Who are today’s standout black leaders, innovators and culture shapers? Who are the most influential African Americans 45 and under? To answer these tough questions, The Root looked back at the year’s most significant moments and themes and asked, “Who made this happen?” As we have each year since 2009, we scrutinized the more than 500…

Ray Rice broke his silence Tuesday for the first time following his indefinite suspension by the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL, telling an ESPN reporter that his main objective at the moment was to be strong for his wife, Janay, and his family. “I have to be strong for my wife. She is so strong. ……

I don’t pretend to know Janay Rice’s story. And I don’t claim to know everything there is to know about her marriage to Ray Rice—or what was going on in her head and in her heart when she hit “share” on the Instagram message that went public Tuesday morning. I do, however, understand her plea…

The Root is kicking off a new season of The Root Live: Bring It to the Table in high style. The 16-week video series, sponsored by Prudential, which explores financial issues in the African-American community, premieres Wednesday, Sept. 10, with a star-studded Fashion Week event. Designer Byron Lars of Byron Lars Beauty Mark is joined by…

On Monday the Baltimore Ravens terminated Ray Rice’s contract after the release of a video showing him assaulting his then-fiancee, Janay Palmer, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.  The decision to let Rice, 27, go was immediately applauded by everyone from NFL players to women’s rights organizations. In Twitter conversations such as #WhyIStayed, survivors of abuse…

The efforts to treat people infected with the Ebola virus and to stop the transmission of the disease have led to a domino effect in Liberia that is causing infections to grow at an exponential rate. According to the BBC, potentially infected people take taxicabs to hospitals and treatment centers, the type of public vehicle…

It’s hard to imagine that the very place Somali women and girls go to seek refuge from the famine and fighting that have engulfed their country—shelter camps organized by African Union troops in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu—is where some of them are allegedly being raped by soldiers tasked with protecting them.  According to Al-Jazeera, Somali women…

“Hiring more white teachers is not the best way to improve education for students, particularly students of color.” This recent commentary by a black student from New Orleans in the Washington Post predictably aroused the ire of readers who accused the young man of reverse racism, playing the race card and divisiveness. That’s no surprise.…

At the end of a summer when unarmed black men seem to have become, increasingly, routine targets of law enforcement, it would be easy to overstate the significance of an advance for people of color in the world of fashion. But with the caveat that this obviously isn’t the most pressing news of the day,…