Politics

Advocates of drug and juvenile-justice reform have launched a campaign against what they contend are the New York Police Department’s illegal “stop and frisks” and the disproportionate number of arrests of black and brown young men for possessing allowable amounts of marijuana. The “Know Your Rights, Build Your Future” workshops, aiming to inform teens and…

It’s a pity that the 19th-century Austrian novelist Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach was not still around this week to witness a spectacular vindication of her most famous aphorism: Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. That old adage applies to Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing-media hit man previously best known for manufacturing a charge of…

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV/AIDS in the United States, an occasion that has prompted reflection on advances made in fighting the epidemic. Antiretroviral drug treatments have transformed the virus in this country from a fatal disease to a manageable chronic condition. HIV transmission to newborns has been…

Eighteen-year-old Aleshia Napier didn’t have to die the way that she did. The troubled young African-American woman hanged herself with a bed sheet five years ago in solitary confinement while incarcerated at Broward Correctional Institution in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., her family’s lawyer, Randall Berg Jr., executive director of the Florida Justice Institute, told The Root.…

Summertime, and the living won’t be easy. From electricity to groceries to clothing, the cost of everything you need, and of most things you want, has increased. But there are few places where Americans have felt the sting of higher prices more profoundly than at the gas pump. And you don’t have to own a…

Written by Robert Barnes When Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson decided to start a new civil rights education organization that would bear their famous names, they sealed the deal in a fitting local spot: Cafe Reconcile. They represent the opposing principals in one of the Supreme Court’s landmark decisions, Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the…

Despite the Republican Party’s noted challenges in the 2012 presidential elections, the GOP continues to alienate itself from groups that once rallied behind it. In 2000, Muslim voters came out in droves to support George W. Bush in the presidential elections, but since then, the party has gradually been losing Muslim-American support. Republican presidential hopefuls…

Later this month, Michelle Obama will take an official state trip to South Africa and Botswana. “This visit to two critical countries will underscore that the United States has an important stake in the success of Africa’s many nations and underscore the historic connections between the American people and those who live on the African…

I was saddened by the news that Albertina Sisulu, one of the great leaders of the African National Congress had died at the age of 92. She was the widow of Walter Sisulu, the first secretary general of the ANC, a Robben Island prisoner and colleague of Nelson Mandela. She was a retired nurse and…

Earlier this week, Sarah Palin demonstrated why certain stars should never dabble in politics when she said the Republican Party platform is “best for America” because “[i]t’s all about respecting equality.” Never mind the document calls for etching discrimination into the Constitution with an amendment banning same-sex marriage. Well, yesterday, Palin was at it again.…