African-Americans

Race and Extreme Inequality

Dedrick Muhammad : Ethical Economics

Will Obama's presidential candidacy signal a change for impoverished African-Americans?
Race and the New Deal Coalition

Adolph Reed Jr. : Progressives, Liberals, & The American Left

Most New Deal programs were anything but race- and gender-neutral in their impact. They were both racially discrminatory and a boon to many black Americans.
Black Women Talk Barack

Amy Alexander : Feminism & Women

It's like one big family squabble among feminists, activists and post-civil-rights-era voters.
Reconstruction Lessons

Eric Foner : Feminism & Women

Advocates of African-Americans and women achieve more by working together than by fighting.
'Catastrophic Times' for Black America

Max Fraser : U.S. Economy

The devastating impact of the mortgage crisis on black communities dominated Jesse Jackson's latest economic summit. What solutions does Barack Obama propose?

2007

South Carolina: Inside the 'Black Primary'

Bob Moser : North Carolina

As Clinton and Obama square off in South Carolina, a window opens on the fractured state of black politics. It's been an extended soul search. And it ain't over yet.
The Obama Effect

Gary Younge : Civil Rights & Liberties

Have the dreams of the civil rights movement been realized or deferred?
TransAfrica's Tribute to Ruby Dee

Walter Mosley : Arts, Culture, & Entertainment

"She is our elder and our sister and our daughter. We celebrate her as we celebrate the moon: our guide through the dark, dark night."
Come On, People

Amy Alexander : Non-Fiction

A new book by Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint is a tough-love prescription for social change. Why are critics in the black community piling on?
Thieves of Black History

Gary Younge : Racism & Discrimination

In the struggle over the ownership of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, black history is on sale at bargain prices.
Terry McMillan vs. Ghetto Lit

Amy Alexander : Cultural Criticism & Analysis

Driven by a tabloid episode from her own marriage, the novelist joins the debate over the mass marketing of trashy books to young black readers.
Riot and Reunion: Forty Years Later

Peter Dreier : Civil Rights & Liberties

In the summer of 1967, Plainfield, New Jersey, and scores of other US cities exploded in racial violence. Forty years later, the impact is still palpable.
At a Loss for Words

Michael Anderson : Biography

Ralph Ellison was eager to be counted in any political cause--except those surrounding race.
Roads to Freedom

David L. Chappell : Civil Rights & Liberties

A rich crop of new books offers fresh insight into the ongoing struggle for civil rights in America.
Jesse Jackson Can't Help Obama

Earl Ofari Hutchinson : Jesse Jackson

Obama thinks Jackson's endorsement will give him a rocket boost with black voters. It won't.
Goodbye, Baltimore

Kate Levin : Autobiography & Memoir

In a kinetic and searching memoir, Ace of Spades, David Matthews confronts the identity questions that bedeviled him growing up biracial.
The Smog of Race War in LA

Roberto Lovato : Urban Issues

Battles between the city's black and Latino gangs are the outcome of a dismal racial and economic situation.
L'Étranger

Patricia J. Williams : Media Analysis

The media have fashioned an impossible portrait of Barack Obama: an American cleansed of the baggage of racism and slavery.
White History 101

Gary Younge : Race, Ethnicity & Religion

Why can't white people and black people have access to a shared history that is accurate, honest, antiracist and inclusive?

2006

'We Got To Do Better'

Amy Alexander

Looking at the longstanding debate in the black community over personal responsibility through the lens of hotghettomess.com.
America to Me

Patricia J. Williams : Racism & Discrimination

What, exactly, does America look like to people like Michael Richards, Mel Gibson and Richard Viguerie?
Obama: Black Like Me

Gary Younge : Racism & Discrimination

Barack Obama has fallen prey to the soft bigotry of unreasonable expectations from both the right and left.
Tavis Smiley's Covenant

Amy Alexander : Non-Fiction

Journalist, activist, philanthropist and self-promoter, Tavis Smiley has the political clout and the ability to energize and educate the black community in the best tradition of Martin Luther King Jr.
Black Farms, Black Markets

Habiba Alcindor : Agriculture

For black farmers, succeeding financially and bringing healthy food to urban markets remains an uphill battle against a lack of business contacts.
How Harlem Eats

