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Jordan Davis: A Dream Denied
Jordan Davis would have celebrated his 19th birthday on Sunday. Instead the 17-year-old was killed by Michael Dunn at a Florida gas station in 2012 when Jordan and his friends refused to turn down their loud music. On Saturday night, Dunn was found guilty of three counts of second-degree attempted murder but was not convicted…
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The Root Live: Bring It to the Table Tackles Career Changes
In many African-American families, when we have an important issue to discuss we gather in the kitchen and bring it to the table. That’s especially true of financial discussions, whether about how to pay the bills, how to send Junior to college or where to start looking for a new job. For the next nine…
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Memo to Park Service: Don’t Put Black Women’s History Away on the Shelf
As a young graduate student conducting research on the black freedom struggle, I had the distinct honor and privilege of visiting the National Archives for Black Women’s History, a vital repository of the history of black women’s contributions to this country, housed in the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, a national historic site in the…
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A Slave’s Exotic Beauty Becomes a Status Symbol in France
This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Research Institute, part of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. Presented to the viewer in the magnificent attire of a servant,…
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Ugandans Defend Criminalizing Gay People and Tell Obama to Back Off
The call from the BBC in London came at 7:30 Monday morning. They wanted to know if I could be a guest on the BBC World Service News radio talk show World Have Your Say to discuss Barack Obama’s public and pointed condemnation of a proposed Ugandan measure that would harden the African nation’s already…
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Figure Skater Surya Bonaly Flipped Her Way Into Our Hearts
Winter Olympic sports are notoriously lacking in racial diversity, but there have been a handful of black stars to emerge at the games over the years. One of them is Surya Bonaly. The figure-skating legend won the national title in France a record nine times and was a world silver medalist three times. She appeared at…
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In the Land of the Free, We Shouldn’t Get the Michael Dunn Verdict
We Americans end our national anthem with a question: “O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” But in Florida—the Sunshine State—those of us whose skin has been kissed by the sun are still awaiting a response to that question. For the second…
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Twitter Responds to Michael Dunn Verdict With #DangerousBlackKids
Twitter is littered with adorable photos of black children today under the hashtag #dangerousblackkids, which pokes fun at and defies the rampant criminalization of black children. In response to the Michael Dunn trial, in which Jordan Davis was characterized as a dangerous, weapon-brandishing thug, Twitter user @thewayoftheid shared this photo: More images of black children…
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Quote of the Day: C.L.R. James on Revolution
You can read this quote by C.L.R. James, from a manuscript, “The People of the Gold Coast” (1960), in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read more about C.L.R. James here. Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and founding director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is also…
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I Won’t Let America Ignore How Dope Black Millennials Are
I believe in black millennials. This shouldn’t be noteworthy or unusual, but unfortunately, it is. I’m up against the recurring imagery that shows us shouting and fighting one another like untamed creatures (hey, thanks, WorldStarHipHop, The Real Housewives of Atlanta and Love and Hip Hop). Then, the moment we choose to evoke some sort of…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
