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A. Philip Randolph Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters In 1925 A. Philip Randolph became the leader of the black service staff of the Pullman railroad cars. It was the first African-American labor union. In 1941 Randolph threatened to bring 100,000 black job seekers to Washington, D.C. In response, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order…

Sheryl Huggins Salomon is senior editor-at-large of The Root and a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based editorial consultant. Follow her on Twitter. On a sunny Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010, Beck’s faithful gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial while civil rights activists and their followers marched several miles from Dunbar High School to the future site of the Martin Luther King,…

is an intern at The Root and senior journalism major at Howard University. A war veteran puffs a smoke while he continues his fight, this time against a mosque near the site of the former World Trade Center. Instead of hoods, some protesters wear masks. And now they equate evil with Islam. An opponent of…

is an intern at The Root and senior journalism major at Howard University. In Eat Pray Love, Davis’ Delia plays boss and best friend to Julia Robert’s Liz, a lady with serious travel lust. “I get it: It’s your life raft right now, just like a couple of years ago when you were consumed with…

Launched in 1989 by Time Inc. and later purchased by BET, Emerge earned widespread respect for capturing black life and culture. The articles, which spanned the globe and won awards like Amnesty International USA’s Media Spotlight Award, never ran away from controversial topics. BET turned over publishing control to Vanguarde Media in 2000, and the…

is an intern at The Root and senior journalism major at Howard University. Baroness Scotland of AsthalFormer Attorney General From June 2007 until May 2010, Dominica-born Patricia Scotland was the attorney general for England and Wales, the country’s most senior law officer. Scotland, appointed by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, also served as advocate general…

No stranger to controversy, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, left, reacquainted herself on August 10, 2010, when she spit out the n-word 11 times while speaking to a black caller. The next day, she apologized on her Web site and read the apology on air. “I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the…

Truthout reports that the U.S. Defense Department forced Guantánamo Bay detainees to take dangerously high doses of the anti-malarial drug mefloquine even though they didn’t have malaria symptoms, a move that one doctor called “pharmacologic waterboarding.” Too much of the drug can cause seizures, hallucinations and suicidal thoughts. Army Reserve Major Montgomery Granger, who was…

Many New Orleanians are feeling less patriotic these days after the experience of navigating government red tape to access any resources for rebuilding after the storm. Five years after Katrina, some families still live in trailers with the hope of rehabilitating their homes one day. Originally built in 1941 and expanded in 1955, much of…