News and Events
December 14, 2010
Black segregation in US drops to lowest in century
WASHINGTON — America's neighborhoods became more integrated last year than during any time in at least a century as a rising black middle class moved into fast-growing white areas in the South and West.
December 13, 2010
Centennial Hill plans 'a great start'
A final draft for proposed changes to the Centennial Hill district is being finalized after meetings among city officials, developing companies, business owners and residents.
December 9, 2010
Grant to help Hobson City organize city papers
HOBSON CITY — Though Hobson City’s abandoned town hall is locked up, with large windows broken out, walking in is easy enough. Inside, trash litters the floor while tile and metal hang from the ceiling — signs that vandals had ripped out the building’s copper wiring and piping some time ago. Upon further inspection, water stains and black mold can be seen covering several walls — clear evidence why town officials abandoned the building in 2006.
December 8, 2010
Ten HBCUs Get Accreditation Reaffirmed, Two Placed on Warning Status
Ten HBCUs across the South had their accreditation reaffirmed Tuesday for another 10 years by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Commission on Colleges, the principal accreditation group for colleges across the region.
December 6, 2010
Experts Recommend Improved Strategies for Getting Minority Males into Graduate School
WASHINGTON – At a time when much national higher education discussion revolves around student access to and through college, the Council of Graduate Schools’ annual conference that wrapped up in Washington, D.C. over the weekend focused on the challenges associated with positioning students to pursue more than just a bachelor’s degree.
December 3, 2010
NAACP: NC county is example of US school problem
RALEIGH, N.C. — The country's most prominent civil rights group has come to Raleigh to draw attention to what it calls a growing erosion of the gains made since a 1954 Supreme Court decision made segregated schools illegal.
December 3, 2010
NAFEO, AT&T Launch Effort To Help Students With Disabilities Attend HBCUs, PBIs
With more than 1.2 million college students with disabilities attending U.S. colleges and universities, the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), with funding from AT&T, has started an initiative to provide scholarships to students with disabilities attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
December 2, 2010
Mississippi Still Lacks Civil Rights Museum
JACKSON, Miss. – Mississippi bred some of the worst violence of the civil rights era, yet nearly a half-century after a barrage of atrocities pricked the conscience of America, it's one of the few civil rights battleground states with no museum to commemorate the era.
December 1-6, 2010
Celebrating the 55th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Join the Montgomery Improvement Association, Alabama Power Company, the City Of Montgomery, Troy University, Alabama State University & the Southern Youth Leadership Development Institute in celebrating the 55th Anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
December 1, 2010
UVa Preserves Civil Rights-era News Films
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.— The University of Virginia Library is continuing to preserve Civil Rights-era television news footage that includes clips of civil rights leaders discussing plans for demonstrations and then-Gov. Lindsay Almond vowing to fight racial integration.
November 30, 2010
House clears Indian, black farmer settlements
WASHINGTON – American Indian landowners and black farmers who for years have waited for Washington to address their claims of government mistreatment won a hard-fought victory Tuesday as Congress cleared legislation to pay the groups $4.6 billion to settle a pair of historic class-action lawsuits.
November 29, 2010
Moved by the Spirit: Celebrating 'Revelations' at 50
Members of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform “Revelations” nearly as often as ordinary people brush their teeth. This magnificent work, created by Alvin Ailey in 1960, is a dance on land and in water, a journey through African-American spiritual music and, for dancers, an act of reverence for the generations that came before.
November 29, 2010
The knock came after dark. Hastening to answer it, the old Quaker found a familiar figure in the doorway: a tiny, dark-skinned woman, barely five feet tall, with a kerchief wrapped around her head. Someone who didn’t know her might have taken her for an ordinary poor black woman begging alms – were it not for her eyes. Wide-set, deep-socketed and commanding, they were the eyes not of a pauper or slave, but of an Old Testament hero, a nemesis of pharaohs and kings.
October 1 - November 24, 2010
Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons
The exhibit, “Opening Doors: Contemporary African American Academic Surgeons, http://www.uab.edu/amhs/exhibits/opendoors , is on display at the UAB Lister Hill Library in the Alabama Museum of Health Sciences. One of the featured surgeons is Dr. Levi Watkins, Jr. son of ASU Past President Levi Watkins and the President for whom the Levi Watkins Learning Center is named. The traveling exhibit is available October 1 thru November 24 with access information at http://www.uab.edu/amhs/visit.
