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  • Slavery and Finding an Ancestral Name

    (The Root) — The search for African-American ancestors can be complicated by the fact that some of our slave ancestors took as their last names the surnames of their masters when they were freed in 1865, but not all did, and over time, the spellings of these names changed phonetically. In fact, some informally inherited…

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  • Medgar Evers' Life to Be Celebrated 50 Years After His Death

    Medgar Evers accomplished a great deal as a civil rights leader before his untimely death in 1963 outside his home in Jackson, Miss., but many remember him primarily as a victim of assassination. His widow, Myrlie Evers-Williams, and daughter, Reena Evers-Everette, want to change that, the Associated Press reports. As the 50th anniversary of his…

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  • Reebok Drops Rick Ross Over 'Date Rape' Lyrics

    Reebok has released Rick Ross as a company spokesman in the aftermath of a vociferous uproar from activists and rape survivors about his song “U.O.E.N.O.,” which seems to glorify date rape, according to a report at TMZ. The news comes just a few days after a group of activists and rape survivors petitioned Reebok to…

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  • TED Fellow Alum Launches New Startup 'MetaLayer'

    Jonathan Gosier, a TED senior fellow alum, founded MetaLayer with business partner Matthew Griffiths in 2011 to help non-technical users perform data-driven research such as trend spotting in big data sets, protective analytics, and visualization using drag and drop data science technology.  As an open-source product, the Philadelphia-based company works seamlessly with other data management…

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  • Watch This: Work Out to Lil Jon's New Zumba Song

    Lil Jon, the King of Crunk, is diversifying his platform, borrowing a page from hip-hop moguls such as Russell Simmons, Jay-Z and Diddy. Vibe magazine reports that Lil Jon has partnered with celebrity Zumba instructor Gina Grant and will play DJ for the new Zumba Nightclub Series that launched this week in Boston. According to…

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  • The Age of Awkward Racism

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  • Republicans Fear Hillary Clinton in 2016

    Republican leaders planned their party’s political comeback at Thursday’s Republican National Committee spring meeting. Their strategy includes courting minority voters and updating their political operations, Time magazine reports. But there could be a major stumbling block: Hillary Clinton. One early primary state RNC member put it simply: “If she gets in, we’re toast.” To be…

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  • NC A&T on Lockdown After Reports of Man With Rifle

    Updated: April 12, 12:15 p.m. EDT: Police have not found anyone matching the description of the man with the gun, nor have they found a firearm on campus, according to the News & Record.  North Carolina A&T State University is on lockdown after a man was seen with a gun on campus, according to Greensboro,…

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  • Trayvon Martin: The Latest, Week 57

    Friday, April 12, 11:16 a.m. EDT: George Zimmerman’s lawyer asks a judge to unseal settlement documents:  An attorney for George Zimmerman on Thursday filed a motion requesting the release of details surrounding a confidential agreement recently reached between Trayvon Martin’s family and the homeowners association of the Sanford, Fla., subdivision where he shot and killed…

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  • How '42' Star Prepped to Play Baseball Great

    (The Root) — Is it irony or fate that the same week the film 42 is opening, rumblings are surfacing that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig is creating a task force to examine why African Americans make up only 7.7 percent of MLB’s players? The biopic about how Jackie Robinson — the legendary player…

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