By John Payton Related links Counterpoint:Banning Menthol Cigarettes Will Create a Huge Illegal, Contraband Market Lorillard’s Orwellian Assertion: Slavery Is Freedom Before we can analyze whether banning menthol as a tobacco flavor would lead to a market in contraband menthol cigarettes we must first clarify our terminology. Contraband market: That term is today used to [...]

By Jessie Lee
A contraband market of illicit and unregulated cigarettes will be inevitable – and large – if the government bans menthol cigarettes. Illegal menthol cigarettes will find their way to consumers.

By The Editors
Five current and former New Orleans police officers, charged with perpetrating one of the most notorious incidents of police misconduct in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina five years ago, went on trial this week in federal district court in New Orleans.

By Lee A. Daniels
Given the stand-still overall unemployment rate of 9.6 percent – unchanged for the fourth consecutive month – some might think there’s nothing new to report about the country’s economic crisis.

They are wrong; for with each passing month the threads of the looming social catastrophe grow simultaneously clearer, denser and more knotted

By Kristen Clarke
As part of its commitment to bringing African Americans and other communities of color into the redistricting process, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) has launched the public education program, “Redrawing the Lines,” with resource and training materials available to community members, activists and policy makers.

By George E. Curry Of the tsunami of mistakes made by the media in interpreting the midterm election results, the one that rises to the top is the assertion that Democrats lost more than 60 House seats in part because the African-American portion of the electorate declined from 13 percent in 2008 to 10 percent [...]

On Thursday, November 4, 2010, LDF hosted its 24th annual National Equal Justice Award Dinner. At the gala, LDF honored two extraordinary business leaders, William M. Lewis, Jr., Co-Chairman of Investment Banking at Lazard and LDF Board Co-Chair Emeritus, and William C. Weldon, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson. On this special occasion, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Weldon each received LDF’s National Equal Justice Award.

By The Editors
The California proposal on the ballot last Tuesday legalizing marijuana had been widely expected to pass, riding a wave

However, its doom was signaled early in the balloting, and at the end it wasn’t even close.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
The same state that sent the first Tea Party-backed candidate to Congress has made national history by becoming the first to re-elect a black governor.

By The Editors

Buoyed by an extraordinary success in fund-raising, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) held its annual National Equal Justice Award Dinner Thursday in New York City in a celebration that exemplified many of the elements of LDF’s past and present.