By Jill Nelson
Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the Nigger Breakers is Reed’s fourth book of media criticism. We talked to Reed while he was on the East Coast on a brief tour to promote a book whose publication and scathing critique of racist, corporate controlled media has largely and not surprisingly been ignored by those whom Reed labels the “Jim Crow Media.”

By David N. Dinkins
Evelyn Elizabeth Long Cunningham has left us with so much more than memories – she has left us a rich legacy of her strength, a legacy of her warmth and charm, and a legacy of the great gift of her courage.

By The Editors
John Payton, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. was awarded the Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion of Merit on Saturday, May 8, by the Washington Bar Association at its gala Law Day Dinner in the nation’s capitol.

By TaRessa Stovall
When news of Lena Horne’s passing on May 9 zoomed through cyberspace and other news media, I found myself most warmed and inspired by a varied bouquet of tributes from people of different generations whose lives she touched in many ways.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund congratulates Ms. Kagan on her nomination and calls upon the Senate to consider the nomination expeditiously.

Curtis McCarty spent over 21 years in an Oklahoma prison – including 19 years on death row -for a murder he did not commit before he was exonerated through DNA testing three years ago this week. Prosecutorial and forensic misconduct played a role in his wrongful conviction.

McCarty was an acquaintance of an 18-year-old Oklahoma City woman who was found murdered in late 1982. Forensic scientist Joyce Gilchrist initially compared hairs discovered at the crime scene and determined that they did not match McCarty’s, but evidence now shows that she altered her notes after he was arrested three years later. McCarty was initially sentenced to death in 1986, but appeals would overturn his conviction and sentence two more times in the next decade. He was sentenced to death three times before he was finally exonerated through DNA tests on evidence from the crime scene in 2007.

By John Payton
Sweat v. Painter was one of our cases and one of the cases that began the transformation of our country into an inclusive democracy.

By The Editors
A ruling this week by New York’s highest court has opened the way for a legal challenge to the state’s widely-criticized public-defender system on the grounds that it has failed to provide adequate assistance to poor people charged with crimes.

By Lee A. Daniels
The mixed record of recovery of the U.S. jobs crisis continued last month as the number of new jobs created substantially outstripped expectations – but was shadowed by an increase in the unemployment rate and the number of those jobless for six months or longer.

By Doug Miller
Payday lenders – neighborhood operations where cash-strapped borrowers can go for small, short-term loans – contend they shouldn’t be facing the same kind of financial reform regulations as full-service banks. But critics who call high-interest payday transactions “legalized loan-sharking” say they disproportionately target minorities and need to be reined in along with Wall Street giants.