culture
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Tamron Hall’s Natural Hair Is a Bigger Deal Than You Might Think
Friday morning, Tamron Hall, the Today show’s first African-American female co-host, unexpectedly revealed her natural kinks and curls on national television. After the unveiling, the news program—in an “I can’t believe they’re actually doing this” move—polled its audience regarding whether Hall, 43, should stick with her natural look on-air. Somewhat surprisingly and thankfully—given white America’s…
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Judge Blocks Texts in Renisha McBride Shooting Trial
Wayne County Circuit Judge Dana Hathaway ruled Friday that a jury would not be allowed to see certain text messages in the trial of a Dearborn Heights, Mich., man charged with the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Renisha McBride, the Detroit Free Press reports. “They are just unfairly prejudicial,” Hathaway said of McBride’s texts, which attorneys…
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Missing Boy Found in Parents’ Basement Allegedly Abused
A 12-year-old Detroit boy who was found alive in his family’s basement after being missing for more than a week reportedly told investigators he had been abused, Click on Detroit reported Friday. A medical examination of Charlie Bothuell also showed signs of physical abuse, the report says. The child’s stepmother, Monique Dillard-Bothuell, allegedly knew he…
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How Karyn Parsons Is Telling Black History’s Untold Stories
Does the name Janet Collins ring a bell to you? Hint: She’s African American and a ballerina. Bigger hint: She was an African-American ballerina so talented that in the 1930s at age 15, after auditioning for the company in Los Angeles, she was invited to dance for the prestigious Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo ……
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Who Were the White Folks of Freedom Summer?
It’s well-known that 1964’s Freedom Summer, as it came to be called, was an interracial effort, with many white college students joining African Americans to register voters in Mississippi. It was the murder of three civil rights activists—two of them white—by members of the Ku Klux Klan that sparked national outrage and drew national attention…
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Saul Williams: Tupac ‘Had an Innate Understanding of the Blues’
When Saul Williams first heard about Holler if Ya Hear Me, the Broadway musical inspired by the lyrics of rapper Tupac Shakur, he wanted no part of it. He says he was as skeptical as many fans were. Even though director Kenny Leon had garnered critical acclaim for reviving the works of great playwrights like…
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R&B Legend Bobby Womack Reported Dead
You could hear the life and the living in Bobby Womack’s voice. He was the gospel-trained son of a preacher man, who climbed back from the depths of addiction, had career highs and lows and was a most cherished protege of the great Sam Cooke. The soulful singer was back in the studio this year…
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A Matter of Law: What Everyone Is Missing About the Texas Child Support Case
Clifford Hall is not a deadbeat dad. And District Court Judge Lisa Millard, who sentenced him to six months in prison even after he caught up and overpaid on his late child support due to a clerical error, is not a crooked judge. The problem, insists Hall’s lawyer Tyesha Elam, is the law—more specifically, a…
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Jabari Parker Joins a Small Number of Black Mormons in the NBA
Talk about being a history-maker. Jabari Parker, the 6-foot-8-inch Duke power forward who was selected second overall in the first round of the 2014 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, joins a small number of African-American Mormons who have played in the NBA, such as Thurl Bailey and Brandon Davies, and is the highest-ranked Asian-Pacific…
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Watch: The NBA’s Classy Move on Draft Night for Ex-Baylor Star
On Sunday former Baylor star Isaiah Austin’s NBA dreams came to a crashing halt when team doctors discovered that he suffered from an enlarged aorta in his heart a mere four days before he would have heard his name announced as a late first-round NBA-draft pick. Austin was diagnosed with Marfan syndrome, a rare genetic…