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The case of Troy Davis, who’s scheduled to be executed tonight by the state of Georgia for the murder of an off-duty police officer, has inspired outrage and set a fire under many black celebrities. Outkast rapper Big Boi rallied his Twitter followers to protest at the Jackson, Ga., prison where Davis, who supporters say…

It takes a while to get to the top, but the current crop of blacks who head government affairs offices in Washington have paid their dues and wield considerable influence. In honor of the upcoming 2011 Congressional Black Caucus week, also known as the Annual Legislative Conference, The Root’s D.C. insider, Nicole Venable, highlights the…

If you want to see what’s hot on black Twitter, check out The Chatterati.Akoto Ofori-Atta is the editor of The Grapevine. Like her Facebook page and follow her on Twitter.  In its fourth appearance at New York Fashion Week, Arise magazine made a return to the city this fall with its much-anticipated Spring 2012 group…

Fashion Week attendees are embracing lots of animal patterns, including snake prints. And turbans are simply timeless. This woman from the blog the 4aces Date embraced this season’s color-blocking trend in a red shirt, cobalt-blue blazer, simple black pants and a tan bag. Her sunglasses were nice touches. Mid-thigh-length braids were the perfect complement to…

Jackson was chosen as Playboy’s Playmate of the Month in March 1965, becoming the first African American to receive the honor. Jackson was discovered at age 18 while working as a Playboy Bunny at the magazine’s Chicago club — the setting of the new NBC show The Playboy Club. Now Jackson lives a relatively tame…

African Americans and Madison Avenue share a complex and often contentious history. As The Root’s article “The Other Mad Men” showed, Madison Avenue was not as lily white as the popular cable-TV show implies. A small number of blacks worked in advertising as early as the 1940s and founded their own agencies in the 1950s.…

Flanked by fellow H.U. contestants Theo Hollingsworth and OC, rapper Trigga Tay reps for H.U. on the mic at The Root’s Rap Battle, which went down Saturday at D.C.’s RFK Stadium, at the official tailgating party for the AT&T Nation’s Football Classic — a gridiron showdown between Howard University and Morehouse College. The finalists, Howard’s…

November 1996: The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory is the last album in which Tupac had creative control and the first of many released posthumously. Conspiracy theorists point to this album as proof that Tupac is still alive. The album is released under the stage name Makaveli, a reference to Tupac’s alter ego that…

With 400-plus members, 10 drum majors and more than 100 years of zigzag formations and booty-shakin’ tunes, Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 continues to strut its excellence on the field. Watch here as the band performs K.P. and Envyi’s “Swing My Way” and Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” at 2010’s Honda Battle of the Bands. At…

Both Howard and Morehouse boast some very notable alumni, professors and, well, dropouts. In honor of the Nation’s Football Classic game, we’ve created a list of famous and important people associated with the two schools, separated by categories such as civil rights, film, sports and politics. As the two schools duke it out on the…