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Why They Booed at Nelson Mandela’s Memorial
The first sign that something was off at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service on Tuesday came when the crowd of 60,000 people started booing en masse—a low, bovine sound that shook the Soweto stadium and seemed terribly at odds with the patient, forgiving man who brought them here. They were not booing Mandela; they were booing…
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Why Did Obama Shake Castro’s Hand? Home Training
Anyone who can somehow remember way back to the olden days—May 1, 2011, to be exact—knows that President Barack Obama is quite capable of delivering a stand-up routine, dressed in black tie and smiling in front of a bunch of journalists, while at the same time a team of Navy SEALs crosses the Afghanistan-Pakistan border—on…
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Quote of the Day: Henry Parks on Pursuing Your Dreams
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 the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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I’ve Finally Come to My Senses About R. Kelly
Consider this a public penance. Last year I wrote a story for Clutch magazine, “No Longer Trapped in the Closet,” boldly defending my decision to still like R. Kelly’s music despite the rumors surrounding him about his proclivity for sex with underage girls. You have to understand, R. Kelly’s first solo album dropped in 1993,…
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8 of Our Favorite Photos of Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela in London for the concert at Hyde Park on June 27, 2008, to celebrate his life—and his upcoming 90th birthday. President Nelson Mandela addresses residents of a squatter camp during his 1990 tour of South Africa’s townships. Nelson Mandela and his then-wife, Winnie, raise their fists to a cheering crowd after Mandela’s 1990…
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Image Recalls Christianity’s Arrival in Ethiopia
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. This remarkable visual account of the bringing of Ethiopia into the…
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Great R&B Albums You Missed While Grooving to ‘Blurred Lines’
Terron Moore is social media editor at The Root. The overwhelming effect of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” in 2013 was cemented in Friday’s announcement of Grammy nominees: The ubiquitous Pharrell-produced tune finds itself in the running for record of the year after topping the charts in 14 different countries and holding atop the Billboard Hot…
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The Best Black Web Series of All Time Is Back
Yes, I said it. Got 2 B Real, the diva talk show created by @PattiLahelle, is the greatest black Web series in the history of the internet. Even Issa Rae tweets its one-liners: Thanks to Got 2 B Real, the Internet is littered with countless examples of masterful executions of shade. The series officially ended…
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Happy HipHopKwanzaa!
It’s the holidays, which means it’s time for all of us black folk to mull over Kwanzaa, its legitimacy, its lack thereof, its history, its participation rate, etc. Or we could just snark it to death. @BrokeyMcPoverty offers us a proper remix of discussions around the celebration with #hiphopkwaanza, replacing words in popular song lyrics…
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Obamas, Royalty Slated to Attend Mandela Memorial on Tuesday
President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama are scheduled to join tens of thousands of local mourners, dozens of other foreign leaders at the memorial service Tuesday for former South African President Nelson Mandela, the Associated Press reports. South African officials told the AP that the crowd would likely surpass the normal seating capacity of Johannesburg’s…
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