Politics

“Name the two teachers who have taught you the most at Broad Street High.” The seemingly innocent inquiry was posed to the students at the high school by three African-American students belonging to the organization Students Involved in Community Change: Katana Frazier, Meleena Frazier and Antwanette Keys. The answers they got, however, had bigger consequences…

Michael Alison Chandler of the Washington Post reports that President Obama addressed graduates of a historic African-American high school in south Memphis, Tenn., during a commencement ceremony Monday, marking a milestone for 155 seniors and a success story for an impoverished and long-struggling urban school. Obama told the packed Cook Convention Center, about a mile…

One year after the community-organizing group ACORN disbanded — after an undercover video scandal and a denial of federal funds by Congress — the organization’s former president is back. Today Bertha Lewis is at the helm of the Black Institute, her newly created “action tank” dedicated to immigration reform, environmental justice, education and economic fairness.…

The Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 black firefighters, who passed the department’s entrance exam in 1995 but were told that the city had established a cutoff score and would only randomly hire the most qualified candidates. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has also rewarded “tens of millions of dollars” to 6,000 other applicants…

If former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hadn’t switched previous positions so dramatically on issues like abortion and same-sex unions, he’d probably have an easier time convincing voters that his newfound religion on health care reform is sincere. But as the Boston Herald’s Michael Graham points out, Romney’s got “more flip-flops on his record than a…

One of the world’s great enduring mysteries is why some otherwise clearheaded analysts continue to portray Newton Leroy “Newt” Gingrich as some sort of intellectual policy wonk and not simply a blowhard and a liar. The truth is, the former speaker of the House from Georgia is right up there with the Pauls, father and…

Mike McIntosh II, 21, used to be a vibrant athlete who loved doing kick flips on his skateboard, scoring goals on the soccer field and executing extreme bike tricks on his BMX. He was smart, too, studying welding at a community college, his father recalled recently. “He was a sports fanatic,” the father, Michael McIntosh,…

Conservatives on Fox News are spending this week attacking the White House for inviting the rapper-poet Common to the White House for a poetry reading last night. They are upset with Common for poetry he recited on the TV show Def Poetry Jam, targeting President Bush for taking us to war in Iraq and not…

Today President Barack Obama will meet at the White House with the Congressional Black Caucus — less than two months after his Oval Office sit-down with the CBC’s five-member executive board in March, and one week after the caucus met with White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley. It’s a noticeable change of pace from…

Black Voice News is reporting that a beefed-up battalion of security was ordered around the rural-Kenyan home of President Obama’s grandmother following the death of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. “We received reports of plans to attack the home of Mama Sarah Obama, and we immediately put in place adequate security measures,” local police chief…