the root 100
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Tito Jackson Hopes to Become Boston’s 1st Black Mayor Today
Boston City Councilor Tito Jackson knows polling data isn’t in his favor and that he’s running against a well-established incumbent mayor in Marty Walsh. But Jackson is confident that the pulse on the streets is giving him a more accurate feel of Tuesday’s outcome: That he will be elected Boston’s first black mayor. “The local…
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Watch: Yance Ford Tackles Grief and Racial Injustice in the Moving Documentary Strong Island
Filmmaker Yance Ford’s film Strong Island is a must-watch on Netflix. The documentary tells the story of the Ford family and how their lives were forever altered by the shooting death of Yance’s older brother, William, in 1992. He was killed by a white man in the Long Island, N.Y., hamlet of Central Islip, where Yance’s…
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#FanniesArmy: GirlTrek Organizes Thousands of Women to Walk on Fannie Lou Hamer’s 100th Birthday
GirlTrek, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the health and well-being of black women and girls, is gearing up to celebrate the life of civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer on Friday, the 100th anniversary of Hamer’s birth. “Fannie Lou Hamer died too soon, and we want to celebrate her life in a big way,” GirlTrek…
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Watch: Sterling ‘Bae’ Brown Explains That Viral Thirst Trap Emmy-and-Abs Pic
I thought it couldn’t get any better than Sterling K. Brown winning an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama for This Is Us. But it did! The head makeup artist on This Is Us, Zoe Hay, and head hairstylist Michael Reitz decided to gift the world with a snapshot of Brown proudly holding…
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It’s All Right to Say ‘White Supremacy’
Panelists Ask What ‘Racially Tinged’ Really Means Gregory’s 4 p.m. Service Called Too Late to Cover Clinton an Astute Media Critic in New Book Tribe Faulted for Indian Country Today Failures Chideya Named to J-Post at Ford Foundation Belton Officially Named Editor-in-Chief of The Root ‘Root 100’ Singles Out Black Journalists Short Takes A panel…
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Jordan Peele is No. 1 on The Root 100, Our Annual List of the Most Influential African Americans
When we launched The Root 100 in 2009, it was the perfect time to celebrate black excellence. The arrival of the country’s first black president was an occasion to champion the achievements of today’s African-Americans heroes—achievements that could exist only in our ancestors’ wildest dreams. But this year, in a political and cultural climate that…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Beyoncé Will Forever Be Bey-ond. She’s So Fly, They Named a Fly After Her
What can be said about Queen Bey that hasn’t already been said, done, sung, texted, tweeted, explicated, unpacked, imagined? In an age when there are very few true superstars, she stands alone; one of a few black women, one of a few of her generation. Who else but a few aging rock stars is able…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Shonda Rhimes Changes the Face of Television Forever
The pop-cultural impact of Shonda Rhimes cannot be overstated, although at this point, it’s hard to imagine TV without her forceful, casually diverse, complicated and occasionally ruthless characters who fall outside of what was heretofore the “norm” (read: white, heterosexual male protagonists and their stories). In fact, one could argue that the writer, producer and…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Ta-Nehisi Coates Wanted to Be ‘the Baddest Motherfucking Writer on the Planet’
It is a rare piece of long-form journalism that breaks the internet. But that’s exactly what happened when Ta-Nehisi Coates’ keen, decisive reportage, “The Case for Reparations,” dropped in June 2014, compelling the editors at The Root to give him that year’s No. 1 spot. Part of his The Root 100 bio read: Two years…
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The Root 100 No. 1s: Ben Jealous, a Supreme Builder of Bridges Over Left and Right
Benjamin Todd Jealous first made a national name for himself in 2008 when, at age 35, he became the youngest leader of one of America’s oldest and most esteemed civil rights bodies, the NAACP. Before Jealous began his five-year tenure of the then-99-year-old organization, it was clear that the NAACP had calcified into a shell…