Politics

Whether or not President Barack Obama’s first term embodies the idealism of the 2008 campaign is debatable, according to interviews with nine prominent black academics in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. For the fourth in the series, The Root interviewed Eddie S. Glaude Jr., chair of the Center for African American Studies at…

Whether or not President Barack Obama’s first term embodies the idealism of the 2008 campaign is debatable, according to interviews with nine prominent black academics in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. For the third in the series, The Root interviewed Ralph Richard Banks, the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law…

In October, President Obama’s re-election campaign launched the Greater Together initiative to rekindle the connection with young voters that helped fuel his successful bid in 2008, when he captured two-thirds of 18- to 29-year-olds who voted. Greater Together is reaching out to young Americans via Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. It’s also targeting…

Our children often have a unique vantage point on the world adults have created. They see the contradictions between what we say and what we do. In the book Bitters in the Honey: Tales of Hope and Disappointment Across Divides of Race and Time, a white student at Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.,…

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain now has Secret Service protection. Philip Elliott of the Associated Press is reporting that “Cain asked for the security and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and congressional leaders approved his request Thursday, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan confirmed.” It is being widely reported that Cain received threats, but no specific…

When Troy Davis was executed at a Georgia state prison in September, several hours after the Supreme Court deliberated (and denied) an emergency appeal, people around the world looked on in shock. Activists, convinced that there was too much doubt surrounding his murder conviction, including the fact that seven of nine witnesses later recanted their…

Whether or not President Barack Obama’s first term embodies the idealism of the 2008 campaign is debatable, according to interviews with nine prominent black academics in the run-up to next year’s presidential election. For the second in the series, The Root interviewed Katherine Tate, professor of African-American studies at the University of California, Irvine’s School…

In July 2012, Cornel West will make his much anticipated return to Union Theological Seminary — the site of his first academic job and one of the sacred grounds he calls home — from his current position at the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. In light of this news and in the…

Just moments after his prominent gaffe while answering a question about Libya, GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain confidently proclaimed that he does not have to know about foreign policy, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. “I’m not supposed to know anything about foreign policy. Just thought I’d throw that out,” he said to a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel…