By Kerry Mitchell Brown, Ph.D. More than 12 million viewers watched the Louisiana State University (LSU) Lady Tigers, a team of majority Black women athletes, win their first-ever NCAA championship on April 2. Their rivals, and the forecasted winners, the Iowa Hawkeyes, a predominately White team, played hard. But LSU played harder. They dominated, the […]
Category: Opinion
Posted inOPINION
Many are falling short while chasing the American Dream
By Chaila R. Scott Most of us have been given the same life directives: go to college, get a good job, get married, have kids, retire. As a former alumni adviser for high school grads, I can assure you that narrative is alive and well. We get this plan from well-meaning people who love us, […]
Posted inCommentary
Five ways to help Black folk affected by tornadoes
by Maya Richard-Craven Collapsed buildings. Piles of debris. Destroyed homes. Dozens of people dead. These are just a few of the consequences of the estimated 50 tornadoes that recently hit the South and Midwest. But one of the year’s worst tornadoes happened the week before this latest outbreak, and residents are still suffering. On March […]
Posted inCommentary
TBE# 15 – “Tennessee Three” fiasco highlights the inextricable link between racism and gun violence
By Marc H. Morial, President and CEO, National Urban League “We won’t be bent, we won’t be bowed, and we won’t be ordered to ignore the hearts and minds of the people who elected us, demanding commonsense gun safety in a state that has nearly none. The GOP of the Tennessee House of Representatives attempted […]
Posted inOPINION
Commentary: Clarence Thomas is in trouble – again
By Gloria Browne-Marshall, Special to the AFRO Clarence Thomas has served on the U.S. Supreme Court since 1991. African American and born in poverty in Pinpoint, Ga., Thomas attended Yale Law School and took the place of Thurgood Marshall, a civil rights attorney and first African American on the Supreme Court. Those facts should bring […]
Posted inOPINION
Op-Ed: Repair our communities, or else
By Sean Yoes, Special to the AFRO Many residents of Poppleton and Harlem Park who live in the shadow of the Highway to Nowhere, the infamous 1.4 mile truncated stretch of roadway that cut West Baltimore in half, have been experiencing trepidation in its interactions with city hall recently. It is an all too familiar […]
Posted inOpinion
Angel Reese and why we don’t go high anymore
By Dr. Karsonya Wise Whitehead There are always moments that serve as reminders that for all of the talking that America has done about racism and sexism, it still exists. We host conferences on race and lead workshops on anti-racism. We write articles and publish books about sexism; still, there are moments when it feels […]
Posted inCommentary
The struggle Dr. King gave his life for
By Ben Jealous This month in 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated leading a bold effort to teach America an urgent lesson: Racism is not just the boot on the neck of people of color, it is also the great wedge that divides Americans. And everyone who gets divided loses. On Dec. […]
Posted inOpinion
Black children deserve representation in STEM fields
By Sofia Mohammed As a former teacher and forever educator, my philosophy and approach to education was heavily shaped by Zaretta Hammond. Being a Black woman, I knew firsthand how important it was that the children in my class saw themselves represented across the content we consumed — especially for subjects like math and science, […]
Posted inCommentary
How White privilege plays into the first lady’s idea to invite runner-up Iowa to the White House
by Joseph N. Cooper, UMass Boston After Louisiana State University beat the University of Iowa for the women’s college basketball championship on April 2, 2023 – winning by 17 points – first lady Jill Biden floated the idea of inviting both the winning and losing teams to the White House to celebrate because Iowa “played such a good […]
Posted inCommentary
Four states where Black migration can strengthen Black political power
By Roger House In recent years, social policy researchers such as Brookings Institution have chronicled the trend of Black Americans’ migration from declining northern cities to the South. Less understood, however, is the political effect of coordinated movement between the southern states. This year, as voters in Louisiana and Mississippi gear up for elections, it […]