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Keli Goff Leaves The Root to Join the Writing Staff of BET’s Being Mary Jane
As summer gives way to fall, The Root is feeling bittersweet about our own transition as Keli Goff, our special correspondent, leaves us to join the writing staff of BET’s Being Mary Jane. Goff joined The Root’s editorial team in 2012 and built a compelling catalog of articles that offer unique insight on topics ranging from politics…
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2nd Black American Fighting for ISIS in Syria Is Reportedly Killed
Abdirahmaan Muhumed is reportedly the second black American to have been killed while fighting in Syria for the jihadist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, according to CBS News and KSMP-TV in Minneapolis. Muhumed was reportedly killed in the same melee that took the life of Douglas McAuthur McCain, the first American—and first black American—known…
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Madam C.J. Walker’s Restored Estate Recaptures a Grand History
Recently I received an email from a young woman who works for the National Trust for Historic Preservation. More or less it read, “Hey, you want to see Madam Walker’s estate?” The Trust, as they like to call it, was hosting a media tour of Villa Lewaro, the official name for the upstate New York…
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Learning Racial Literacy Shouldn’t Be Punishment
I’m a teacher at a private elementary school that is in a predominantly white area but counts diversity and inclusion among its core values. This year we happen to have a Sri Lankan family and an Indian family who have boys the same age, each of whom is picked up by his father after school.…
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Atlanta Cop Accused of Killing Woman He Met on the Internet
Atlanta Police Officer Tahreem Zeus Rana has been charged with murder in the death of Veronica Woodard, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Woodard was a recent transplant from New York when she met Rana through Backpages.com in the romantic-personals section of the site. Woodard’s body was found burned on Aug. 22 in Hapeville, Ga., and…
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Do’s and Don’ts for Teaching About Ferguson
It’s no exaggeration to refer to the shooting death of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of a Ferguson, Mo., police officer, the treatment of protesters and civilians by a militarized police force in in its aftermath, and the context of racial inequality in which they all happened as an American tragedy. But there’s…
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With a Statue to Frederick Douglass, Blacks Have Their Say in What Freedom Means
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. Commanding a low rise in a verdant park in Rochester, N.Y., the monolithic figure of Frederick Douglass stands in eloquent testimony to…
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The Black Workforce by the Numbers
Labor Day, widely considered to mark the unofficial last weekend of summer, is, of course, also an annual celebration of the contributions American workers make to society. What does the black part of that workforce look like? Here, according to BlackDemographics.com, the Department of Labor and other sources, are the numbers: 1. In total, black Americans…
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I Allowed People to Mispronounce My African Name for 25 Years
In a recent interview with the Improper Bostonian, Emmy Award-winning star of Orange Is the New Black Uzo Aduba recalls telling her mother of a childhood desire to be called “Zoe,” a name more easily pronounced than her given Nigerian name, Uzoamaka. Aduba’s mother offered the following reply: “If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Michelangelo…
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Why Labor Day Should Be a Moral Monday
On Labor Day we honor America’s working families. These families build our country, serving as the engine that keeps our country on its path toward a just, sustainable democracy. But in 2014, we urge that Labor Day also be a Moral Monday. The people of North Carolina have established Moral Monday protests as a powerful…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
