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Carl E. Clark, American Hero

The Editors — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:07:52 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
Last week, during a ceremony saturated with pomp and circumstance and profound historical resonance, Carl E. Clark, a Navy veteran, was awarded a medal by the Secretary of the Navy for the kind of wartime devotion to duty – saving the lives of hundreds of his fellow sailors – Hollywood makes movies about.

Judge Robert L. Carter, 1917 – 2012

The Editors — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:39:19 +0000

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund mourns the passing of Judge Robert L. Carter, a true giant of the struggle for racial justice and equality.

Heroes

The Editors — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:29:10 +0000

By The Editors
Hero.

The word is overused. But if one accepts its true definition, then certainly Derrick Bell and the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth did enough during their lives to qualify several times over.

The ‘Crazy’ Life of Rev. Joseph Lowery

The Editors — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 13:15:00 +0000

By George E. Curry Rev. Joseph Lowery is a civil rights icon. He participated in all of the epic civil rights battles of his day, including the Montgomery, Ala. bus boycott, the violent showdown with “Bull” Connor in Birmingham, the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the famous 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Justice. He was [...]

Wilbert Rideau, Former Angola Prisoner, Receives Polk Award

The Editors — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:31:37 +0000

By Trymaine Lee from The Huffington Post
Thirty-one years ago, while Rideau was serving a life sentence in prison for murder, he was awarded a George Polk Award for his work in journalism, one of the most coveted awards in the industry. He was not able to receive the award in person, until just last week.

Thinking About Reverend Peter J. Gomes – 1942-2011

The Editors — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:01:11 +0000

By Martin Kilson
Peter Gomes was a gracious, loving, and generous soul, and the Harvard community will miss him.

Manning Marable: Our Great Scholar-Activist

The Editors — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 15:05:33 +0000

By Kristen Clarke
What I appreciated most about Dr. Marable was that he rejected the presumption that academics need to maintain a social distance from activists. He was not at all interested in being a scholar who merely produced scholarship high in the ivory towers of academia.

John Cashin 1928 – 2011

The Editors — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 20:08:06 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels
John L. Cashin, Jr., whose civil rights activism in the middle decades of the twentieth century, helped to transform the South, cannot be called a Founding Father

Reverend Peter J. Gomes, Minister to Harvard University, Is Dead

The Editors — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 02:53:59 +0000

By The Editors
The Reverend Peter J. Gomes, a black churchman who forged a distinctive career in the historic position of chief minister to Harvard University, died Monday evening at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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.

Ron Walters: Scholar-Activist 1938 – 2010

The Editors — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:54:49 +0000

By The Editors
Professor Ronald W. Walters, who immersed himself in a scholar’s study of American politics and an activist’s engagement with American politics, died of cancer September 10 in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 72.

Clyde Murphy: 1948 — 2010

The Editors — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 12:08:10 +0000

By Theodore M. Shaw
He brought an energy and commitment to his work that was rooted in his unabashed commitment to improving the lives of African-American people.

Vernon Baker: American Hero 1919 – 2010

The Editors — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:21:18 +0000

By The Editors Like many, perhaps most of the awardees of the Congressional Medal of Honor, Vernon Baker lived the life of an ordinary individual both before and after those moments when service to his country and the cause of freedom demanded an extraordinary jettisoning of regard for his own life.

Bill Taylor: “A White Guy Like Me”

The Editors — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:00:42 +0000

By William L. Taylor I have had the good fortune to be a participant, not just a spectator, in the enormous social transformations of American life that occurred during the last half of the twentieth century. I see the changes in my everyday life and in the status of people of color, women, and people with disabilities.

Compassionate Ending for Storyteller’s Life

The Editors — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:38:25 +0000

By Janet Singleton “If you want to honor her, tell a story,” Keisha Washington told a Denver Post reporter about her aunt, storyteller Opalanga Pugh. For a quarter of a century, as a traditional Griot, she built her life on stories. Written about in publications like the Wall Street Journal and Christian Science Monitor and dubbed a “living legend” by an NBC show, Pugh was among only about 300 people in America who make their livings as fulltime storytellers, according the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Evelyn Cunningham

The Editors — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:07:08 +0000

By David N. Dinkins
Evelyn Elizabeth Long Cunningham has left us with so much more than memories – she has left us a rich legacy of her strength, a legacy of her warmth and charm, and a legacy of the great gift of her courage.

Many Generations Salute Lady Lena

The Editors — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:06:18 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall When news of Lena Horne’s passing on May 9 zoomed through cyberspace and other news media, I found myself most warmed and inspired by a varied bouquet of tributes from people of different generations whose lives she touched in many ways.

What’s Next? Considering the Future of Black Leadership

The Editors — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:50:59 +0000

By TaRessa Stovall
Who will pick up the baton?

When civil rights pioneers Drs. Benjamin Hooks and Dorothy Height passed away in mid-April, the question ricocheted through cyberspace, amid tributes to the pair of visionary legends as stalwarts of a movement that created the America we know today.

LDF Statement on the Passing of Dorothy Height

The Editors — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 21:15:34 +0000

It always seemed that Dorothy Irene Height, who died today at 98, was present at the creation of black Americans' twentieth-century struggle for freedom and equality. That was because within the living memory of most Americans Dr. Height was in fact at the center of that multi-faceted struggle that began with the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the National Urban League a century ago and continues today.

Benjamin L. Hooks: 1925 – 2010

The Editors — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:38:20 +0000

In one sense, Benjamin L. Hooks, the former Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who died today at 85, was a spectacular example of successes of the twentieth-century African-American freedom struggle.

Tribute to Eugene Allen: 1920 – 2010

The Editors — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 20:24:20 +0000

By Lee A. Daniels He had worked on the White House household staff for 34 years – through the presidencies of Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter, before retiring as White House maitre d’, the top butler’s position, two-thirds of the way through the administration of Ronald Reagan.

Gerald Boyd: A Man and ‘The Times’

The Editors — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:38:09 +0000

By Pamela Newkirk
Boyd died of lung cancer in November 2006 at age 56, but his memoir was shepherded to publication by his widow Robin Stone, a journalist and author who penned the afterword. The book traces a black man’s uncharted path from an impoverished childhood in St. Louis to an iconic American institution that both reflects and shapes the nation’s racial attitudes

National Law Journal Names Payton and Wells Among The Decade’s Most Influential Lawyers

The Editors — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 17:54:47 +0000

By The Editors “These are the lawyers who’ve defined a decade.” So begins an article in the current issue of the National Law Journal announcing its list of “The Decade’s Most Influential Lawyers.”

David Levering Lewis, Annette Gordon-Reed Among National Humanities Medals Recipients

The Editors — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:22:22 +0000

By Jackie Jones The National Humanities Medal honors individuals or groups whose work has expanded the country’s understanding and engagement with the humanities or helped to preserve and expand access to resources in the humanities.

From ‘Not That Bright’ to Publishing Ralph Ellison: Willing Identity, Exceeding Expectations

The Editors — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:58:09 +0000

By Janet Singleton In defiance of his former teacher’s another-one-bites-the-dust mandate, Bradley went on to earn a PhD in English from Harvard.