Category: OPINION

Lauren Victoria Burke Have you ever seen a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taking part of a panel discussion? It’s likely he didn’t have time if he were asked. It’s also likely that in the 1950s and 1960s, he wasn’t asked much. The period King conquered was a time of action. The actions […]

I was recently on a driving tour of Cherry Hill with two community activists, a husband and wife team who work with youth in the isolated Baltimore neighborhood, when a police cruiser began to follow us.  We were on our way to meet a long-time resident and organizer and parked the car in front of […]

African Americans have marched a long way down the road to individual freedom and equality. Groups like the NAACP remain ever vigilant protecting and advancing our gains. But there is a missing link in the Civil Rights Movement—one that is often undervalued by most civil rights groups. That is, the right to “economic liberty.” The […]

Roger Caldwell It is now 2014, and Americans have forgotten the success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Everyone is talking about President Obama’s dismal poll numbers, where only 40 to 39 percent think he is doing a good job. These numbers are the worse since he has been in office, and the Congress is […]

Congressman Elijah Cummings As the AFRO-American reported in June, our nation’s Black doctors are deeply concerned about the dangers climate change poses to our health. Since Americans of Color are especially vulnerable to those threats, measures to better protect our planet are fast becoming critical civil rights objectives. A survey conducted among members of the […]

Dr. E. Faye Williams The President of the World Bank Group, Jim Yong Kim, is expected to speak at Howard University on October 1. The powerful international bank is one of the most racist institutions in the US, hiding behind the veil of its immunity from US laws. Victims of discrimination are confined to an […]

George E. Curry The NFL – which has been referred to as everything from the National Felons League to, in the cases of players, Not For Long – has imposed a lifetime ban on Ray Rice yet rarely disciplines other brazen offenders. And when a team takes the rare action of disciplining a player for […]

The Matthew A. Henson Neighborhood Association is not only pleased to publicly “…accept responsibility and work together to ensure that every student is in school every day, on time and ready to learn,” but to invite and challenge all neighborhood associations to commit to communicating their participation as well. We have already informed Principal David […]

Grief can be a terrible blinder.  Tears fill our eyes and make it hard to see, even though we feel more clear-eyed in the face of tragedy.  I fear that the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in New York will blind us and foster illusions about the political actions the Black […]

Charly Carter, executive director of Maryland Working Families. Maryland is reported to be the wealthiest state in the nation, yet if you ask anyone on the street, they would say something different. You would hear concern over the ever-rising costs of housing, food and utilities; climbing student loan burdens; and a government that seems increasingly […]

Dr. E. Faye Williams Washington, DC –Some companies get it.  Some don’t, but they will.   There are still a lot of people who believe the NFL is too powerful for anything or anybody to force changes in the league.  All they’ve got to do is look back to the Civil Rights Movement where Black Americans, […]