Politics

President Obama will deliver the eulogy at the funeral of Dorothy Height, the civil rights leader who died last week at the age of 98. Height, who was president emerita of the National Council of Negro Women, was one of the last surviving leaders of the generation that battled for the fundamental rights of African…

Henry Louis Gates Jr.—whom I once admiringly described as a blend of W.E.B. Du Bois and P.T. Barnum—has a genius for stirring up controversy, even when he doesn’t mean to. It was Gates, the editor-in-chief of The Root, who last year provoked the most embarrassing racial moment of Barack Obama’s young presidency by managing to…

Sometimes a smart take on a well-worn issue brings a fresh perspective. Writer Tim Wise accomplished that with  this article: Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead…

Police misconduct has been back in the news lately. Two incidents in particular may encourage the Obama administration’s Justice Department to take a more aggressive and comprehensive stance against police brutality and systematic coverups of police misconduct. Parents, college administrators and residents across the state of Maryland have been up in arms since videotape surfaced…

While Michael Steele’s latest remarks have Republicans in their usual state of turmoil, Alternet’s Rich Benjamin points out that the party, without a single black member in Congress, is offering up a heaping plate of soul for this year’s midterm elections. In remarks at DePaul University this week, Michael Steele, the Republican leader, declared that…

Roughly one year after nominating Justice Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama will soon get another opportunity to name another justice to the highest court in the land. Unlike last year’s relatively smooth selection of the first Latina, this year’s nomination promises to become a protracted battle that will shine a light not just on the…

The funeral for Dorothy I. Height, a torchbearer of the civil rights movement, will be held at 10 a.m. on April 29 at the Washington National Cathedral, according to former U.S. Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman, who is overseeing the arrangements. The service for Height, chair and president emerita of the National Council of Negro…

Party Over Here: Democrats set showdown vote on Wall Street bill http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100422/ap_on_bi_ge/us_financial_overhaul Well it seems that the Democratic Party has finally figured out that bi-partisanship doesn’t really work. They have dropped the hammer on Wall Street and the Republican Party by setting a vote on financial industry regulation for Monday. President Obama even shamed the…

”Your world,” Joyce Ladner warned the children of her old comrades in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as they celebrated the 50th anniversary of their movement in Raleigh, N.C., last week, ” is far more complicated than ours was.” True enough, but that hasn’t stopped the offspring of those graying organizers from charting their…

They don’t always get what they want, but I’m hoping that President Barack Obama sticks to his values as he nominates a new justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. That appointee would replace Justice John Paul Stevens, who has announced that he is retiring in June. Here are a few examples of surprises to presidents…