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Al Sharpton: The Teflon Preacher With 99 Lives—at Least
The Rev. Al Sharpton’s party got crashed this week when the Smoking Gun published—in a story conveniently timed to coincide with this week’s gathering of Sharpton’s National Action Network—official documents showing that going back to the ’80s, he went to work for the FBI as an informant against organized crime in New York. It’s an…
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Top Black Ad Men and Women You Won’t See on Mad Men
As much as we love the show Mad Men, the popular TV series has never really given pioneering black advertising executives their proper respect. As The Root’s article “The Other Mad Men” pointed out in 2010, Madison Avenue was not as lily white as the popular cable-TV show implies. With Mad Men heading into its…
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How Nikki Giovanni Linked Aretha Franklin to the Black Arts Movement
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Emily Lordi to discuss her new book, Black Resonance: Iconic Women Singers and African American Literature. Lordi is an assistant professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In this excerpt, they focus on the connection between poet Nikki Giovanni and singer Aretha Franklin. Watch:…
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Learning to Love Tax Season: Watch The Root Live Today at 11am
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 two…
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How to Find the Art of Cool in North Carolina
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal sits down with Art of Cool Music Festival co-founder Cicely Mitchell to talk about the future of jazz and the festival, which takes place April 25-26 in Durham, N.C., with a stellar lineup of jazz artists. Mitchell explains how the festival builds interest in the artists with a series of…
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Find Ways to Pay for College: The Root Live Today at 11 a.m.
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 three…
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Busting Myths About the Sex Trade in Brazil
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal talks with Erica Lorraine Williams about her new book, Sex Tourism in Bahia: Ambiguous Entanglements. Williams is an assistant professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Spelman College. For her book, Williams interviewed sex workers about their aspirations, whether they felt exploited and the discrimination that Afro-Brazilian…
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Want to Retire Early? Watch The Root Live at 11 A.M.
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 for 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 four…
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15 Famous 1st Black Tweets: Thanks, Twitter!
To celebrate the microblogging site’s own eighth birthday, this week the folks at Twitter unveiled their new #FirstTweet finder page—an easy way to see what your tweeps said when they first jumped into the Twitter fray. It’s also an easy way to see if your favorite notables had any Twitter game when they first joined.…
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Defending the Importance of Hip-Hop Scholarship
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Julius Bailey, assistant professor of philosophy at Wittenberg University, and Regina Bradley, an instructor of English and interdisciplinary studies at Kennesaw State University. They are discussing the importance of hip-hop studies and the use of social media in hip-hop scholarship. Recently Bradley contributed to and…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
