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Newt’s Poor Record on Civil Rights

The Editors — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:01:48 +0000

By Kenneth J. Cooper
As a Georgia congressman, Newt Gingrich was no friend of civil rights. He voted against civil rights bills and mouthed the inflammatory arguments of conservative opponents of black progress.

Inclusivity in Education: When it comes to African American history, students aren’t getting the full story

The Editors — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 18:30:06 +0000

By Tarice L.S. Gray
Eighty percent of fourth-graders, 83 percent of eighth-graders, and a truly astonishing 86 percent of high school seniors failed to show a “proficient” knowledge and understanding of the nation’s history - or rather, that they knew and understood the subject matter.

Governor Martinez’ Family Matters

The Editors — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:19:11 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
New Mexico’s new Republican Governor Susana Martinez has drawn significant national attention not only because she’s the first Latinato hold that high office in the U.S., but also because she’s pushed a hard-line against undocumented immigrants—most of whom, of course, are from Latin America.

The Cherokee Freedmen Descendants: Still Seeking Freedom

The Editors — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 15:35:17 +0000

By Kenneth J. Cooper
Enmeshed in a tangled, longstanding dispute over their citizenship rights, descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen, the former slaves of the Oklahoma-based Native American tribe, are pinning their hopes of healing a public rupture with the Cherokee Nation on a new election for chief.

Black Knights, White Knights

The Editors — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 02:16:40 +0000

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?

Local People as Law Shapers: Lessons from Atlanta’s Civil Rights Movement

The Editors — Tue, 31 May 2011 20:18:51 +0000

By Tomiko Brown-Nagin
Many of those who profess to want change “don’t care nothing about poor people … If they had poor people at heart, they could make it better.” Ethel Mae Mathews, president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Welfare Rights Organization, made this statement in 2000, after decades of community-based activism in Atlanta.

PBS Documentary on The Freedom Riders: Chronicling The Nonviolent Army

The Editors — Fri, 13 May 2011 23:07:42 +0000

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.

Freedom Riders PBS Documentary is Must-See Television

The Editors — Wed, 11 May 2011 02:18:15 +0000

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

On the Road Again: Students and Freedom Riders Retrace Route—and Explore Roots—of Historic Bus Movement

The Editors — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:47:00 +0000

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.

Recalling the War for Negro Freedom

The Editors — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:46:00 +0000

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: [...]

Civil Rights Version of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ To Air This Friday

The Editors — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 19:50:48 +0000

By Stacey Patton
Tonight the groundbreaking investigative documentary series “The Injustice Files” airs on the Investigative Discovery Channel at 9 pm. The first show, “Secrets of Natchez,” investigates the murder of Wharlest Jackson, a civil rights activist and devoted father of five who became a target of one of the most virulent Ku Klux Klan chapters in the South because he took a job that white racists deemed fit only for white men.

Birthright Citizenship: The Political Games Continue

The Editors — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 13:09:14 +0000

By The Editors
It’s deeply ironic that amidst the considerations of Black History Month and of the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, some conservative pundits and legislators continue to be obsessed, at least, rhetorically speaking, with legislatively repealing the 14th Amendment.

Making Democracy Work

The Editors — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 03:20:37 +0000

By Michael G. Long
The surviving letters of Marshall’s work during his long tenure with the NAACP provide remarkable evidence of the breadth of his democratic vision and the depth of his commitment to making democracy work. Immediately below are three letters that represent part of Marshall’s comprehensive efforts to affect every major part of American life—business, government, civil society, and individual lives.

A Speech for The Ages

The Editors — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:23:33 +0000

By Martin Luther King, Jr.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

A Murder … And A Question

The Editors — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:10:14 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
“What kind of human being could set another man on fire?

This was the question that Stanley Nelson, a reporter for The Concordia Sentinel, a small weekly newspaper in the Louisiana Delta town of Ferriday, says first spurred him to exhaustively investigate the 1964 murder of a black Delta businessman, allegedly by the Ku Klux Klan.

Dream Act Hits Roadblock In The Senate; Passage Endangered

The Editors — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:48:55 +0000

By The Editors
The Senate Thursday tabled legislation that would provide a clear route to citizenship for high school and college students in the U.S. illegally, raising the possibility that the push to pass it has failed.

Three New Orleans Police Officers Convicted, Two Acquitted in the Post-Katrina Death of Henry Glover

The Editors — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 21:05:02 +0000

By The Editors
The legal reconstruction of and punishment for the whirlwind of lawlessness that coursed through the New Orleans police department in the wake of Hurricane Katrina five years ago took another step forward on Thursday, December 9.

The Bell of Justice Long Delayed

The Editors — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 01:09:39 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
It tolls for Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old black Alabamian, an “ordinary man” whose desire to gain the full measure of his American citizenship led first to tragedy and then to black Americans’ triumph.

LDF Award Dinner Features Video of LDF History

The Editors — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:30:19 +0000

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.

Legal Defense Fund Gala Dinner Surpasses Goal in Fund-Raising at 70

The Editors — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:39:57 +0000

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.

Civil Rights Conference Honors Julius L. Chambers

The Editors — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 00:32:05 +0000

By The Editors
Julius L. Chambers, a former President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund was honored this week in his native North Carolina in perhaps the most fitting way possible: with a two-day conference intended to identify ways to complete “The Unfinished Work” of the struggle for civil rights.

“These are Dark-Skinned People, Not … Like You and Me”

The Editors — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 21:05:29 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
These are dark-skinned people, not … like you and me.”

There you have it. Brief and to the point. The words sound so familiar, so American.

But they weren’t spoken by an American.

Betraying Justice: The Civil Rights Movement’s “Great Traitor”

The Editors — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 18:39:13 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Every great movement has its great traitors. Now, thanks to The Commercial Appeal newspaper of Memphis, we know the name of one of the Civil Rights Movement’s great traitors: Ernest C. Withers.

Where’s the ‘Content of Our Character’ Crowd Now?

The Editors — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 19:00:56 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels Since the election of Ronald Reagan especially, it’s become the mantra of the conservative quest to make racial bigotry not disappear but just become unacknowledged.

Jefferson Thomas, American Hero 1942 — 2010

The Editors — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:19:31 +0000

Jefferson Thomas, one of the Little Rock Nine, died Sunday. In 1957 he and eight other black teenagers in Little Rock, Arkansas, risked their lives to go to the high school they were entitled to in order to prove the greatest declaration of American idealism had meaning.