I’ll never forget the expression on my friend’s face during one of our African-American-studies classes at Duke University, when she was asked to clarify her response—for what seemed like the umpteenth time—to the question, “Where are you from?” after having answered, “America.” “Look, I’m just regular black,” she said, with an air of frustration plainly…

It has been a recurring experience during my trips to Ghana and Nigeria in the past few years: seeing Africans do far more for themselves than the mainstream narrative about Africa would have you believe. More important, the methods used by local merchants—and even laymen who have to be ready at a moment’s notice to…

When De’Von Cross is volunteering on a college campus in his home state of Alabama, he sets up a booth in the student union center and lures students over with boxes of hot pizza. In exchange for a slice, students must answer one simple question: “Do you have health insurance?” A pivotal deadline is approaching for…

Perhaps my brown-girl sensitivities are tainting my view, but I feel like there’s something going on with the words we use to describe Lupita Nyong’o. Lupita is pretty, she’s cute and she’s a legitimate dime. And I use those adjectives intentionally, because it seems like these words are rarely used to describe her good looks…

The 1990s babies matriculating at top-tier universities are in the midst of active protest. They have been for a while now. Back in November, several black students at the University of Michigan launched a social media campaign on Twitter, using the hashtag #BBUM, an acronym for “being black at the University of Michigan,” to describe…

Depending on who is asked, the following news lies somewhere between Nigeria’s low ranking in the upcoming World Cup Games (frustrating) and the air conditioning system now operating in Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed Airport (promising).  “Nigerian” is the only black ethnicity listed among the eight social groups that have a “cultural edge” when it comes to…

Editor’s note: The Root Recognizes is a new ongoing series that highlights the newsmakers, innovators and up-and-comers you should know. When wide-eyed business owners walk down the corridor of the hit TV show Shark Tank, there is only one investor they will stand before who created a $6 billion enterprise that gave birth to a new wave…

Five years ago, Michael Tikili had a hard time looking at himself in the mirror because every time he saw his reflection, he saw “the infection.” Hearing, in 2009, that he had contracted HIV had shaken him to his core. The 23-year-old African-American Duke University graduate racked his brain to figure out how this could…