact About the Negro No. 96: Which…
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Watch: Obama Warns Against ‘Hysteria’ and 'Fear’ in Ebola Battle
In an effort to tamp down fear about the spread of Ebola in the U.S., President Barack Obama on Saturday urged Americans not to give in to hysteria or fear. “This is a serious disease, but we can’t give in to hysteria or fear—because that only makes it harder to get people the accurate information…
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Detroit 3-Year-Old Killed After Facebook Fight Spills Offline
As a Detroit family grieves the loss of a 3-year-old girl, police are working to sort out details of the senseless shooting that took her life last week, the Huffington Post reports. Amiracle Williams was killed Thursday after a dispute on Facebook spilled offline and led to a confrontation in front of her family’s Detroit…
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Tennis Chief Suspended After Insulting Venus and Serena
The Women’s Tennis Organization suspended and fined a Russian tennis chief Saturday after he made a demeaning remark about Serena and Venus Williams on a television show, CNN reports. Shamil Tarpischev referred to the tennis stars as “the Williams brothers” during a recent appearance on the late-night Russian talk show Evening Urgant. He made the comment…
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Sharpton Blasts Darren Wilson’s Account of Fatal Shooting
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton Saturday rejected a report that police Officer Darren Wilson feared for his life when he shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown last summer in Ferguson, Mo., the New York Daily News reports. During a speech Saturday at the Harlem-based headquarters of his National Action Network, Sharpton accused officials of…
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New Film Highlights Jazz Trumpeter Clark Terry’s Role as Teacher and Mentor
In 1984, my junior year as undergrad at Hamilton College, I had the distinct honor of playing with trumpet legend and educator Clark Terry. I held the first alto-saxophone chair in the school’s jazz big band. The evening before the concert, band director Don Cantwell, Terry, a few select band members and I had dinner…
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Ferguson’s Marchers Have Shown Us That We’re Not Done Marching
I thought marches were done. Over the past 20 years, most of the marches that we’ve seen, big and small, have seemed more like stagecraft than the true reflection of a current struggle. The urgency that characterized historic civil rights marches seemed to have gone away and been replaced by careful scheduling and marketing—like last…
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Trump Agency Accused of Bilking Model Out of Salary
A model has filed a federal lawsuit against Trump Model Management, charging that she was promised an annual salary of $75,000 but received only $3,380.75 for 21 jobs over three years, New York’s Daily News reports. In the suit, a proposed class action, Alexia Palmer alleges that between January 2011 and December 2013, the agency…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
