By Martha Southgate
Uhura was the one of the first African-American women on a series who was not a servant of some sort, predating Diahann Carroll’s ‘Julia’ in the independent-black-women-on-TV race by two years. When Nichols considered quitting the show after the 1967 season, Martin Luther King, Jr. asked her to stay, saying that Uhura was an important role model.

By The Editors
The California Supreme Court’s ruling this week upholding the proposition that bans gay marriage in the state sets “a dangerous precedent” because it places “the rights of minority groups at the whim of the majority,” the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said in a statement released today.

By The Editors
The current federal law mandates far more severe sentences for low-level offenses involving crack cocaine than powder cocaine, even though the former is no more addictive or dangerous than the latter.

By The Editors
Today President Obama, who made history by becoming the first African-American President of the United States, nominated Federal Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the third woman and the first Latino American on the nation’s highest court.

By Jay Mathews
This year, David Levin and his friend Mike Feinberg are close to becoming the most famous teachers in the country. They have founded the nation’s most successful network of public charter schools, the Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP).

By Smita Ghosh
Nashville residents are skeptical of district promises in new desegregation plan… Tennessee researchers find that state’s schools remain “separate and unequal”… Missouri court hears arguments on wording of anti- affirmative action ballot initiative for 2010… The American Prospect advocates interdistrict transfer programs… Staten Island parents note lingering racial inequality in treatment in schools… California schools and districts brace for budget cuts… Troubling NAEP score analysis reveals stagnance of high school performance.

By Jill Broderick
Charles Black was born September 22, 1915, in racist Austin, Texas, one of three children of a prominent lawyer. In 1931, as a 16-year-old freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, he happened to hear Louis Armstrong play.

By Eisa Ulen
Over the generations, our people danced, soul-clapped, and sang a Welcome Life whenever a new baby came into this world. With a talking drum, a whirl of village dust stirred by Black dancing feet, a softly sung lullaby, Africans made music to recognize the miracle of birth.

Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock Nine, becomes the first black student to graduate from Central High.

The Tulsa Race Riot begins.