By The Editors
On Thursday, August 6, the Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor, whose arc of achievements embodies one of the most cherished facets of the American Dream, as the newest Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

By Elliot Morrison
“Today is a triumph for freedom as huge as any victory that has ever been won on any battlefield.”

President Lyndon Baines Johnson spoke those words on a sweltering August 6th in the Capitol Rotunda forty-four years ago, prior to signing one of the most momentous legislative acts in all of American history: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson declared that the Act’s purpose was to guarantee a right “which no American, true to our principles, can deny.”

By The Editors
Perhaps it is just a matter of Congressional scheduling.

But the more historically-minded are sure to believe it no mere coincidence. For today, the very day the U.S. Senate votes on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, also marks the 44th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act.

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
In the film, Food Inc., documentarian Robert Kenner captures the grotesque side of the food processing industry. Dark, dystopian images of food processing machines loom eerily as the camera pans to capture their frightening size. Animals, barely living, just dead, sliced, unrecognizable, pass by anonymous workers dressed in red-splattered white.

By Lee A. Daniels
Will they or won’t they?

That question about the black vote—about whether black voters would show up at the polls on election day—hung over the bitter final months of last year’s presidential campaign like a looming thunder cloud.

The answer was resounding, of course, and now, thanks to recent reports by the Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center and the Pew Hispanic Center, we have a wealth of data to quantify just how historic for black America and America November 4, 2008 was.

By Beryl Satter
In the 1950s, speculators combed white neighborhoods, purchasing property from whites and then reselling them to blacks—at double to quadruple market value. Even worse, they sold these overpriced properties “on contract,” that is, on the installment plan. Black buyers made a down payment and were responsible for taxes, insurance, maintenance, and interest, but could lose the property if they missed even one payment. They were forced to accept such brutal terms, since in Chicago as nationally, most banks refused to loan to them; if they wanted to buy at all, they had to buy from speculators.

Jesse Owens wins his fourth Olympic Gold Medal in Berlin.

Matthew A. Henson, explorer and the first person to reach the North Pole, is born.

Dr. Ralph Bunche, the first black Nobel Peace winner, is born.

Gordon Parks’ The Learning Tree. , the first contemporary film directed by a black person, opens on this day.