Politics

By Al Sharpton The senseless violence in Arizona this past weekend left all of us stunned, but this devastating act hit home for me more than most. I have been a victim of violence that could have cost my life, and I have been involved in controversies that led to violence in which my words…

Getting the nod as the black consensus candidate for next month’s Chicago mayoral election worked like a charm for Carol Moseley Braun — the third time around. The first time the coalition of the Windy City’s self-appointed black power elites met to bless one of the half dozen or so African Americans vying to replace…

We were warned by Rep. John Lewis two years ago. He took John McCain and Sarah Palin to task during the 2008 presidential campaign for “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.” Lewis knew well the consequences of political violence; he was badly beaten during civil rights protests in the South a half century ago.…

JUBA, SUDAN — Just as important legal precedents often result from cases involving inconspicuous individuals, sometimes big human events happen in obscure places. This week, much of the world is learning a lesson about the drive for self-determination from watching events in a town called Juba, a dusty boomtown full of paradoxes, home to the…

They have returned to this part of Africa from all over the continent and abroad, traveling via every type of transport or simply on foot. After decades in exile in foreign lands or displaced internally from their own homelands, Southern Sudanese have begun to claim their own future. Their stories are familiar — tales of…

I started carrying around a pocket version of the U.S. Constitution in my purse in 1998 after I visited South Africa for the first time. It was only four years after the first full democratic election in that country. When the ANC was voted the ruling party in 1994 and Nelson Mandela was elected president,…

On his Friday radio show, Rush Limbaugh dives into yet another race conversation. In this snippet, he goes back to the meme that President Barack Obama isn’t qualified to be president. “[For] the media, the Democrat adults and the establishment, the Clinton years were their Nirvana. And if Obama had not been African American, he…

KHARTOUM, SUDAN — The run-up before Sunday’s referendum on whether Southern Sudan should secede from the North has prompted widespread speculation over whether the outcome will cause renewed bloodshed and dissolution or herald the founding of Africa’s 55th nation. Not since the United Nations vote on the partition of Palestine in 1947 has so much…