Responding to a widening water crisis in Detroit, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. on Friday appealed to city officials to place an immediate moratorium on water shutoffs while “a fair, humane and meaningful review process can be evaluated and implemented to help indigent residents.” A letter [pdf]…

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, a wave of commercial hip-hop artists, like Public Enemy, Poor Righteous Teachers, Brand Nubian, Eric B. & Rakim, Paris, Gang Starr, Ice Cube and MC Ren, used their platform to promote political awareness, community uplift and cultural self-determination. They drew their inspiration in part from Islam—as culture, ideology…

An 11-year-old black boy from the United Kingdom is smarter than Albert Einstein. Just let that sink in for a minute. The proof is in a Mensa test that Ramarni Wilfred took earlier this year. The results of the test revealed that Ramarni has an IQ that is higher than Stephen Hawking’s, Bill Gates’ and…

Former Black Panther Party member William Potts Jr. has already spent 13 years in a Cuban prison, described by his lawyer Robert Berube as “one of the worst hellholes on the planet,” for hijacking and diverting a New York Piedmont Airlines flight to Havana in 1984, Reuters reports. “There were no bathroom facilities. There were…

Imagine that you’ve nearly completed the requirements of your four-year—that’s eight terms—apprenticeship program, and with two weeks to go before graduation and promotion to journeyman status, you’re expelled. This happened to a black apprentice attending a school affiliated with the Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee of Sheet Metal Workers Local 25, which represents sheet metal…

Danae Mines, one of 41 women in the New York City Fire Department, just made history as the first to grace the pages of the FDNY Calendar of Heroes that famously features bare-chested firemen, reports the New York Daily News. The 11-year veteran of Engine Co. 60 in the South Bronx, N.Y., is Miss March. Mines,…

My boyfriend’s ex is still close with his mother. She even calls her “Mom.” They have been broken up for over a year, and he says they no longer communicate. Am I wrong for wanting this relationship to stop? It is awkward at family functions when both of us are around. —Anonymous  You are not…

I love weddings. And one of the best weddings I’ve ever attended took place last week in Brooklyn, N.Y. The whole evening was a perfect blend of elegance and casualness. Rose petals were strewn about a wooden deck, and a Juilliard-trained musician bowed her violin as 100 well-dressed guests sat underneath the setting sun, sipping…

“I think Olivia Pope is the bomb. And if that’s the way we’re going to get it, then we need to get it.” “It,” according to Alexis De Veaux, is black feminism. The retired professor of women’s studies at the State University of New York, Buffalo, says she does not question the legitimacy of popular…