By The Editors

Following a tradition begun last year, TheDefendersOnline.com will for the next two weeks offer a look back at some of the stories we published in 2010 which so occupied your attention. What an eventful year! It’s a cliché, of course; but that makes it no less true. During 2010, the crisis of joblessness loomed ever larger; as did the fury that extremist conservatives expressed for President Obama. Glenn Beck and the Tea Party tried to smother the memory of the iconic March on Washington, but succeeded only in underscoring the earlier event’s unmatchable power. Shirley Sherrod, a woman with deep roots in the black freedom struggle, proved that sometimes the truth can be suppressed for only a moment. The death of Percy Sutton, the legendary New York-based entrepreneur and activist, illuminated anew his extraordinary life. President Obama’s Democratic Party took a “shellacking” in the midterm elections; but, against all expectation, he has shown a renewed political vigor since to close the year on a more positive note. Through it all, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund has continued its work safeguarding the rights won and pursuing the rights still to be won to, as the poet Langston Hughes wrote, make America be America.

• LDF Victory in Chicago By Stacey Patton
• Black America’s Challenging Political Prospects By Lee A. Daniels
• Most Likely to be Suspended; Least Likely to Succeed? New Report Shows Racism in Middle-School Suspensions By TaRessa Stovall
• The Trouble With Shirley: Race, Power and the Elephant in the Room By Nicole Mason
• The Recession’s Deepening Impact: U.S. Poverty Rate at All-Time High By The Editors
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief to Defend Voting Rights Act Against Constitutional Challenge By The Editors
• The Significance of the Education Catastrophe By John Payton
• Biloxi Schools: Punished for Achievement? By Stacey Patton
• LDF Applauds Supreme Court Decision Declaring Life Without Parole Sentences for Juveniles in Non-Homicide Cases Unconstitutional By The Editors
• The Myth of Our ‘Post-Racial Society’ By John Payton
• LDF Commemorates 45th Anniversary of Voting Rights Act Signing By The Editors
• Legal Defense Fund Applauds Legislation Ending Prison-Based Gerrymandering in New York By The Editors
• Kinship Care Givers Struggle for Support in an Unsupportive Economy By Tarice L.S. Gray
• Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” By Martin Kilson
• Deval Patrick’s Blueprint for An Historic Success By Kenneth J. Cooper
• Understanding the 2010 Midterm Elections By George E. Curry
• Hard Road Finally Hoed: Black Farmers Win USDA Settlement By Doug Miller
• In It To Win It: At Age 12, Justus Rules the Boards By TaRessa Stovall
• Legal Defense Fund Gala Dinner Surpasses Goal in Fund-Raising at 70 By The Editors
• Living Near a Foreclosed Home? You Lose. By Doug Miller
• Civil Rights Conference Honors Julius L. Chambers By The Editors
• A Powerful Voice, Not Stilled, Still Heard By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
• John Payton Receives the Charles Hamilton Houston Medallion of Merit By The Editors
• Legal Defense Fund Wins Relief for Victims of Post- Katrina/Rita Housing Discrimination