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Michelle Obama’s Star-Studded 50th Birthday Party
Stars like Beyoncé, former NBA superstar Magic Johnson, singer Smokey Robinson and actor Samuel L. Jackson showed up at the White House Saturday evening to help Michelle Obama celebrate her 50th birthday, CNN reports. Family and friends left the gathering about 2 a.m. The celebration reportedly featured entertainment by Beyoncé, who performed several songs. The…
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Hey, Madonna, Here’s Why Your N-Word Hashtag Wasn’t OK
Madonna managed to accomplish something this weekend that she’s been unable to do with her music for the last couple of years: She got people talking about her with the same gusto usually reserved for A-list celebrities. You know, like the kind she used to be. Unfortunately for the once-ubiquitous Material Girl, this latest turn…
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Sasheer Zamata Debuts as SNL’s 1st Black Female Cast Member in 6 Years
Sasheer Zamata made her debut Saturday as the first black female cast member on NBC’s Saturday Night Live in six years. She was featured in several sketches during the NBC show, including the first sketch about the bar mitzvah of host and musical guest Drake. During the sketch, she appeared as the girlfriend of the…
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Quote of the Day: Carrie Mae Weems on Art
You can read this text by Carrie Mae Weems from her work Not Manet’s Type (1997) and in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read how the quote is referenced 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 editor-in-chief of The…
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MLK Decried the Psychological Enslavement of Blacks
There is a sad irony in the fact that we are celebrating what would have been the 85th birthday of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., just a month after the New York Times focused national attention on the gap in breast-cancer survival rates between black and white women. This news came on top of…
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Harry Belafonte Embraces the Power of Twitter Activism
He’s 86 years old. He began his human and civil rights advocacy decades before the introduction of social media. Many observers chalked up his public shaming of contemporary black celebrities for failure to engage in his brand of social justice work to a simple generational divide. So one might guess that actor, singer and activist…
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Darren Sharper, Ex-NFL Star, Arrested on Rape Charges
Darren Sharper, the former NFL superstar who was a five-time Pro Bowl selection, was arrested Friday and charged with sexual assault, TMZ reports. The Los Angeles County Sheriff Department’s website reports that Sharper was taken into custody Friday afternoon and released from jail on a $200,000 bond just before midnight. Sharper, 38, has been linked to two…
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Philadelphia Teen Alleges Severe Abuse During Police Pat-Down
Darrin Manning and his high school basketball teammates were dressed for the cold when they hopped off the subway on Jan. 7, wearing hats, gloves and scarves given to them by a teacher, the Raw Story reports. But the 16-year-old student at Mathematics, Civics & Sciences Charter School in Philadelphia found himself in a quandary…
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A Final Blues Song for Amiri Baraka
Newark Symphony Hall in New Jersey turned into a space of mournful celebration on Saturday for Amiri Baraka, the poet, activist and playwright. In many ways the event represented at once a moratorium and requiem for the Black Arts Movement. Actor Danny Glover and professors Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson headlined a star-studded lineup…
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Amiri Baraka: Thousands Pay Respects at NJ Funeral
As the casket bearing activist, poet and playwright Amiri Baraka was carried into his funeral service Saturday in Newark, N.J., bagpipers, African drummers and jazz musicians led a moving procession, the Associated Press reports. Baraka, 79, died Jan. 9 of an undisclosed illness. Actor Danny Glover was slated to officiate Saturday’s service at Newark Symphony…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
