culture

(The Root) — “I am trying to figure out if my Virginia ancestor, Squire Martin, is the same one in the U.S. Colored Troops from the Civil War. He is listed in the Civil War muster rolls as a private in the 55th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. He was 35 years old, and his birthplace…

(The Root) — “Everybody here wants to be a designer, so how do you make your clothes popular?” one ambitious student asks of two established women in fashion during a career day of sorts at New York’s High School of Fashion Industries. “If anyone knew that for sure — ” starts Patti Y. Carpenter. “They’d be…

Marc H. Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League, writes at the New Pittsburgh Courier that Hollywood releases like Lee Daniels’ The Butler serve as poignant reminders that there are still lessons to be learned from history. He connects historical events with current events like Trayvon Martin’s death and the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting…

Following the North Carolina police shooting of an unarmed black man who was actually seeking the officer’s help, Mary C. Curtis dismantles stereotypes and false perceptions in an incisive piece at the Washington Post. “Falling back on fear of a black man is a shortcut,” she writes, “unless you’re looking for something simple — like…

Michaela Angela Davis, in a piece at CNN, says that black male pain is rarely accurately portrayed in the media, but a spate of recent shootings highlights the importance of learning to listen to their cries for help in and outside the community. “I was suicidal in college,” a Harry Potter-looking hipster recently told me.…

In an unlikely — but then again not so unlikely — development, black voters have begun to embrace New Jersey’s pugnacious Republican Gov. Chris Christie, according to Real Clear Politics. It’s an unlikely scenario because he didn’t win widespread support among African Americans during his 2009 campaign. It’s not so unlikely because black voters started…

(The Root) — On Thursday, at his Spring 2014 runway show in Paris, designer Rick Owens put forth a challenge to the rest of the fashion world: When it comes to diversity, step up your game. He didn’t say those words exactly, but he expressed them by bringing diversity to the runway in a style…

(The Root) — On Thursday Kanye West engaged in an “epic” Twitter battle with Jimmy Kimmel, after the talk-show host made fun of comments the rapper made during a BBC Radio One interview. “He said a lot of weird stuff,” Kimmel said Wednesday on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “He said he’s the No. 1 rock star…

On Thursday Marissa Alexander, 31, was given a second chance by an appellate court, which ordered that she be granted a new trial. According to CNN, Alexander’s case will be retried largely because the jury in her original trial was given the wrong instructions. Alexander was sentenced in March to 20 years in prison for…

(The Root) — I recall being somewhat disappointed the first time I watched Brown Sugar. Remember, this was the early 2000s. Movies like The Wood, The Best Man, Love & Basketball, How Stella Got Her Groove Back — basically anything starring Taye Diggs and/or Omar Epps — were the norm. Back then, it was anything…