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The Night Washington Burned Black
They told us to stay in the dorms that Thursday night, so we hit the streets as soon as the hall monitors closed their doors. We slipped off the Howard University campus and headed down Georgia Avenue/Seventh Street, toward the smoke and flames and unceasing sirens that started soon after news hit that Martin Luther…
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This Old Housing Crisis
Recently, I was part of a group of public interest lawyers sponsoring a free housing seminar in Maryland, where we listened to dozens of homeowners who came out on a chilly, damp weeknight because they were almost all facing foreclosure. Most of the homeowners needing help that night were either African American or Latino. Almost…
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Color, Character, Content: At play in the new “post-racial” politics
It seems like a lifetime ago when some black people were asking if Barack Obama was “black enough” and some white people were insisting that he was “not really black.” Those silly debates seem quaint in retrospect. Back then, people were merely having trouble wrapping their minds around Sen. Obama’s biracial heritage and itinerant upbringing,…
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Swerd being Swerd
David Swerdlick is an associate editor at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.
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Forget the Government Conspiracy
Forget the conspiracy theories that claim Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination was the result of a government plot. Lyndon Johnson, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the FBI had nothing to do with it. James Earl Ray killed King. If any organization was involved, it was more likely the KKK than the CIA. That’s the…
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What Would King Say About the Black Gulag?
Martin Luther King once said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I often wonder what life would be like if Dr. King had not been snatched away from us 40 years ago. I know one thing, for sure, would be at the top of his agenda for justice…
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5 Things You Should Know About Crack
Change is in the air, and I’m not talking about presidential politics. While the rest of the country obsesses over delegate math, black America would do well to pay closer attention to another vote count—how senators and members of Congress are lining up on the most serious effort to date to fix our unfair and…
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Zimbabwe Assesses Mugabe's 28 Years
It’s D-Day in Zimbabwe, and so far there’s been huge turnout from among the 5.6 million registered voters who have been lining up since the still-dark early morning hours. The D could stand either for Democracy or Disaster. Democracy would mean that for the first time in a long time—more than a decade—Zimbabwe would have…
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The King James Version of Basketball
LeBron James is the best player in the NBA this year and his performance towers over almost every other player by such a margin that there shouldn’t be a debate about Most Valuable Player; there should just be a coronation for the player sometimes referred to as King James. Yet there isn’t. Players like Kobe…
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LeBron Kong Attacks!
And when he get on he leave your ass for a white girl. —Kanye West I’ve spent the day hugged up with Vogue — staring into its beset April cover featuring athlete LeBron James and android Giselle Bundchen, and trying hard not to be numb. I’m trying to brush off the fact that the first…