November 23, 2010
ASU to build new stadium; downtown presence
ASU President William Harris announced during a Tuesday business and community breakfast held at the Montgomery Renaissance Hotel and Spa at the Convention Center that a bond issue to finance the project had recently been approved.
November 15, 2010
The report, titled “ Call for Change,” begins by saying that “the nation’s young black males are in a state of crisis” and describes their condition as “a national catastrophe.” It tells us that black males remain far behind their schoolmates in academic achievement and that they drop out of school at nearly twice the rate of whites.
November 15, 2010
Ala. ex-trooper pleads in civil rights-era slaying
MARION, Ala. — A former state trooper took a plea deal Monday in the 1965 slaying of a black man that prompted the "Bloody Sunday" march at Selma and helped galvanize America's civil rights movement.
November 15, 2010
Rangel Inquiry Finds Evidence Beyond Dispute
The House ethics committee ruled on Monday that there was evidence to support 13 counts of misconduct by Representative Charles B. Rangel, and began considering whether to formally convict and recommend punishment against him.
November 14, 2010
A 'rookie' looks back on a full life
For 70 years Arnett Hartsfield has been called a rookie. And for most of that time, the truth behind the nickname haunted him. He was the 80th black man to join the Los Angeles Fire Department when he signed up in 1940. At the time he was a UCLA student aiming for an engineering career who needed the job to support his new wife.
November 14, 2010
Justice Department warns LAPD to take a stronger stance against racial profiling
The U.S. Department of Justice has warned the Los Angeles Police Department that its investigations into racial profiling by officers are inadequate and that some cops still tolerate the practice.
November 9, 2010
Proficiency of Black Students Is Found to Be Far Lower Than Expected
An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented — a social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another.
November 9, 2010
Fisk University in New Bid to Gain Approval to Sell Art
In an effort to earn court approval to sell a $30 million share in its Stieglitz Art Collection to an Arkansas museum, Fisk University has agreed to terms requested by the chancery court in Nashville, The Tennessean newspaper reported. The university, which has longstanding financial difficulties, is seeking to share ownership of the collection with the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark.
November 8, 2010
Harlem getting its first major hotel since 1967
NEW YORK — When a trendy Starwood boutique hotel called Aloft opens in Harlem later this month, it will be the neighborhood's first major hotel since the famed Theresa closed in 1967.
November 8, 2010
Sixty years after rejection, college grants degree
Sixty years ago, Mary Jean Price had her heart set on Southwestern Missouri State College. It was 1950 and Price was a high-achieving 18-year-old who was salutatorian of her class at Lincoln High School in Springfield, Mo. She should have been a shoo-in at what is now Missouri State University, according to current administrators who have reviewed her file.
November 5, 2010
Tennessee Courts Approves Fisk Art Sale With Rigid Conditions That Anger School and State
A Tennessee Judge has decided financially troubled Fisk University can sell half ownership in its prestigious Alfred Stieglitz Collection of photographs and art for $30 million, if two-third of the proceeds are placed in a new endowment whose sole purpose would be to use its income to ensure the collection remains in Nashville, even if Fisk closes.
November 4, 2010
Rare Winner for Southern Democrats
ALBANY, Ga. — In an election cycle with few success stories for Democrats, the unlikely re-election of Representative Sanford D. Bishop Jr., 63, in Georgia’s Second District, has lifted the spirits of demoralized liberal Southern Democrats.
November 4, 2010
Minorities Ride GOP Wave to Groundbreaking Wins
WASHINGTON — The Republican wave produced groundbreaking results for minority candidates, from Latina and Indian-American governors to a pair of Black congressmen from the Deep South.
November 4, 2010
Conveying the Black College Experience into Distance Learning
There are 6.3 million African-Americans over 25 with some college or an associate degree, and 700,000 set out each year to complete their undergraduate degree. That’s what the executives at Tom Joyner Online Education LLC call a significant “degree completion” audience.
November 3, 2010
Battle sites in civil rights fight
The plantation age brought many slaves to the area. Blacks soon began to outnumber whites and the term "Black Belt" took on a new meaning. With the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1950s, the seeds of change were planted in Alabama's Black Belt and events there helped spur the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
October 28, 2010
Mary McMullen Francis doesn’t remember many details of August 30, 1961: the dress she wore or what her mother said before she walked out the door or the names of her teachers. But she remembers how eerily empty the street was of cars and people. She had half-expected—or at least worried—that some angry white folks would show up with tomatoes or baseball bats or just a mouthful of spit. No one was there.
