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Black Women Went to the Voting Booth With Pragmatism on Super Tuesday
OAKLAND, Calif.—Branice McKinzie walked up to a ballot drop box near the Alameda County Courthouse in downtown Oakland knowing that much of the electorate isn’t voting for Elizabeth Warren at this point, but she cast her ballot for the Massachusetts senator anyway. She praised Warren for her aggressive challenge of banks engaging in predatory lending…
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Weed Justice Is at the Top of Some California Voters' Minds on Super Tuesday
OAKLAND, Calif.—Chaney Turner has already voted in California’s primary and said that the person who got their vote was most likely to liberalize America’s federal marijuana policies to empower black cannabis entrepreneurs. Turner (whose pronouns are they/them/their) and I are in downtown Oakland at the Make Westing bar, which is located in an area where…
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Black South Carolinians to Joe Biden: You're Welcome
COLUMBIA, S.C.—Saturday in South Carolina went as expected. Joe Biden won the state in a landslide and black folk across all age brackets favored the former vice president over U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and the rest of the Democratic primary pack. Black voters made one thing very clear to The Root as I traveled the…
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Ayanna Pressley's Pitch for Elizabeth Warren
ORANGEBURG, S.C.—It’s hard to ascertain how much endorsements help a political candidate and the data that measures it often show it has little effect on voters—especially with independents. The best way to rally support behind candidates is usually local, grassroots politicking and years of familiarity. U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s support of presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren…
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Elizabeth Warren Supporters Worry About Sexism as South Carolina Primary Nears
CHARLESTON, S.C.—Standing at the head of a long line of people snaking around the Charleston Music Hall waiting to see U.S. presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren and musician John Legend on Wednesday is a mother of three who found it more financially prudent to be a stay-at-home mother than to work her full-time job in the…
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Mike Bloomberg Is Full of Shit and So Are His Surrogates
CHARLESTON, S.C.—On my connecting flight from Atlanta to Columbia, S.C., I sat next to a man who was very musty. But it wasn’t in-your-face musty. It was that type of musty that whisks under your nose when someone walks by the person carrying the offensive odor. On a scale of 1 to 10, this man…
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Live Blog: From Charleston, S.C., the Democratic Debate. What's at Stake for Tonight's Candidates?
CHARLESTON, S.C.—Greetings from South Carolina, where seven candidates for the Democratic nomination for president will try and convince voters in the state why they should back their candidacies at 8 p.m. ET. This primary could potentially make or break the viability of several campaigns, or, in the case of former Vice President Joe Biden, further…
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A Moderate Millennial Out of Houston Wants to be Texas' First Black U.S. Senator
HOUSTON—Amanda Edwards is all about those deliverables. That’s her training as a lawyer: results. Public consensus is how she views a pathway to policy that can save lives and extend them. In Amanda Edwards’ world, there is plenty of space for values, integrity and people’s humanity. There is, however, no space for ideological battles that…
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Detroit, State of Michigan Sued Over Failure to Properly Notify Detroiters of Property Assessment Notices
The city of Detroit, along with Wayne County and officials at the Michigan state tax commission, broke the law when it failed to notify in a timely matter tens of thousands of Detroit residents of their right to appeal tax assessments of their property that ended with many of them owing property tax balances they…
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Black Men Need to Talk With Each Other About Rape Culture
I first started learning about sexual and domestic violence against women when I began my career as a journalist in New York City, in 2011. They are the hardest stories I’ve ever written. The women, all of them black, often told me they had no one to turn to when the assaults took place. No…
