By The Editors
The lawsuit claims that the city’s policing practices in its public housing developments – most notably, its “vertical sweeps” of buildings — “routinely” subject residents and those who visit them to illegal stops and false arrests that serve no lawful purpose.

By Ryan P. Haygood
The 2010 Census affords a unique opportunity to harness the momentum of African-American civic engagement that was forged in the 2008 Presidential election — this time, to ensure complete African-American inclusion.

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
What does a woman do after coming-of -age in Birmingham in the 1950s, after losing two friends in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that killed four little girls in the 1960s, after helping free her very high-profile sister from the clutches of the FBI’s Most Wanted List during the height of Black Power in the 1970s? What does she do after advocating for the end to Apartheid in the 1980s, after working as a Civil Rights trial lawyer through the 1990s?

By Deborah Rudacille
On a rainy morning in early December, the mood in Baltimore’s barber shops and beauty salons is subdued. The day after Baltimore mayor Sheila Dixon was convicted of one misdemeanor count of embezzling about $500 worth of gift cards intended for the city’s needy, her political fate remains uncertain and shop owners and customers seem torn about the verdict.

By Ellen Feldman
In March, 1931, as the Depression was deepening and 200,000 young people under the age of twenty-one were hoboing the country in search of an odd job, or a few scraps of food, or the little bit of fun that was supposed to be the birthright of youth, a group of young black and white men got into a fight on a freight train going from Chattanooga to Memphis, Tennessee, by way of northern Alabama.

No crime in America, let alone a crime never committed, has resulted in as many trials, convictions, reversals, retrials, and Supreme Court decisions, including a seminal 1935 ruling. Collectively, the nine young men spent more than a hundred years in some of the worst jails and prisons in Depression-era America. Only one of them lived to be pardoned.

By Amy Alexander
In 2003, Kamala Harris became the first African-American woman to be elected District Attorney in San Francisco. Re-elected in 2007, Harris continued the innovative law enforcement work she’d begun while serving as managing attorney in the Career Criminal Unit in the SF DA’s office.

By The Editors

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Congress Extends Hate Crimes Law Protections to Gay Men and Lesbians; Obama Expected to Sign the Measure

Declaring that “we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits—not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear,” President Obama has signed historic legislation expanding federal hate [...]

By The Editors
President Obama is widely expected to sign historic legislation expanding federal hate crime laws to cover attacks against gay men and lesbians.

By Liz Webster
Thomas McGowan, a Texas exoneree who was released in April 2008, recently had the opportunity to meet the rape victim who had misidentified him nearly a quarter-century before.

By Desiree Cooper
With many states considering closing their prisons in order to balance their budgets, it’s time to ratchet up the national conversation about what to do with a growing number of ex-felons, especially those who are sincerely trying to re-integrate into society