October 28, 2010
Excerpted from "Poverty By the Numbers," by Paige Williams
One of the city’s poorest neighborhoods is a block-shaped section of the westside known as The Bluff. Nearly 4,000 people live there, on the rough end of the wealth gap. Some parts of The Bluff look so third-world, you can hardly believe you’re in Atlanta. If you’re white and drive through, the people who live there assume you’re looking for drugs. If you’re looking for drugs, you’re in the right place.
October 28, 2010
The remarkable behind-the-scenes story of King's 1968 funeral. An oral history by Rebecca Burns.
THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 1968. Just after 7 p.m., as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot. At 7:24, White House special assistant Tom Johnson, originally from Macon, Georgia, entered the Oval Office to give the news to President Lyndon Johnson. One minute later, Attorney General Ramsey Clark came into the room to discuss the shooting.
October 26, 2010
Schomburg Center in Harlem Acquires Maya Angelou Archive
Maya Angelou’s paper trail includes a rambling, typewritten letter from James Baldwin, dated Nov. 20, 1970, addressed to “Dear, dear Sister” discussing everything from his new book to his feelings about death.
October 26, 2010
Latino Immigrants to Sue a Connecticut Police Dept., Asserting Racial Bias
When Yadanny García asked police officers in East Haven, Conn., why they were ordering him to the ground, they shocked him three times with a Taser gun, punched him and told him to “go back to your country.”
October 26, 2010
Fraudulent Voting Re-emerges as a Partisan Issue
WASHINGTON — In 2006, conservative activists repeatedly claimed that the problem of people casting fraudulent votes was so widespread that it was corrupting the political process and possibly costing their candidates victories.
October 25, 2010
NPR chief apologizes for handling of Williams firing
NPR Chief Executive Vivian Schiller isn't sorry about firing longtime news analyst Juan Williams last week, but now says she regrets how the network handled the episode.
October 21, 2010
Writer Tends Land Where Ancestors Were Slaves
OSCAR, La. — His ancestors were slaves. They worked this flat plantation land just west of the snaking Mississippi, chopping sugar cane with their machetes. They and some of their descendants lived in the plantation’s “quarters.” And when they died, most were buried here in a small patch of earth, for blacks only.
October 20, 2010
Revisionist Fourth-Grade History: ‘Thousands’ of Black Confederate Soldiers
As Kevin Sieff reported in The Washington Post on Wednesday, historians are wondering how a fourth-grade textbook in Virginia was approved despite including the spurious claim that “Thousands of Southern blacks fought in the Confederate ranks, including two black battalions under the command of Stonewall Jackson.”
October 12, 2010
On a busy afternoon in the West Wing late last month, President Barack Obama seemed relaxed and unhurried as he sat down in a newly reupholstered brown leather chair in the Oval Office. He had just returned from the East Room, where he signed the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010 — using eight pens so he could give away as many as possible. The act will be his administration’s last piece of significant economic legislation before voters deliver their verdict on his first two years in office. For all intents and purposes, the first chapter of Obama’s presidency has ended. On Election Day, the next chapter will begin.
September 29 - October 3, 2010 (Event)
ASALH Call For Papers, 95TH Annual Convention
The Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) is soliciting papers and panels for its upcoming 95th Annual Convention. This year’s conference theme is: "The History of Black Economic Empowerment." Although the program committee welcomes papers and panels on any aspect of African and African American history and culture, special preference will be given to submissions directly related to this year’s theme.
September 29, 2010
Professor examines black voting rights
Black Southerners did not sit idly while leaders of the old Confederate states crafted ways to deny their voting rights near the beginning of the 20th century. Indeed, 12 challenges came before the Supreme Court, all ending in crushing defeats. it is an era of civil rights activism often glossed over by historians who study the more organized and ultimately successful legal challenges decades later by the NAACP.
September 24, 2010
New bill would compensate black farmers for discrimination
WASHINGTON -- After months of failed attempts, Democratic senators introduced standalone legislation Thursday that would pay $1.2 billion to thousands of black farmers subjected to years of discrimination by federal agriculture officials.
September 23, 2010
Muslims Report Rising Discrimination at Work
At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them “terrorist” or “Osama” to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks.
September 21, 2010
Despite Setback, Gay Rights Move Forward
Efforts that could lead to a reversal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits openly gay soldiers from serving in the military may have stalled in the United States Senate, but the legal fight is advancing in the federal courts along with other important gay rights litigation.
September 20, 2010
Perceptions: Mistrust Seen as Barrier to Blood Donation
Mistrust of hospitals is high among African-Americans, a new study suggests, offering a possible explanation for the group’s historically low rate of blood donation.
