Category: Commentary

Watching television Saturday night, I sat in stunned silence as the jury returned its not guilty verdict for George Zimmerman in connection with the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. Then, I was jolted by a comment made by Prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda: “… We live in a great country that […]

“As of 2004, more black men were denied the right to vote because of a criminal record than in 1870, when the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, giving blacks the right to vote.” Joshua Dubois, former director of President Obama’s Office of Faith-Based Initiatives As the Trayvon Martin trial and record high summer temperatures both begin […]

Maryland is geographically located just below the historic Mason and Dixon Line, making it a southern state. The “Old Line State” as Maryland is sometimes called, actually had elements fighting on the side of the Confederacy during the Civil War to uphold slavery. Today State leaders deliberately shun the southern affiliation, choosing instead to market […]

When we consider all that is at stake in the ongoing struggle between progressive and reactionary forces on the issue of food stamps, the faces of hungry American children should be the picture in the forefront of our minds and hearts. We all should be following the lead of national leaders like my Massachusetts colleague […]

WASHINGTON, July 14, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — In case you missed it, below is the reaction of Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children’s Defense Fund, to the verdict in the George Zimmerman case for the killing of Trayvon Martin. Justice Denied Until the killing of Black men, Black mothers’ sons, is as important as the […]

If you’re looking for the justice on the Supreme Court who mirrors Thurgood Marshall’s tenure on the bench, it is not Sonia Sotomayor, the “Wise Latina.” And it certainly isn’t Clarence Thomas. It is Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the nation’s highest court. This became clear in the Fisher v. University […]

“Anger and jealousy do not last forever, but a gunshot fired in an impulsive rage often does. Easy accessibility to lethal guns makes a fatal difference over and over again.” “My heart was shattered while I was working at 60 Minutes when my only sister was shot and killed by her husband. There was a restraining […]

President Barack Obama should lead a forceful drive to revive the Voting Rights Act, which was effectively disemboweled by the Supreme Court’s recent decision. All celebrate the 1965act as the most consequential civil rights legislation of the past century. Its passage was central to the building of the New South, opening the way to attracting […]

The Voting Rights Act has been described as the “crown jewel” of civil rights legislation. Its passage was secured with the courage, grit and blood of activists throughout the south, like Fannie Lou Hamer who endured beating simply for trying to register to vote in Mississippi, Medgar Evers who was murdered by a White supremacist, […]

Until its June 25 decision in the Shelby County v. Holder voting rights case, the Supreme Court had respected the express constitutional authority granted to the Congress by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. It had been clear that voting rights legislation would be upheld against facial attacks as long as the congressional legislation was rationally […]

There are demographic changes occurring in the United States that will change politics and public policy and make this country a more humane and equitable place. In another 20 to 30 years the U.S. will be a majority-minority country and White supremacy will be a discredited idea of the past. But we are not living […]

At 5:00 a.m., careful not to wake her daughter and two sleeping grandsons, Helen gets dressed for the morning shift at a D.C. hotel kitchen. “My supervisor is a kid. I hate it, but this job is all that’s keeping us from moving back to the shelter,” Helen told me, adding that, if they get […]