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Report: Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson Has Testified Before Grand Jury
Darren Wilson, the Ferguson, Mo., police officer responsible for the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, has reportedly testified in front of a grand jury. Following a report from StL Today, Fox 2 Now stated that Wilson spoke to the grand jury for four hours on Tuesday. StL Today reporter Robert Patrick learned of the…
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Jesse Jackson Chides the NFL for Hiring an All-White Team of Domestic Violence Advisers
It’s nice that the NFL hired outside consultants to advise the league on its policies regarding players who are involved in domestic violence incidents, but the Rev. Jesse Jackson believes it is incredibly inappropriate that all of the consultants are white, Al-Jazeera reports. The league recently announced that Lisa Friel, Jane Randel and Rita Smith—three…
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Why More Black Americans Should Run for Elected Office
On Labor Day in Milwaukee, President Barack Obama gave a rousing speech to supporters in which he accused Republicans of playing political games instead of helping American families. When the crowd started to boo, the president leaned on a quip from his 2012 re-election campaign: “Don’t boo. Vote!” It’s a familiar sentiment, particularly in the…
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4 Black People Receive the MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grant
Four black Americans will be among those receiving a no-strings-attached, $625,000 stipend—paid out in installments over the next five years—to keep doing what they do best: being geniuses. That’s right, the MacArthur Foundation named 21 “extraordinarily creative people” as the 2014 recipients of its annual MacArthur Fellows Program—widely referred to as the “genius” grants. Four…
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Chris Brown’s New Album Is a Trip Inside the Mind of an Abuser
Why are my hands bleeding? I think I know why/ I’ve been holding on/To the words from your every lie. The fact that Chris Brown happens to release a brand-new album with graphic lyrics like this during what might be the world’s worst week for famous black men and domestic violence has got to be…
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US Will Send 3,000 Military Officers to West Africa to Slow Ebola Catastrophe
The World Health Organization and the United Nations sent out the equivalent of an emergency distress signal Tuesday after reports that the number of people in West Africa infected with the Ebola virus now nears 5,000. More than 2,400 people have died from the disease, the New York Times reports. What’s even more alarming is…
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Smart Students From Low-Income Families Lock Down 4-Year, Tuition-Free Rides
There’s an ascending player in the cluster of nonprofit organizations that help high-achieving students from low-income families get into the best colleges in the nation, and it’s employing a simple strategy to entice qualified students: If you get into the school of your choice, you get to go for free, the New York Times reports. And for all four years, might I add. When the…
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How Africans Could Determine the Fate of Scottish Independence
This Thursday, 4 million people in Scotland will vote in a referendum on whether to end its 307-year political union with England. Final opinion polls show the result on a knife edge, with a remarkable 97 percent of the electorate registered to vote. Among the many communities energized by the debate are 37,000 Scottish residents…
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What I Learned From Writing Race Manners
There’s no question from a reader this time. Just the bittersweet news that this is my last week at The Root and the final installment of Race Manners. I launched the column in March 2013, promising to “take on your toughest questions about the ethics and etiquette of racial interactions in a changing America.” At that…
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Ferguson Grand Jury Has Until January to Decide Whether to Charge Officer
The grand jury convened in the case of the Aug. 9 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., has been given an extension until Jan. 7 to decide whether to bring charges against police Officer Darren Wilson, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The jury had been due to end its four-month term last…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