September 19, 2010
A Home Filled With Mementos From the Civil Rights Movement
The Upper West Side apartment that is home to Marcia Young Cantarella, a longtime educator and onetime dean at Princeton University, is rich with the presence of the two men who have loomed largest in her life. One is her late father, the civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr.. The other is her late husband, a corporate public affairs executive named Francesco Cantarella.
September 15, 2010
For Blacks, Progress in Happiness
Set aside some prominent success stories, like the current occupant of the White House, and the last few decades have not been great ones for African-American progress.
September 14, 2010
French Senate passes ban on full Muslim veils
PARIS – The French Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning the burqa-style Islamic veil on public streets and other places, a measure that affects less than 2,000 women but that has been widely seen as a symbolic defense of French values.
September 13, 2010
Well known Montgomery judge and civil rights leader passes away
Montgomery, AL (WSFA) - The state is mourning the loss of a civil rights leader and judge. Judge Charles Conley has passed away.
September 13, 2010
An Appreciation: Political Scientist Ronald Walters, 1938 – 2010
When journalists across the country wanted to enrich their political news stories with a greater grasp of the evolving American political landscape, they always sought the opinions of Dr. Ronald Walters, an HBCU trained historian who became one of the nation’s most respected political scientists in the last half century.
September 9, 2010
Latino Higher Education Group Launches College-completion Campaign
WASHINGTON — With a sizable list of partner organizations, the Excelencia in Education advocacy group embarked Wednesday upon what organization leaders described as a “quest” for solutions and policy changes that will help improve college completion rates among United States’ growing Latino population over the next decade.
September 7, 2010
ETS Report Notes Arrested Progress in Closing Black-White Achievement Gap
For decades, the persistent achievement gap between Black and White students has vexed educators, policymakers and researchers. Equally troubling is the fact that there had been progress—significant improvement throughout the 1970s and ‘80s—that came to an abrupt halt.
September 7, 2010
Sources: Trust to take Bush’s Heisman
The Heisman Trophy Trust is expected to strip former University of Southern California star running back Reggie Bush of college football’s top honor by the end of September.
September 2, 2010
King-led group in control of SCLC
A faction of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by two men under criminal investigation is out and the group that opposed them is officially in control of the once-premier civil rights group, a judge ruled Wednesday.
August 30, 2010
William P. Foster, Pioneer of Florida A&M’s Marching 100, Dies at 91
William P. Foster, who revolutionized the once-staid world of collegiate marching bands as the founder and longtime director of the high-stepping, crowd-wowing Marching 100 band of Florida A&M University, died Saturday in Tallahassee, Fla. He was 91.
August 23, 2010
DEA seeks Ebonics experts to help with cases
ATLANTA — Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations.
August 4, 2010
Researching African-American History in Indiana
Ask Dr. Tim Lake about early Black settlements in Indiana. He’ll share how he and Wabash College students have discovered that, 150 years ago, Black-White relations were not nearly as polarized as one might assume.
August 3, 2010
Bernice King breaks silence, asks SCLC to end rift
ATLANTA — After nearly 10 months of silence, the Rev. Bernice King urged the Southern Christian Leadership Conference on Tuesday to end the bitter infighting that has split the group she was elected to lead.
JuLY 30, 2010
National Urban League Convention Considers College Success, K-12 Education Reform
WASHINGTON — The rough road to a college degree can be made smoother for first-generation and low-income students if society begins to step up support in the areas of academic support, mentoring and financial aid.
JuLY 29, 2010
Judge Blocks Disputed Parts of Immigration Law in Arizona
The parts of the law that the judge blocked included the sections that called for officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws.
JuLY 28, 2010
Delta's Black Oystermen Seeking Cleanup Work and Clinging to Hope
At Pointe a la Hache, La., and other towns, the men sit around on old milk crates, hoping for a piece of the oil cleanup action that seems to have bypassed their little stretch of bayou.
JuLY 26, 2010
William and Mary Professor Thinks He Found Oldest Black School
WILLIAMSBURG, Va.— A College of William and Mary professor thinks he may have found the nation’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for African-American children.
JuLY 26, 2010
When Race Is the Issue, Misleading Coverage Sets Off an Uproar
It is an open question whether conservative media outlets risk damage to their credibility when obscure or misleading stories are blown out of proportion.
JuLY 26, 2010
Letter From Washington: Disabled See Progress, but Problems Persist
Twenty years on, the Americans With Disabilities Act has transformed the United States, improved the lives of the 50 million people with disabilities and served as a model for much of the rest of the world.
