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  • Bipartisan Congressional Support for Mandatory-Sentencing Reform

    Rising concerns about the fairness of sentences and the expense of running federal prisons have prompted an unusual alliance of Tea Partiers and liberal lawmakers to push for changes in the country’s mandatory-sentencing laws, the Associated Press reports. The bipartisan congressional push comes as President Barack Obama and his Cabinet focus attention on mandatory sentences,…

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  • Detroit’s 1st White Mayor in 40 Years Takes Office

    Detroit’s new mayor took office Wednesday and got down to brass tacks, despite holding limited powers in a cash-strapped city whose finances are controlled by a state-appointed emergency manager, the Associated Press reports. Mike Duggan, who became the city’s first white mayor in 40 years, held his first staff meetings at City Hall after a…

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  • Quote of the Day: Bill Cosby on Children

    You can find this quote from the book Fatherhood (1986), and others by Bill Cosby, in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Watch Cosby talk about fatherhood 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 the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow…

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  • Rare Footage: Black Greeks Teach Michael Jackson How to Step

    Watch this footage of the King of Pop taking lessons from black Greeks on the art of stepping in 1993. According to the video description, a group of Alphas, AKAs, Deltas and Sigmas were rehearsing for the “Is It Scary” project, an MJ song written for the 1993 film Addams Family Values that never made…

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  • Here’s Your Black Twitter Welcome Manual

    So, @BeccaRum, a white Twitter user (troll?) whose account is now suspended, pondered out loud about black folks, racism and why she feels discriminated against because she wasn’t invited to join black Twitter: ‏@BeccaRum This racism has to stop y’all. ‏@BeccaRum I am getting really sick and tired of being classified as a white person…

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  • George Zimmerman’s Girlfriend Reveals Chilling Details in New Video

    Last November, George Zimmerman’s 27-year-old girlfriend told police that he had threatened her with a shotgun during a heated domestic dispute that led to a 911 call. While the girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, later withdrew the charges, saying in a sworn statement (pdf) that she was “intimidated” during police questioning and believed investigators had “misinterpreted” her…

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  • Gospel Singer Tells Station He Was Stalked by Missing Michigan Doctor

    The mystery surrounding the missing 30-year-old Michigan doctor, Teleka Patrick, deepened Thursday after a report surfaced that she had allegedly stalked gospel singer Marvin Sapp prior to her disappearance, a Grand Rapids news station reports. Sapp reportedly filed for a personal-protection order in September against the Kalamazoo-based medical resident in Kent County, Mich., WOOD-TV reported…

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  • Quote of the Day: Oscar Brown Jr. on Brown Skin

    You can read these lyrics from the song “Afro Blue” (1959), and others by Oscar Brown Jr., in Bartlett’s Familiar Black Quotations. Read the lyric in its full context 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…

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  • How We Put the Negro to Bed and Woke Up Black

    Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Rickey Vincent, a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, to discuss Vincent’s recently released book, Party Music: The Inside Story of the Black Panthers. Watch below:

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  • ‘My Validity as a Life Coach Isn’t Based on My Personal Life,’ Says Demetria L. Lucas

    We’re witnessing the democratization of celebrity. There’s the selfie phenomenon, and those impromptu photo shoots in which everyone seems to take part, even for the most unceremonious occasions. The exploitation of our ordinary lives is faciliated by Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook. Our lives are everywhere. Everyone is everywhere. Everyone is special, therefore no one…

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