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  • Watch: 5-Year-Old Steals Halftime Show at NBA Game With His Epic Dance Moves

    The Cleveland Cavaliers-vs.-Golden State Warriors basketball game on Martin Luther King Jr. Day was aight (spoiler alert: Warriors won … again), but the real show was 5-year-old Tavaris Jones’ dancing during halftime. The young Detroit native kept the crowd entertained when LeBron James wasn’t busy crying scoring. Watch the video above.

  • Watch: Like Simone Biles, How Many More Will Say #MeToo?

    If there’s one fact I’ve learned over and over again in my 26 years on this planet, it’s that as a woman, I’m never safe, and the world could not give a damn about changing that. In the past few months, droves of women have bravely come forward to detail their experiences of sexual assault.…

  • Watch: Patrisse Khan-Cullors on Being Under Extreme Surveillance

    As an activist, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors says that her home was first raided by Los Angeles police in 2013. “Surveillance tactics have been used against me,” Khan-Cullors told The Root.While this raid was years before the FBI’s 12-page “Black Identity Extremist” report—which vilifies black activists—was leaked, it’s clear that members of the…

  • Watch: Is MLK’s Legacy Under Attack?

    In November, President Donald Trump’s administration released declassified FBI documents on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But the release also included a batch of Martin Luther King Jr. documents filled with allegations of “abnormal” sexual behavior and of being a “slow thinker” and a “Marxist” (pdf). The Root spoke with Clayborne Carson, the Martin Luther…

  • Episode 1: Our Video Series Shares Never-Been-Told Stories of the Memphis Sanitation Workers

    In Memphis, Tenn., 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers braved the bitter cold to engage in a revolutionary 65-day action to defend their right to personhood. These men struggled against the noose of white supremacy to proclaim their dignity. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, armed with picket signs and perseverance, determined to declare to the world, “I…

  • Racist, Corrupt, Senate-Running Convict Joe Arpaio Still Holding On to Birther Claim

    The man whose policies resulted in constitutional violations, discrimination and even death sidestepped these charges on national TV by doubling down on the Barack Obama Birther conspiracy, claiming that he has “evidence.” Despite the fact that—given ample opportunity to show his supposed proof—he never does, the racist, xenophobic criminal Joe Arpaio continues to stick by…

  • The Opposite of ‘Monkey’ Isn’t ‘Royalty’; It’s ‘Human’

    Fashion brand H&M raised the ire of many when it released a racist ad of a young black boy in a green hoodie with “Coolest Monkey in the Jungle” inscribed on the front. The ad sparked immediate backlash on social media and prompted boycotts of the Swedish retailer. Even one of its celebrity spokesmen, the…

  • Watch: Hundreds Gather at Funeral for Erica Garner

    On Monday, at the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Harlem, supporters, activists and celebrities gathered to mourn the passing of 27-year-old mother and activist Erica Garner. Garner—whose father, Eric Garner, died after being choked by police—died tragically on Dec. 30 of a heart attack. Watch the video above to hear from Erica Garner’s friends and…

  • Watch: Trump’s Most Racist Moments of 2017

    Water is wet, the sky is blue and Donald Trump is a racist. And in 2017, Trump was on a roll. Here’s a quick rundown: No. 45 kicked the year off with (the first version) of a Muslim ban that restricted the entry of people traveling from seven Muslim-majority countries into the U.S. In August,…

  • Watch: What Do You Know About Kwanzaa? 

    This article originally ran on Dec. 27, 2017. When The Root video producer P.J. Rickards and I stepped onto the streets of Harlem (full disclosure: my beloved hood), we were both surprised at the dearth of information about Kwanzaa, the African-American cultural holiday started more than 50 years ago. Honestly, I think Kwanzaa was more…