Category: OPINION

Over the last few weeks the country has had its eye on Ferguson, Missouri as a result of the shooting death of Michael Brown. The Alexandria NAACP offers our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Michael Brown.  The family has lost a young man due to gun violence, and we are praying for […]

Many American families pay their undocumented immigrant housekeepers and gardeners fractions of what it would cost them to hire Americans to do the same job. Economists describe this as a reservation wage – the minimum wage that different groups of people are expected to accept due to their social and economic status. This is the […]

For my family (and probably your own), Labor Day is a civil rights holiday – especially for those of us who are Americans of Color. U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings When my kids were young, they would ask me about Labor Day. I would tell them about A. Phillip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car […]

A member of the Clayton police department stands watch as protesters gather outside the Buzz Westfall Justice Center. During Slavery in America, Blacks were considered three-fifths of a person, and their life was controlled by an overseer and master. The overseer was authorized to punish slaves, and kill them if they refused to do the […]

George Curry Occasionally, police officers behave in such as dastardly manner that it captures international attention. There was the 1997 famous video of four White LAPD officers taking turns clubbing and kicking Rodney King nearly beyond recognition after a high-speed automobile chase. In 1999, on the opposite coast, an unarmed, 23-year-old Amadou Diallo was killed […]

Diane Bell McKoy. America’s one-sided race problem continues unabated. As “post racial” as we want to believe ourselves to be, we, as a society, continue to demonize young Black men and women, in ways that truncate their life opportunities and rob ourselves of their leadership, their business and workforce talent. America’s current tragedy is not […]

Robert L. Wallace is an engineer, entrepreneur, adjunct professor of business at Loyola University. Meet my friend Jeff (not his real name).  Jeff was one of my classmates at Baltimore Polytechnic Institute.  Poly was a magnet school that enrolled students who were gifted in math and science.  I was a child from the project homes […]

Julianne Malveaux I don’t do vacations well.  I have to be pushed and prodded, just about guilt-tripped, into taking time off.  Sure, I’ll take an hour here, an evening there, to read a book or play word games. But it just about takes an act of God to get me to go play. Yet, when […]

Earlier this month, I was informed that one of my neighbors who happens to be a pastor was assaulted by Baltimore City Police Officers just steps from his home and church. The officers came to my clergy neighbor’s house at 2 a.m. claiming that someone called 911.  When my neighbor informed him that he was […]

America’s children will return to school later this month, eager to learn.  We all have both a moral and very practical interest in helping them succeed. As a nation, we believe that providing the opportunity for every child to receive an empowering public education is essential to our future prosperity.  As a group, however, economically […]

This is a call for all eligible Black folks to register and vote in every election from now until eternity, so we can stop the rallies, marches, and demonstrations related to voting. Despite being the most party-loyal voters in history, and receiving the least for that loyalty (No quo for our quid), we continue to […]

Lee A. Daniels Three events occurred in the tight confines of Capitol Hill last week that underscore the Republican Party’s extraordinary institutional decline and its responsibility for the Congress’ fully deserving its “do-nothing” label. First, early in the week, all but seven Republicans in the GOP – controlled House of Representatives voted to give Speaker of the House John Boehner of Ohio the […]