culture

Prizefighter Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, whose career was cut short by a wrongful murder conviction in New Jersey, died Sunday at his home in Toronto, Canada, the New York Times reports. He was 76. The cause of death was prostate cancer, his friend and onetime co-defendant, John Artis, told the New York Times. He was being…

A Ku Klux Klan Imperial Grand Wizard called last Sunday’s shooting spree by white supremacist Frazier Glenn Cross a setback for the organization, CNN reports. Frank Ancona, who leads the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and other self-professed hate group leaders, denounced the shootings at two Jewish institutions in suburban Kansas City,…

A 21-year-old man, convicted of attempted murder for firing shots at a rival gang member at a University of Southern California campus party, sobbed and pleaded for leniency during his sentencing Friday, the Los Angeles Times reports. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Edmund W. Clarke Jr. sentenced Brandon Spencer to 40 years to life…

Nearly a month after controversy erupted over Aaron McGruder’s departure from The Boondocks, the award-winning animated show is slated to return Monday for its fourth and final season, the Associated Press reports. The show will return after a four-year hiatus, airing Mondays at 10:30 p.m. EDT on Adult Swim, the AP reports. And despite McGruder’s…

Embattled hip-hop and R&B crooner Chris Brown is set to go on trial Monday on assault charges stemming from an altercation last year outside a hotel in Washington, D.C., according to Agence France-Presse. The 24-year-old Grammy Award-winning singer was dressed conservatively in a suit and tie Friday during an appearance before District of Columbia Superior…

A new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center links people charged with the murders of almost 100 people to a single far-right website, according to the Guardian. The report, released Thursday, calls Stormfront.org the “largest hate site in the world” and “a magnet and breeding ground for the deadly and deranged,” the Guardian says.…

The parent organization of a University of Mississippi fraternity has closed the campus’ chapter, nearly two months after expelling three members charged with hanging a noose around the neck of the statue of the school’s first black student, the Associated Press reports. The university announced Thursday that the national office of Sigma Phi Epsilon, based…

An Arizona prosecutor has announced plans to pursue charges against Shanesha Taylor, the homeless woman who left her two children in a car during a job interview in Scottsdale, Ariz., according to AZCentral. Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said Wednesday he will move forward with a felony child-abuse prosecution against the 35-year-old mother, the site…

April of 1994 equaled 30 days, from start to finish, of emotional highs and lows for those of African descent. The fourth month of that year saw the start of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi being massacred in the Rwandan genocide. On April 29, South Africa held its first interracial election, in which Nelson Mandela was voted president. And…

The ultimate Easter accessory was never a colored egg. If you know what we know, the yearly celebration of Jesus’ resurrection is also your annual chance to glide through those church aisles with the most excessively stylish hat atop your blessed head. So why on earth did these celebrities waste their creative headgear on the…