culture
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The Movement for Black Lives Convening: An Offering of Love
More than 1,500 black people from across the United States and abroad came together in Cleveland July 24-26 to harness the energy and power of the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement into one moment. That moment would be known early on as the Movement for Black Lives Convening. Planning began in April as organizers from…
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Black Lives Matter Has Become a Global Movement
In the two years since its conception, the Black Lives Matter movement has transformed from a powerful, U.S.-based unifier to a globalized movement connecting black and oppressed people all over the world. After the acquittal of George Zimmerman in July 2013 in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, three black women created #BlackLivesMatter to…
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When Oppression Is the Status Quo, Disruption Is a Moral Duty
“When rights are consistently denied, a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets.” —Alabama clergymen’s letter to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. April 12, 1963 “You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to…
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Watch: Guest Editor and Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Patrisse Cullors on The Root Takeover
We at The Root are honored to have Patrisse Cullors as guest editor today on our site. Cullors is an artist, organizer and freedom fighter. She is the founder of Dignity and Power Now, co-founder of #BlackLivesMatter, and director of truth and reinvestment at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Her Facebook page says she’s…
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LIVE: Town Hall on Faith and Justice at Social Justice Institute: Poverty, Race and Sexuality in Boston
As part of a Social Justice Institute on Poverty, Race and Sexuality, a town hall on faith and justice is under way at Boston University Thursday evening. The event honors the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act. According to the Rev. Keith Magee, who organized the event, the town hall features…
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Why I Kept Open an Exhibit Featuring Art Owned by Bill Cosby
I first met Bill and Camille Cosby in the 1970s when I was a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. My professional and personal relationship with them deepened when, at my inauguration as the president of Spelman College, the Cosbys donated $20 million to that historically black college for women, a gift that helped…
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Why Do Guys Feel the Need to Send Unsolicited Pictures of Their Junk?
Dear Demetria: Why do guys send unsolicited d—k pics? I feel like as I talk to guys, we slowly venture into sexting, then the guy just takes it from zero to 100. I’m interested in him, but the picture just came out of nowhere. Do any girls actually like these things? How do you respond?…
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David Simon Says: Show Me a Hero and I’ll Write You a Tragedy
We didn’t know early on that David Simon was making honest television. Even the idea of it sounds like a lark. But David Simon has been teaching us all along how to watch David Simon. And maybe we weren’t ready for the truth to be shown to us in the dream box with landscapes that…
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Unsung Hollywood Comes Clean About Car Wash
“Imagine a movie about a car wash,” begins the latest installment of TV One’s Unsung Hollywood. That initial idea was the brainchild of white music-P.R. guy Gary Stromberg. Now imagine a studio head taking Car Wash seriously without a Stromberg. Another white guy, Joel Schumacher, who wrote Sparkle and The Wiz long before directing St.…
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1 Year After John Crawford III’s Shooting by Police, His Family Is Still Waiting for Justice
On Aug. 5, 2014, John Crawford III and his girlfriend, Tasha Thomas, went shopping at a Wal-Mart in Beavercreek, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. They planned to buy marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers to make s’mores at a family cookout. While on the phone with the mother of his two children, Crawford picked up a…