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  • Watch: Strange Case Has Michael Bennett Facing Up to 10 Years in Prison

    The Root 100 honoree and NFL star Michael Bennett posted bail after turning himself in Monday in Houston. He was indicted last week on a felony charge of causing injury to the elderly during the 2017 Super Bowl. The Philadelphia Eagles defensive end allegedly injured the shoulder of a 66-year-old paraplegic woman at the event…

  • Watch: The Barbershop Books Program Is Changing Lives

    By the fourth grade, more than 80 percent of black boys in many of the nation’s school districts have fallen behind their peers in reading. This staggering figure not only highlights the shortcomings of America’s school system but also emphasizes the need for new ideas on how to approach and address the needs of students…

  • Rikers Doesn’t Put Teens in Solitary; Other New York Jails Do

    This article was published in partnership with Caught, the new podcast on juvenile justice from WNYC Studios and the Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal-justice system. Sign up for its newsletter or follow the Marshall Project on Facebook or Twitter. When the police approached Imani and her friends outside a Syracuse,…

  • Episode 7: Police Officers Terrorize Black Memphis During MLK’s Final March

    After speaking to a rapt crowd on March 18, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Memphis, Tenn., as promised, to march in solidarity with Memphis sanitation strikers. The date was March 28, 1968—50 years ago today—King’s first and only march in Memphis and the last march of his all-too-brief life. He would…

  • Where’s My Village?

    Editor’s note: This is the second of two essays The Root is publishing in partnership with Caught, a new podcast from WNYC Studios about the juvenile-justice system. We hope to generate a conversation about how we can support rather than merely punish young people who are in crisis, and we want to hear from you…

  • Watch: Who Is Feminism For?

    For Women’s History Month, Jezebel and The Root are partnering for JezeRoot, a series that focuses on women of color, domestic workers and sex workers. The textbook definition of feminism is a movement or a set of ideas that champion equal rights for women. However, feminist activists over the last 50 years have struggled to…

  • Watch: More Black Children Are Turning to Suicide, so What Can We Do About It?

    Ashawnty Davis attempted to take her own life by hanging in November 2017. Two weeks later, the 10-year-old succumbed to her injuries. Days after Ashawnty’s death, 8-year-old Imani McCray hanged herself in her New Jersey home. And weeks earlier, 11-year-old Rylan Thai Hagan hanged himself from the bunk bed in his family’s Washington, D.C., home.…

  • Watch: Snoop Is Making Millions in Green With His New Cannabis Investment Firm

    Calvin Broadus, aka Snoop Dogg, has became a major player in the ancillary cannabis industry after co-founding Casa Verde Capital and acquiring $45 million from investors. The ancillary business involves companies that never touch the actual product—from tech startups to weed-focused attorneys. Watch the video above to learn more.

  • Watch: The Role of Teenage-Brain Science in Juvenile-Justice Reform

    In 2005 the United States became the last country to end the death penalty for offenders under 18 years old. Adolescent neuroscience research played a huge part in changing this policy. However, there are still approximately 2,500 prison inmates in the United States serving life sentences without the possibility of parole for crimes they committed…

  • Episode 6: The Memphis Sanitation Strike From the Wives’ Perspective

    During the 1968 Memphis, Tenn., sanitation strike, there were no signs that read “I am a woman” or “I am a wife” or “I am a mother.” The wives of sanitation strikers were given no awards for their tireless contributions to the struggle, but they should have been. Sanitation strikers consulted with their wives before…