By The Editors
A federal appeals court Monday upheld a lower court ruling that barred the central provisions of a controversial Arizona immigration law from taking effect.

On April 8, 2011, a federal court of appeals issued a ruling explaining its decision to set aside preliminary injunctions previously granted against the State of Louisiana regarding its administration of the Road Home program.

By Doug Miller
Black financial services customers all too often are part of a separate-but-unequal financial services economy.

Last week, LDF joined more than a dozen civil rights organizations in authoring a letter urging Congress to incorporate key accountability provisions as it reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

By Lee A. Daniels
Have I become hard of hearing? Or is it true that the paeans to the middle class – their being exalted as “the backbone” of America – have disappeared from the political arena?

By Stacey Patton
Once again, National Child Abuse Prevention Month is here and the conversation on the physical safety and welfare of children is taking place amid blazing headlines over the controversial issue of paddling in schools.

By Lee A. Daniels
Tomorrow, April 9th, is the forty-third anniversary of the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century. It began the night of the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was buried.

By Sheila Rule
With this issue TheDefendersOnline.com begins a continuing series of articles on a vitally important topic: the relationship between those who are incarcerated in America’s prisons and jail or on probation or parole and their families. The alarming number of African-American men and women behind bars or burdened with the record of a felony conviction makes this one of the central issues black Americans and the larger society must discuss today. The essays of this series will further that discussion.

By Jason Dansby
My alarm sounded when the clock struck 8:00. It was the most annoying sound to a man who cherished his slumber, but I knew that the alarm symbolized something greater. At 8:30 a.m., I was to see my wife, Patricia, who was pregnant.

Since the turn of the century more flagship state universities have shown a decrease in black enrollments than the number that have achieved an increase. But more flagships have shown an increase in black faculty levels than have shown a decline.