By Aswad Walker, Defender Network For some, holidays are just days off work. For others, many of them are considered sacred and holy. But all holidays were created by a specific group of people for a specific reason. Holidays were meant to be vehicles for teaching, highlighting and passing down specific values important to the […]
Author Archives: DefenderNetwork.com
Posted inHealth
Black children experiencing brunt of child abuse crisis
By ReShonda Tate, Defender Network A Houston mother beats her 4-month-old daughter because the baby’s father no longer wanted a relationship with her. A 7-year-old boy was found dead in a washing machine where his adoptive parents reportedly stuffed him after he was beaten, suffocated and possibly drowned – all because the boy stole the […]
Posted inSports
Simone Biles says ‘I Do’
By The Defender News Service Simone Biles is married. The Olympic gymnast married NFL player Jonathan Owens. The 26-year-old announced the exciting news on social media on Saturday. The pair was first romantically linked in 2020 after meeting on a dating app. More than one year after announcing their engagement, the Olympian, 26, and football […]
Posted inWord In Black
College enrollment down-except at HBCUs
By ReShonda Tate, Defender Network Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are increasing their enrollments at a time when many other institutions of higher learning are seeing a decline in their number of students. According to a news report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, college and university enrollment has declined for the third […]
Posted inNews
About time: Toni Morrison honored with new stamp
By Aswad Walker, The Houston Defender Nobel laureate and former Texas Southern University faculty member Toni Morrison was recently “forever immortalized” on a stamp honoring her prolific career as an uncompromising, “for the culture” writer, editor, scholar and mentor. The new stamp was unveiled this month in a tribute at Princeton University, where Morrison taught […]
Posted inCommentary
We need more growth in minority media ownership
By Barbara Arnwine, Defender News Service I’ve fought for civil rights my entire career. In fact, in honor of my late mother, Vera Pearl Arnwine, I will tell you that my actual birth was amidst a fight for justice and equality to desegregate a White Hospital that refused to service the African Americans in the […]
Posted inOPINION
Op-ed: The 1619 Project centers us and our story
by Aswad Walker Attempts to block, discredit, distort, colonize and criminalize Black (African, Pan-African) history have been going on since the early 1470s. That’s roughly 550 years worth of eurocentric whitewashing; or as folk in the halls of academia call it, “epistemic violence.” Epistemic violence is not physical violence, like busting somebody upside the head. […]
Posted inNational News
Some lesser-known, yet still powerful, MLK quotes
By Aswad Walker, The Defender Network The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a prolific speaker, meaning he has a litany of speeches given over his years in the public eye that go far beyond the many sermons he preached. Not only that, MLK wrote 10-plus books and penned countless op-eds for newspapers and […]
Posted inSports
Texans make Lovie Smith a one-and-done coach
By Terrance Harris, The Defender Network Count veteran NFL coach Lovie Smith as the Texans’ latest one-and-done coach. Smith was informed shortly after Sunday’s regular-season finale win over the Colts that he was being fired after just one season on the job. He was 3-13-1 in his lone season as head coach. Smith is the […]
Posted inNational News
Black Women were front and center in House Speaker saga
By ReShonda Tate, The Defender Network For the millions of people who watched a leaderless House of Representatives convene for the first week of the new year, the true legend to many was a Black woman named Cheryl Johnson. As factions of Republicans, newly in the majority, fought savagely to appoint a new speaker, the […]
Posted inENTERTAINMENT
Migos: Rapper Takeoff shot dead in Houston age 28
By ReShonda Tate, DefenderNetwork.com BREAKING: Takeoff, the third member of Migos alongside the rappers Quavo and Offset, has died. Police say the 28-year-old rapper, real name Kirshnik Khari Ball, was fatally shot at a bowling alley in Houston where he and Quavo were playing dice around 2.30am; Takeoff was pronounced dead at the scene. Two […]
Posted inTV and Film
Top 10 must-see Black documentaries
By The Houston Defender, Word in Black The AFRO’s October Special Edition is all about the roots of our culture, our family lineage and the return to old ways and traditions. Below you will find a list of documentaries, based on the roots of African-American culture, compiled by our Word in Black partner, The Houston […]