Politics

When you listen to the women of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) recount their experiences as organizers in the Deep South a half-century ago,  a crystal clear truth emerges: the civil rights movement could never have succeeded without the extraordinary creativity and courage of female organizers. As Charles M. Payne, a scholar at the…

by E.R. Shipp The Rev. Al Sharpton, in the public eye since his days as a teenage civil rights advocate, has changed before our eyes so many times. He has gone from the big-mouthed “No Justice! No Peace!” local protest leader to someone who is comfortable with Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity, conservative big mouths…

Today is the last day to mail back your 2010 U.S. Census form before the government takes things to the next level: sending canvassers out to knock on your door, starting May 1. Once they do that, the cost of having you counted goes up from the pennies it costs for postage to $57 per…

Elin Woods to Tiger: It’s Me or The Club http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles%2Fnews%2Fmoving_america_news%2F17906 It is being reported that Elin Woods is leaving Tiger officially because he refuses to give up golf. Golf? We thought that unprotected sex with porn stars, cocktail waitresses, and a bevy of busted chicks would be enough for her to leave. Infidelity and public…

Sheryl Huggins Salomon is senior editor-at-large of The Root and a Brooklyn, N.Y.-based editorial consultant. Follow her on Twitter.

Thirteen states from California to Rhode Island would like to impose strict emissions standards on new cars. Another 23 state legislatures would like to do away with the ubiquitous plastic grocery bags. Oregon has kicked a flame retardant out of children’s pajamas; Wisconsin has banned another compound from toys for tots. Washington is taking copper…

As the nation mourns the death of civil rights warrior Benjamin Hooks, who lead the NAACP from 1977 to 1992 as executive director, it’s easy to forget one important thing that distinguished him from many civil rights leaders: his close ties to the Republican Party. It was under a Republican administration — Richard Nixon’s —…

The NAACP has dropped its racial discrimination charge against Wells Fargo “Wells Fargo and the NAACP have agreed to work constructively on ways to improve fair credit access, sustainable home ownership and financial literacy for communities of color and other historically disadvantaged communities,” Wells Fargo and the NAACP said in a joint press release. The…

In July 1962, I went with two students from Jackson, Mississippi’s sit-in movement to a little town in Sunflower County called Ruleville. We’d only been in town for a couple of days when, while walking down a dirt road, a car stopped in front of us. A white man holding a pistol ordered us into…

Is anyone really surprised that Mississippi’s Republican governor, Haley Barbour, dismissed the importance of Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proclamation in honor of Confederate History Month that conveniently forgot to mention slavery? Barbour told CNN’s Candy Crowley that for people outside Dixie, the old times there should be forgotten. Asked if Gov. McDonnell’s omission of slavery…