Category: Commentary

Over the last decade, we’ve seen repeated efforts to suppress voter turnout. Unfortunately, this year was no different. On Election Day, Nov. 2, tens of thousands of Marylanders received phone calls telling them that “Governor O’Malley and President Obama have been successful” and to “relax, everything is fine.” The call went on to say that […]

The time: Late 2003 The place: A newsroom in Washington, D.C. The event: A veteran Republican senator dispatches a news release, announcing the authorization of a new, jobs-making project in the state he represents. The upside: News like that will be to the politician’s benefit because the voters like their man in Washington to deliver […]

(NNPA) — For Republicans, the Nov. 2 midterm elections were about 2012, not 2010.  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made that clear in a speech to the Heritage Foundation.  He said, “…The fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill, to end the bailouts, cut spending and […]

The Senate’s Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, was quoted by the National Journal recently as declaring: “The single most important thing want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” This, to me, is a misguided priority. As the elected public servants of the American people, our challenge and our duty to our […]

For decades the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People fought the good fight against racial discrimination. The organization was instrumental in defeating Jim Crow and discrimination in the workplace; it led the charge in establishing voting rights for all and equal access to quality education. Even now the NAACP does some good work in local […]

Let’s get one thing straight from the outset: D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired herself. No surprise that Rhee’s resignation was announced two weeks ago at a press conference staged by outgoing D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty and presumptive mayor and current D.C. Council Chairman Vincent Gray. “One City,” Mr. Gray’s campaign cry, may take a […]

I will never forget Election Day 2002 – nor will I ever stop fighting to defeat the political forces that would stoop to intimidation or trickery. Back in 2002, I arrived at my local voting place, preparing to vote in the governor’s race.  As I walked toward the school, they handed me this beautiful, glossy […]

A few weeks ago, tens of thousands gathered at the Lincoln Memorial for the One Nation March on Washington. The purpose of this rally:  jobs and equal access to fundamental human rights for all Americans.  Those who attended were eager to know whether attendance trumped that of Glenn Beck’s (I asked too), and more importantly, […]

A civilized society has to have a strong commitment to equal treatment in the administration of justice even when the topic might be unpopular. One of the roles of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives is to sensitize government officials and others to the problems of the black community and to have the […]

I read with great interest Jason Riley’s commentary on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) [“Black Colleges Need a New Mission,” Sept. 28, 2010] in which he refers to Black colleges as “academically inferior.” Mr. Riley uses data convenient to his case that HBCUs should be shuttered by citing the number of Blacks that now […]

If you start by tying together a bunch of surface observations – and deliberately ignore the causal factors lurking in the background – it’s easy to come up with the conclusions Jason Riley spewed in the Wall Street Journal in his article titled, “Black Colleges Need a New Mission. Once an essential response to racism, […]

Conservatives argue that the liberal social programs of the 1960s destroyed the Black family as the notion of the Black man as the patriarch of his family took a beating. In just a few generations, an intact Black family became so hard to recognize that Blacks ridiculed the 1980s family sitcom “The Cosby Show” as […]