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Jay Z Scores 9 Grammy Nominations
Veteran rapper Jay Z led all artists, with nine Grammy nominations on Friday, but newbies Lorde, Kendrick Lamar and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis surpassed other heavyweights like Justin Timberlake for rankings in the top categories of the annual music awards, Yahoo News reports. In second place with seven nods apiece were Timberlake and Pharrell Williams,…
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President Obama Jokes About Post-White House Dream Gig
Although he has a few more years in his second term, President Barack Obama is beginning to open up about plans after the White House. And one thing the avid sports fan would like to do is to become an ESPN anchor. He reportedly made the statement to Disney executive Robert Iger, whose company includes…
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Black Officer Alleges Racial Profiling in Arrest
An African-American member of the Long Island, N.Y. police force alleges that she was racially profiled by colleagues during an arrest on Nov. 29, despite identifying herself as a member of the force, reports show. Officer Dolores Sharpe was charged with resisting arrest and harassment while off-duty, after she was confronted by an unidentified white…
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Quote of the Day: Nelson Mandela on African Children
Read the quote 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 also the editor-in-chief of The Root. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
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My Ancestral Town Disappeared From the Map!
“I have been researching my genealogy since 1996. This year, I discovered the names of my grandmother’s grandparents. However, their birthplace is proving to be a mystery. It is listed as Hacot Eurville, Ga. I have searched the Web for information about this place and find nothing. My grandmother and her parents lived in Lowndes County, Ga., and Hamilton County,…
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10 Films and Songs of the Anti-Apartheid Movement
We gathered 10 moments in film and song that capture the essence of the anti-apartheid movement. 1. Invictus The 2009 film starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon documents Nelson Mandela in his first term as president of South Africa as he enlists the national rugby team to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Mandela’s embrace…
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Scandal Recap: Who’s the Bad Guy, Again?
Have you ever played that game where you try to one-up Scandal’s writers’ room and come up with the craziest thing that could happen next? No? Good, because you’ll lose. Every. Single. Time. In last night’s episode, “YOLO,” our favorite Washington wunderkinds put on their white hats to ride in and save Olivia’s mom, the…
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It’s Settled. Scandal Is a Soap Opera
We’ve thrown this idea around for some time, but last night’s episode made it officially official: Scandal is ridiculous. In case you missed last night’s “Yolo” episode, Luvvie does the Lord’s work with this comprehensive rundown of all the drama. Michael Arceneaux does the same at Complex, serving it with an appropriate side of shade…
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Let’s Remember—Mandela Was a Revolutionary
Watching the world mourn the loss of Nelson Mandela is an experience at turns uplifting and incredibly odd. In the first few hours of coverage after his death at age 95 on Thursday, there were the obligatory references to Mandela having “gone home” after leading his nation to a “unified” and higher state. Here, said…
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Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s Harvard Address to Nelson Mandela
Editor’s note: Henry Louis Gates Jr. addressed President Nelson Mandela with the following words on the conferring of a special honorary degree on Mandela by Harvard University on Sept. 18, 1998: Like so many of my fellow faculty members, I attended university in the late ’60s and early ’70. Ours was a generation that came…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
