How the Talented Tenth Got Over
I am a child of the black middle class.I wasn’t quite a teenager when Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered. But I have always known that I am one of the millions of beneficiaries of his sacrifice.Middle class.I have spent a career considering the term as it relates to black
Color, Character, Content: At play in the new “post-racial” politics
It seems like a lifetime ago when some black people were asking if Barack Obama was “black enough” and some white people were insisting that he was “not really black.” Those silly debates seem quaint in retrospect. Back then, people were merely having trouble wrapping their minds around Sen. Obama’s
This Old Housing Crisis
Recently, I was part of a group of public interest lawyers sponsoring a free housing seminar in Maryland, where we listened to dozens of homeowners who came out on a chilly, damp weeknight because they were almost all facing foreclosure. Most of the homeowners needing help that night were either
The Night Washington Burned Black
They told us to stay in the dorms that Thursday night, so we hit the streets as soon as the hall monitors closed their doors. We slipped off the Howard University campus and headed down Georgia Avenue/Seventh Street, toward the smoke and flames and unceasing sirens that started soon after
Behind Coretta's Veil: Black Women and the Burdens of Loss
Forty years later there are two particularly poignant and enduring images associated with Dr. King’s assassination. The first is the circle of men surrounding Martin’s body on that Memphis balcony as they point in the direction of the shooter. The second is Coretta Scott King’s mournful and resolute face beneath
Another Independence Day for Zimbabwe?
Historic change is in the air with tension and uncertainty mounting as Robert Mugabe’s government suffers its first major defeat since he came to power almost three decades ago. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has won the lower house of Parliament and is set to force a runoff for
