By The Editors
Why did Norman Redlich, Clara Luper, and Paul E. Sullivan act as if the words of the Declaration of Independence about “self-evident truths” and “inalienable rights” were not just rhetoric but had an actual meaning for American society?

By Kenneth J. Cooper
“Freedom Riders” is a well-documented ride through history, back 50 years into another century, when America seemed like a different place. It is no joy ride.

By Lee A. Daniels
Why is a symbol of a treasonous undertaking, led by men who betrayed their oaths as elected officials and military officers of the United States, still honored by those who claim to pledge allegiance to the United States of America?

By George E. Curry
Whatever you plan to do next Monday night (May 16), make sure you are home in front of the television or have set your recorder to tape Freedom Riders, the excellent PBS documentary by filmmaker Stanley Nelson. And make sure children, related or unrelated, watch the documentary with you

By Vernon E. Jordan, Jr.
For nearly two decades, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. has been invited to speak at a Sunday service of the historic Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel on the campus of Howard University. Jordan, who graduated from Howard University Law School in 1960, has often described Rankin Chapel as one of the touchstones of his life. Last Sunday, his speech there concerned a different topic, black Americans’ New Talented Tenth, and, with his permission, we reprint it here.

By TaRessa Stovall
May 1961: Between May and December , 436 black and white civil rights activists, many of them students, known as Freedom Riders rode more than 60 bus rides to fight segregated travel facilities in the South and raise the nation’s consciousness about racial injustice.

The Civil War began in 1861. It didn’t end until 1965. By Lee A. Daniels “Why We’re Still Fighting the Civil War,” the cover of the April 18 issue of Time Magazine declared, marking the 150th anniversary of the shelling of Fort Sumter that began the conflagration. Time’s editors then posted an additional, poignant comment: [...]

By Janet Singleton
Canada too, the modest parallel universe above the United States, celebrated Black History Month in February. But that may surprise people who assume Canada is white and untouched by slavery.

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Affirmative action is usually considered a creation of the 1960s, when the civil rights movement culminated in the enactment of a series of federal laws. But the term “affirmative action” was in common usage for at least two decades before then in the civil rights community, laying the groundwork for the systematic efforts to assure a larger place for racial-ethnic minorities and women in employment, higher education and public contracting.

By Vern E. Smith
Wharlest Jackson Jr. is a big man, well over six feet tall and 200 pounds. But to listen to him speak of his namesake, Wharlest Jackson Sr., is to witness the strapping adult reduced to the weeping eight-year-old boy who rode his bicycle to the scene of a powerful car bomb in the spring of 1967 in Natchez, Miss. and discovered that the victim was his own father.