Category: OPINION

Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough During the month of February, the C-SPAN bus traveled to eight historically Black college campuses to provide viewers with insight on these institutions. Since these are my colleagues, I made sure I watched each as this was great exposure not only for their campuses, but for all historically Black colleges and […]

Elijah Cummings Despite being unfair and against the law, far too many women are paid less than men are paid for doing essentially the same jobs for the same employers. It is reasonable to ask how our laws could allow these inequalities in pay.  After all, pay discrimination violates the federal Equal Pay Act of […]

Eddie Bernice Johnson Loretta Lynch, the president’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as the U.S. Attorney General, is poised to become the first African American woman to lead the Justice Department. Ms. Lynch is a Harvard-educated lawyer with a reputation as a tough prosecutor. Her impeccable record includes the successful prosecutions of high profile public […]

Sabrina Dawson This past February, students across the country celebrated Black History Month. They read books by Black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, or watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And if they are being taught honestly, as they learn about […]

Walter Fields Every morning, when I fix my teenage daughter breakfast and drop her off to school, she reminds me that #BlackGirlsMatter. Her journey has not been easy; made all the more difficult by an experience, beginning in middle school and persisting to high school, that threatened to crush her dreams by denying her access […]

One of the many questions provoked by the “open letter” 47 Republican Senators published last week to try to wreck the multinational effort led by the Obama administration to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is this: Lee A. Daniels Do they understand their obligation to the rule of law? As scholar Daniel W. Drezner […]

James Clingman Ever since President Bill Clinton apologized for the Tuskegee syphilis “experiment” in 1997, we have heard calls for apologies from the government and individuals for a myriad of transgressions against Black people. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that apologies are highly overrated and mean very little when it comes […]

William Barber Looking at our nation and noting where we have come since 1965 gives us reason to celebrate. However, in our celebration we should be mindful that true equality was never achieved, and that instead of moving towards justice we are moving in the other direction. Just a year ago we celebrated the 50th […]

Jesse L. Jackson Sr. President Obama marked the 50th anniversary of Selma by celebrating the ordinary heroes who sacrificed so much to make America better. Noting that nearly 100 members of Congress were in the audience, he urged them to return to Washington to strengthen the Voting Rights Act, weakened by the ill-considered decision of five […]

Matthew C. Whitaker Black History Month is over, but we should move past the standardized foci and platitudes that mark our commemoration. We have a history that challenges us to address vestiges of intolerance and redress the inequality that still undermines African American upward mobility throughout the year. Since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. seems […]

Marc H. Morial A new expression has entered the Westminster lexicon: dog-whistle politics.  It means putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed. The intention is to make potential supporters sit up and take notice while avoiding offending those to whom the […]