Candace Owens, Kanye West’s new bestie, claims that racism is no longer an issue. Was that before or after her family won a lawsuit for $37,500 from the Stamford, Conn., Board of Education as a result of racism? Perhaps the board should ask for a refund.
Milwaukee civil rights leader Vel Phillips—whose life was marked by shattering glass ceilings and tireless activism—died Tuesday evening at the age of 94.
Poet, author, singer, dancer, director and civil rights activist Maya Angelou would have been 90 years old today. In her 86 years of life, the incredible artist born Marguerite Annie Johnson in St. Louis published seven autobiographies and several books of poetry and essays, and received more than 50 honorary degrees,…
We know that talent tends to run in families, but screenwriter Jenny Lumet’s family is pretty extraordinary, even by Hollywood standards. Her father was legendary director, screenwriter and producer Sidney Lumet, who gave us such incredible films as Dog Day Afternoon, Network and my personal all-time fave, The Wiz.
For Women’s History Month, Jezebel and The Root are partnering for JezeRoot, a series that focuses on women of color, domestic workers and sex workers.
While Americans are still waiting to deposit Harriet Tubmans in their bank accounts, our neighbors to the north have just unveiled a new $10 bill that features their own civil rights pioneer Viola Desmond.
In front of a rapt audience at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Malcolm X’s third daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, talked about witnessing the assassination of her father at Harlem’s Audubon Theatre and Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965.
In news that would shock only an alien who just landed in the United States on his way to Pluto and was unfamiliar with the legacy of fuckboy shit that the Trump administration has pulled, the Department of Justice, headed by Jeff “King Keebler” Sessions, has pursued fewer civil rights cases than previous…
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for an Alabama death row inmate whose dementia, his lawyers argue, renders him unable to remember the murder of which he was convicted.
Of all the stories from the civil rights era, perhaps the most extraordinary and least told tale is that of the icon and freedom fighter Fannie Lou Hamer. An upcoming documentary will finally tell Hamer’s stirring story in her own words, thanks to a historic grant by the Kellogg Foundation to Mississippi’s Tougaloo…
In the 50th year since his assassination in 1968, much has and will be said about Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader and icon whose legacy of nonviolent resistance inspired the world—while compelling some to distort and dilute his message of activism.
She was a fearless fighter for our freedom, and one of the first of her kind: She was Frankie Muse Freeman, a brilliant civil rights attorney, activist and icon. She died Friday, Jan. 12, at the age of 101.
On Sept. 3, 1944, 24-year-old Recy Taylor and two friends were on their way home from a late-night church service in Abbeville, Ala., when a group of white men abducted and raped her. Taylor refused to stay silent about the assault. Two grand juries refused to bring charges against her attackers. Taylor, who died at…
A transgender activist who drew national attention last year after confronting Caitlyn Jenner at an event and calling her a “fucking fraud” is now vying for a seat in California’s state Assembly.
LeRoy Frasier, a trailblazing pioneer who, along with his brother and another high school student, was among the first African-American undergraduate students to challenge segregation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has died at the age of 80.
I’m not going to do a minute-by-minute recap of this video. I can’t. You just have to watch it. I’m literally too flabbergasted to do so. And I don’t get flabbergasted often, but this video ... good gotdamn. Watching white folks whitefolkin’ is something we’re all used to by this point, but Meek Mill could not…
It is debatable whether the unexpected snow hitting the South, including Jackson, Miss., affected attendance at the grand opening of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum and the Museum of Mississippi History more than Donald Trump’s appearance Saturday.
We all know the Rev. Al Sharpton as one of the leaders of the civil rights movement. In fact, in October 2017, The Root invited the Rev to our office to interview him about his 50 years of service in civil rights, and he told us about the time he was stabbed while marching. To say this man is ride-or-die for the cause…
It’s long been clear that Colin Kaepernick has become a bigger hero off the football field than he ever was on it. In a year that has seen the ripple effects of the quarterback’s 2016 national anthem protests against racial injustice (protests that effectively barred him from playing the sport again but that have…