culture

In Anderson, S.C., real estate developer Chuck Corley has his eyes on a row of boarded-up houses. They’re in good condition, and certainly refurbishable, but there’s one small problem: Slaves used to live there. NBC News recently reported on Corley and his plans to develop a row of buildings built in 1850 and rent them…

Beverly Johnson, the “first black supermodel,” tells Glamour in its November issue that brains and beauty mattered when she started in the fashion industry in the 1970s, according to the Daily Mail. Johnson, 60, recalls failing a typing test at a casting call in 1972 because she acted “like she couldn’t even type,” but won…

Hollywood director Steven Spielberg was among several luminaries honored with Harvard’s prestigious W.E.B. Du Bois Medal this week during the launch of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Glenn H. Hutchins, whose $15 million gift helped establish the Hutchins Center, presided over the event Wednesday…

(The Root) — According to ABC News, Miriam Carey, the woman killed by police after driving her car into a White House barrier before leading police on a chase to the Capitol, was suffering from postpartum depression. The outlet quoted Carey’s mother as saying the 34-year-old woman had struggled with the illness following her daughter’s…

It is incumbent upon Howard University’s administrators to be transparent following the abrupt resignation of theh school’s president, Sidney Ribeau, which comes at a time when Howard is struggling to survive financially, Clinton Yates writes at the Washington Post. On a sunny fall day following Howard University’s abrupt leadership change, much of the campus was still…

Joan Walsh, Salon‘s editor-at-large, eviscerates a group of Republican House members, who represent mostly white districts, for trying to destroy the nation’s first black president through their latest ploy: a partial shutdown of the federal government.  On the day the Affordable Care Act takes effect, the U.S. government is shut down, and it may be…

The Daily Beast‘s Jamelle Bouie upbraids members of the Republican Party for failing to acknowledge kids with cancer, food stamp recipients and others who have been gravely affected by the partial shutdown of the federal government.   For Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the government shutdown is just a “temporary inconvenience.” The libertarian lawmaker is right…

(The Root) — In 1999 the satirical media outlet The Onion asked several “everymen” what they thought of Kweisi Nfume’s accusation of flagrant whitewashing in major network programming. “With the possible exception of MLK’s assassination, there has been no greater setback in the struggle for racial equality than the 1997 cancellation of Homeboys in Outer…

A new study reveals that fear of racial profiling prevents some black men from jogging in mostly white neighborhoods. Research by sociologist Rashawn Ray, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Maryland, shows that black men are less likely to run outside if they live in a predominantly white neighborhood, according to Runner’s World.…