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NAACP: We Are 100
On Feb. 12, 1909, the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, a “call” went out inviting all “believers in democracy” to a national conference dedicated to “the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty.” Thus began the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The impetus for its founding occurred five months…
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Juan Williams' Hot Water
The Buzz is really starting to worry about Fox News commentator and NPR analyst Juan Williams. As if his unfounded criticism of Gwen Ifill’s Obama book last fall weren’t bad enough, he shocked us again with his comments on Faux News about Our Belle Michelle: “Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely Carmichael in a…
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Salma Hayek's Got Milk
While on a humanitarian mission to Sierra Leone, the actress Salma Hayek met a baby whose mother was unable to breastfeed. So Hayek, who is still nursing her own daughter, decided to breastfeed the child, a tender moment that was of course caught on tape. Was this a publicity stunt designed to top Madonna and Angelina,…
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Alfred Brock and The Whispered Fear
Alfred Brock arrived in DC with a special delivery for President Obama—-a rifle and many rounds of ammunition. This underscores for me the fear alot of folks have about President Obama but will only speak of in whispers: will he he make it through his term without someone taking a shot at him? It seems…
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A-Rod’s Price of Admission
When Sports Illustrated broke the news that Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez, by most reckoning the greatest active player in baseball today, had tested positive in 2003 for use of Primobolan and testosterone, I shrugged. But then the story got real interesting. My initial disinterest lay not in the story’s importance but in its tone.…
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Too Much Information
Time was, a player had to worry about getting her spot blown up because of three-way calling. Or, maybe sending a love note to the wrong email address. And we won’t even get into the many love games and dilemmas that arise on Facebook. Now, the geniuses at Google have come up with a new “service” called…
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Ruined: The Congo's Forgotten Story
Lynn Nottage’s Ruined opened Off-Broadway at the Manhattan Theater Club on Tuesday and it’s unanimous—it’s a hit and a gem. Nottage, the MacArthur Genius Award recipient, has unearthed a lush story about present-day Congo women, the abuse they endure, and the peace they seek. Ruined follows Mama Nadi [performed vibrantly by Saidah Arrika Ekulona] who…
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Was Lincoln a Racist?
Read the washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion: “WAS LINCOLN A RACIST?” with The Root’s editor in chief Henry Louis Gates Jr. ***** I first encountered Abraham Lincoln in Piedmont, W.Va. When I was growing up, his picture was in nearly every black home I can recall, the only white man, other than Jesus himself, to grace black family walls.…
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Crisis on the Color Line
Just before Christmas 1776, colonist Thomas Paine published the first of a series of essays on early American values that would come to be known as “The American Crisis.” In it, Paine, a strong voice for the American colonies’ independence from Britain, wrote of setbacks on the path to liberty as “the times that try…
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Woman to Woman
“I’m His Only Woman,” Jennifer Hudson’s duet with her fellow American Idol alumna Fantasia, is enjoying heavy rotation on black radio. On the extended version on Hudson’s self-titled debut album, the song opens with Fantasia phoning Jennifer to talk “woman to woman” about the man whom they share. Fantasia: … I’m calling right now to…