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Congress, Honor the 4 Little Girls of Birmingham
Tavis Smiley, writing at the Huffington Post, demands a Congressional Gold Medal for the children killed nearly 50 years ago by a white supremacist at Birmingham, Ala.’s 16th Street Baptist Church. Nearly 50 years ago, a bomb planted by white supremacists killed four little girls in Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church. Twenty-two others, mostly children,…
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Policing Women's Garb From L.A. to Namibia
(The Root) — With all that is going on in the world, one would think that what women are wearing would be of the least concern. We’re still dealing with a troubled economy, an obstructionist government, worldwide police brutality (the recent dragging death of a Mozambican taxi driver in South Africa) and so-called adults calling…
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The Top Black Model of 1810
(The Root) — 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 Institute for African and African American Research. In September 1810 a black sailor from Boston, today known only as Wilson, arrived in London. Overnight he became…
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Denied by AKA, Howard Students Sue for Human Rights Violations
In a lawsuit filed on Feb. 28 in federal court, two Howard University students are suing Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority for violating their human rights by refusing to admit them and for hazing them when they were prospective members, the Washington City Paper reports. Laurin Compton and Lauren Cofield, who are daughters of women…
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Watch This: NRA's Black Outreach: Scary and Awkward
Check out the NRA’s latest effort to win over African-American supporters. The video is below, but the shorter version is this: Youngish, angryish black guy in a Yankees cap earnestly says that black people need to be really, really scared of getting shot by people named “Pookie” and thus need guns to defend themselves. Some…
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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Dies
ABC News reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has died at age 58 after a battle with cancer: A self-described champion of the poor who first tried to overturn Venezuela’s powerful elites in a failed 1992 coup, Chavez was democratically elected in 1999, with huge support from the country’s poor. During his time in office,…
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Poll: What Does 'Sequester' Mean, Anyway?
The sequester looms over us like a political bogeyman. Will it directly affect our lives? Probably, but no one knows for sure how. We’re curious: Do you know what all of this means for you and your wallet? Do you care? (And just for the record, if you don’t care, you probably should.) Take the…
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Did Marvin Gaye's Son Make Kravitz Drop Out of Biopic?
Lenny Kravitz has dropped out of the upcoming Marvin Gaye biopic, Sexual Healing, less than a month before the planned start of filming. No official explanation has been issued for why Kravitz stepped down from the role, but Gaye’s son, Marvin Gaye III, will likely be pleased. Late last year he said of the casting…
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Gay, Black and Churchgoing: Don't Ask, Don't Tell?
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” traditionally refers to the former U.S. policy on gay men and women serving in the military. That’s been repealed in favor of a more accepting approach, after much pressure by equal-rights advocates. But in a recent New York Times piece, an unofficial “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on the part of…
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Did Oberlin Let Racists Win by Canceling Classes?
In just the past month, racist, anti-Semitic and anti-gay incidents at Oberlin College in Ohio have included slurs written on Black History Month posters, drawings of swastikas and the message “Whites Only” written above a water fountain. The latest, and scariest: a person dressed in a white robe and hood like those worn by the…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
