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MLK’s Last Crusade Was the Poor People’s Campaign Against Poverty
Today, as we remember the 46th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, we should remember the lessons from the civil rights icon’s last great political crusade: the Poor People’s Campaign to end poverty. The less than three months between national celebrations of King’s birthday and more sober reflections on his martyrdom reveal the often…
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Black-Pathology Debate Ignores Black Reality
The specter of black cultural decline, or what might be called the “black-pathology hustle,” is once again making national news. Like a recurring nightmare, assertions (usually masked as allegations) of black cultural depravity periodically inspire national debates over the very meaning of race, citizenship and democracy in America. Paul Ryan’s criticism of “inner city” youths…
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Obama Goes Solo in His 2nd Term
In the weeks since his State of the Union, President Barack Obama has issued a series of executive orders designed to stem a tide of growing economic and racial inequality that threatens to undermine the fabric of American society. Obama’s efforts to pivot the political narrative toward a focus on economic injustice reflects the fact…
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Looking Back on ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma
This week marks the 49th anniversary of one of the most important events in American history. It began on March 7, 1965, when Alabama state troopers routed peaceful demonstrators on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, which was dedicated on Monday as a national landmark. The violence that engulfed the nonviolent, overwhelmingly black cadre of…
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Book Excerpt: Stokely Carmichael’s Roots in the Black Panthers
Editor’s note: Stokely Carmichael’s activism helped found the Black Panther Party, and his work on voter registration transformed the South and allied him with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders. Carmichael’s brilliant but complicated legacy is examined in the new book Stokely: A Life, written by The Root’s contributing editor Peniel Joseph. It goes on…
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Powerful New Biography Recounts Life and Work of Stokely Carmichael
Editor’s note: “If Martin [Luther King Jr.] served as the king of the black freedom movement during the civil rights era, then Stokely [Carmichael] reigned as the prince of a revolutionary movement for political self-determination and cultural pride that would be embodied in his call for black power.” So wrote Peniel Joseph in a tribute…
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Black History Month Reminds Us That Black History Is Living History
During this final week of Black History Month, it’s vital to acknowledge the ways in which this month—as well as the activists, students and scholars who support it—transcends mere historical commemorations and academic analysis. It is actively helping to reshape national race relations. Consider the example of the award-winning film 12 Years a Slave. The companion-book…
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Malcolm X Was More Than MLK’s Alter Ego
This Friday marks the 49th anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X—and the 20th-century icon is still making headlines. His memory remains contested and debated, as witnessed by the recent controversies over his depiction in rapper Nicki Minaj’s cover art and a Queens, N.Y., public school teacher forbidding students to write about him during Black…
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Memo to Park Service: Don’t Put Black Women’s History Away on the Shelf
As a young graduate student conducting research on the black freedom struggle, I had the distinct honor and privilege of visiting the National Archives for Black Women’s History, a vital repository of the history of black women’s contributions to this country, housed in the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House, a national historic site in the…
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Moral Movements: Civil Rights Coming Back to the Future
Black History Month reminds us of the way in which black activism has historically transcended purely race matters to rise into the stratosphere of universal movements for social justice. Fifty-four years ago this month, four black North Carolina A&T students launched a lunch counter sit-in at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, N.C., that sparked a social and…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
