Category: OPINION

The building that houses my public charter high school on Minnesota Avenue in Northeast D.C. is named for the man who launched what we celebrate today as Black History Month. In 1926, Carter G. Woodson launched what was then an African-American history week, beginning with the February birthday of Frederick Douglass, and ending with the […]

Any who doubt Baltimore’s students and their potential for success in the demanding health care fields should have a conversation with Dr. Marcella Copes, dean of Nursing at Coppin State University. My colleagues on the Morgan State University Board of Regents will forgive me, I trust, for my long-standing support for nursing education at Coppin. […]

Last year I wrote a column about how President Obama totally disrespected Black America (during Black History Month of all times) and there was no outcry from within our community. Now, you have the same thing happening again, of course during Black History Month. This time the offender is the illustrious Washington Post (WP) newspaper. […]

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any […]

(NNPA) – One of the first places state and federal governments look to make cutbacks in an attempt to balance their ballooning budgets is in the penal system. As a result, ex-offender re-entry programs that help rehabilitate those who are at risk for returning to prison are on the chopping block. Sure, cutting funding to […]

Egypt looms largely in the Christian psyche. Many Christians, in their heart of hearts, associate Egypt today with the Egypt of Biblical times: a bastion of corruption, idolatry, and enslavement of Israel, God’s chosen people. Some American Christians, many of them who consider themselves spiritual heirs to Israel, call upon this scriptural reference when asserting […]

On this National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Feb. 7, we are reminded of the devastating toll HIV continues to take among African Americans, affecting nearly every corner of Black communities. Today, as we reflect on the lives touched by and lost to this disease, let us also renew our resolve to do whatever it takes […]

(NNPA) — In less than 10 months from now the final countdown to the next national elections in the United States will be begin. The future of America and to a large extent the future of the world will be at stake. During the next year there will be millions of new young voting age persons that […]

President Obama’s March 9, 2009, signing of an executive order removing barriers to embryonic stem cell research was momentous not only for the scientific community, which had previously operated under onerous restrictions, but also to those who suffer from diseases for which there is currently no treatment. But while embryonic stem cells may hold the […]

My birth at the end of July 1967 makes me a child of the naksa, or setback, as the Arab defeat during the June 1967 war with Israel is euphemistically known in Arabic. My parents’ generation grew up high on the Arab nationalism that Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser brandished in the 1950s. But we […]

My father told me I could do and be anything I wanted to be, if I dreamed and worked hard enough for it. I took these words to heart, despite growing up in the Jim Crow era in Marlboro County, S.C. Today, too many children in Marlboro County and throughout America are not being taught […]

The Emancipation Proclamation made it legal for African Americans to free themselves by helping to save the Union in the American Civil War. Abraham Lincoln wrote that his Proclamation was “warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity.” It was necessary to secure the help of America’s African descent population in order to save the Union, […]