Mark Winston Griffith : Urban Issues

Urban restaurateurs, activists and consumers are seeking "food justice," insisting that healthy food shouldn't be a privilege for the wealthy and white.
A Sort of Homecoming

Hazel Rowley : Africa

"The spell of Africa is upon me," wrote W.E.B. Du Bois in Liberia. Three new books document the enchantment and disenchantment of the continent for its descendants.
Shadows

Darryl Pinckney : Biography

George Hutchinson's new biography of the mystery woman of the Harlem Renaissance reconsiders both Nella Larsen and a key moment of black cultural history.
A Darker Shade of Noir

Robert Christgau : Fiction

Walter Mosley's Fortunate Son is a serious novel about intimately connected yet diametrically opposed black and white stepbrothers.
A Short History of the Pads of Brillo

Patricia J. Williams : US Politics & Government

Martians visiting planet Earth are mystified by the racist ruckus over Representative Cynthia McKinney's hair.
Suppressing the N.O. Vote

: Campaigns & Elections

Fewer than half of New Orleans's black voters will be able to participate in upcoming city elections, thanks to passive opposition from the Bush Administration and listless advocacy from Democrats.
The Color of Money

Greg Tate : Music

Four new books explore the politics, culture and racial awareness of the hip-hop generation.
A New Black Power

Walter Mosley : Youth

It's time to transform the two-party system into something more equitable by introducing smaller political groups based on special interests: Consider the power of a black voting bloc led by young people.
Working-Class Hero

William P. Jones : Unions

While the edges continue to be smoothed off Martin Luther King Jr.'s bracing challenges to racism, war and free-market exploitation, the holiday is a time to remember a leader who believed civil rights and labor rights are tightly intertwined.

2005

Katrina Lives

Susan Straight : Social & Economic Rights

African-Americans were at the center of hurricane destruction and suffered the hardest and the longest--stranded first in their segregated neighborhoods and now stuck in motels or cars, waiting for their FEMA checks.
Overcoming Apartheid

Jonathan Kozol : Education Policy & Reform

Apartheid education is alive in America and rapidly increasing in hyper-segregated inner-city schools. And though it's now fashionable for policy-makers to declare integration a failure, effective programs across the country still survive--and deserve to thrive.
The True Story of Equiano

Robin Blackburn : Non-Fiction

Vincent Carretta's Equiano, the African is the complex narrative of a Carolina slave who bought his freedom, married an English woman and published a memoir on his life as a seafarer and gentleman.
'One Nation, Fragmented'

Eyal Press : U.S. Economy

It took a Gulf Coast hurricane to make Americans aware of the poverty in their own backyard. Now it's time for public policies that end racial segregation, so that the poor in this country will not continue to suffer.
Class-ifying the Hurricane

Adolph Reed Jr. : Racism & Discrimination

What happened in New Orleans is an extreme and criminally tragic consequence of the belief that cutting public spending makes for a better society.
Looting the Black Poor

Earl Ofari Hutchinson : Urban Issues

New Orleans is the classic tale of two cities: one showy, middle-class and white; the other poor, downtrodden and low-income black.
Salt in the Wound

Patricia J. Williams : Genetics & Genetic Engineering

Why is The New York Times Magazine floating an unsubstantiated theory of genetic determinism?
The Lincoln Museum and Springfield's Shame

Adrian Brune : Illinois

Visiting the Lincoln Museum and exposing a dark chapter in the town's history.
Patrimony

John Palattella : Poetry

Kevin Young updates the Harlem Renaissance for the hip-hop generation.
Flyboy in the Buttermilk

Arthur C. Danto : Fine Art

Basquiat's work, now in Brooklyn, was close to the best the art world had to offer in his day.
The Minister of Minstrelsy

Max Blumenthal : Conservatives & The American Right

Meet Jesse Lee Peterson, who says what the right would like to, but can't.
Losing Ground

Habiba Alcindor : Agriculture

Black farmers and the agrarian culture they embody are rapidly disappearing.
Visualizing a Neo-Rainbow

Danny Glover & Bill Fletcher Jr. : Democratic Party

History holds clues to a winning electoral strategy for progressives.