news
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Henry Louis Gates Jr. Receives duPont Award for The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross
The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., was one of 14 recipients Tuesday night of an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, with Gates honored for his PBS series The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. The six-part documentary explores the evolution of the African-American people, as well as the multiplicity of cultural institutions, political strategies,…
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Ga. High School Coach Arrested for Biting and Threatening Another Coach
A high school girls’ basketball coach in Cobb County, Ga., is facing multiple charges after she allegedly bit another coach in the face twice and threatened to beat the man, even throwing a chair inside a school office, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. Melonie Joyce Martin, who coaches the South Cobb High School girls’ team, was…
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Ebola Survivor Amber Vinson Donates Blood to Help With Cure
Amber Vinson, the second nurse at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas to contract Ebola from “patient zero” Thomas Duncan, will continue to help find a way to battle the deadly virus by donating her blood in hopes of finding a cure, USA Today reports. Vinson’s blood will be sent to drug-development company XBiotech. “We…
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Police Release Video of NJ Man’s Fatal Officer-Involved Shooting
Video and audio of Jerame Reid’s fatal Dec. 30, 2014, encounter with police in Bridgeton, N.J., was released by the Bridgeton Police Department. It shows the 36-year-old’s last minutes alive before officers shot him, NJ.com reports. In the video, police can be seen pulling over a blue Jaguar being driven by Leroy Tutt, 46. Reid…
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Watch: Director Ava DuVernay and The Root Editor-in-Chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. Discuss Selma
Selma director Ava DuVernay is over the Academy Awards snub heard ’round the world. In fact, the reaction she gave to The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., following a screening of her movie, which charts Martin Luther King Jr.’s march for equal voting rights, was, “So what.” She admitted to the Sommerville, Mass., crowd…
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SC Cop Suspended After Video Showing Suspect Being Punched
A Columbia, S.C., cop has been suspended without pay after the leak of a video that appears to show him punching a suspect multiple times, USA Today reports. Officer Tyrone Pugh is facing an internal investigation, as well as a separate investigation by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, regarding an incident that happened while,…
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Middleweight Boxer Jermain Taylor Arrested on Charge of Pulling Gun on Family at MLK Parade
Middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor was arrested at a Martin Luther King Jr. parade in Little Rock, Ark., Monday after he allegedly put a gun to a man’s head and threatened to shoot, the Associated Press reports. During the parade, Taylor reportedly wielded his championship belt for everyone to see and then knelt down to give it…
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Dozens of Stanford Students Arrested in MLK Day Protest in Bay Area
Dozens of demonstrators who say they are Stanford University students were arrested Monday evening, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, accused of disrupting traffic on California’s San Mateo-Hayward Bridge during a peaceful protest, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to the report, at least 50 people lined up across the bridge—which has no pedestrian access—a little…
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Police Looking for 3 White Men Who Reportedly Set Homeless Black Man on Fire
Ventura, Calif., police are looking for three white men who reportedly poured lighter fluid on a homeless African-American man and set him ablaze. According to ABC 7 Los Angeles, around 11 p.m. Saturday, the three men approached John Frazier, 58, who was sleeping inside a sleeping bag in Ventura’s Pierpont neighborhood. The men reportedly poured lighter…
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Off-Duty, Drunken Ky. Cop Found Not Guilty in Shooting of Unarmed Man
Chauncey Carthan, a former detective with the Louisville Metro Police in Kentucky, had been drinking brandy at a friend’s house Sept. 4, 2012, before he hit the road in his unmarked police car. During his drive, he spotted a speeding Ishmael Gough, 24, and decided to pull him over. According to reports, the situation at that stop…