JuLY 25, 2010
YMCA lawsuit's 40th anniversary: Dees, historic case changed Montgomery forever
A 1954 decision from the country's highest court had ordered all-white public programs to admit blacks. But 15 years later in Montgomery, black children still could not play with whites in the youth programs that had been ordered desegregated.
JuLY 24, 2010
Despite Sherrod spotlight, black farmers denied settlement
WASHINGTON -- Black farmers, due $1.2 billion for a legacy of discrimination by the Agriculture Department, suffered a new and disheartening setback this week, despite the national spotlight provided by the quickly disavowed firing of a black department worker.
JuLY 23, 2010
House Panel Finds Evidence That Rangel Violated Ethics Guidelines
The details of the violations have not yet been disclosed, but they are said to include many of the most serious allegations against the Harlem Democrat.
JuLY 21, 2010
'Newsweek' Names BTW One of Nation's Best
Booker T. Washington Mag net High School in Montgomery is among 10 Alabama high schools and 1,600 high schools in America to make Newsweek magazine's America's Best High Schools list, according to a news release from Montgomery Pub lic Schools.
JuLY 20, 2010
Paper bingo still a big draw at Alabama gaming hall
PIEDMONT — The 80,000-square-foot building is quiet as a library, despite the 400 or so people seated at long rows of folding banquet tables, squares of paper spread out in front of them and an arsenal of ink daubers at hand.
JuLY 19, 2010
California Blacks Split Over Marijuana Measure
A cadre of African-American religious leaders have joined against a measure to tax and regulate marijuana.
JuLY 18, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist: The Roots of White Anxiety
In March of 2000, Pat Buchanan came to speak at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. Harvard being Harvard, the audience hissed and sneered and made wisecracks.
JuLY 16, 2010
Group: Dragging of slain SC man is a hate crime
NEWBERRY, S.C. – For the New Black Panther Party, it's simple: A black man being shot to death by a white man and dragged for miles behind a pickup truck is a racial hate crime.
JuLY 14, 2010
Vernon Baker, Belated Medal of Honor Recipient, Dies at 90
Vernon Baker, who was the only living black veteran awarded the Medal of Honor for valor in World War II, receiving it 52 years after he wiped out four German machine-gun nests on a hilltop in northern Italy, died Tuesday at his home near St. Maries, Idaho. He was 90.
JuLY 13, 2010
Police Are Charged in Post-Katrina Shootings
NEW ORLEANS — Four current and two former New Orleans police officers have been charged in connection with the killing of unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, federal law enforcement officials announced here on Tuesday.
JuLY 13, 2010
UT strips Klansman’s name from Austin dorm
AUSTIN, Texas — University of Texas regents have stripped the name of a former law school professor and early organizer of the Ku Klux Klan from a campus dormitory.
JuLY 13, 2010
NAACP resolution condemns racism in tea party
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—Leaders of the country's largest civil rights organization accused tea party activists on Tuesday of tolerating bigotry and approved a resolution condemning racism within the political movement.
JuLY 12, 2010
Michelle Obama speaks at the 101st NAACP Convention
On July 12, 2010, the first lady of the United States, Michelle Obama, spoke at the 101st NAACP Convention in Kansas City. She discussed the future of the NAACP and the African American community, as well her key issue: childhood obesity.
JuLY 9, 2010
Black police officer seeks pension
BIRMINGHAM -- The first black police officer hired by Tuscaloosa has returned to federal court seeking a pension for his 25 years of service that ended with his retirement in 1991.
JuLY 6, 2010
Obama Returns to Missouri, Site of Slim 2008 Loss
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For some in President Obama’s White House, Missouri remains the state that got away, nearly two years after his election.
JuLY 1, 2010
Art Review: Country Divided in Black and White
David Goldblatt's photographs, now on view at the Jewish Museum, avoid big feelings and go instead for the hard facts of his homeland, South Africa.
JuLY 1, 2010
Black Landowners Fight to Reclaim Georgia Home
HARRIS NECK NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Ga. — When the managers from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service talk about this2,800-acre preserve of moss-draped cypress, palmetto and marsh, they speak of endangered wood stork rookeries and disappearing marsh habitat, dike maintenance and interpretive kiosks.
June 30, 2010
Report: Harvard scholar's arrest at home avoidable
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A black Harvard scholar and the white police sergeant who arrested him last July after a confrontation outside his home both missed opportunities to "ratchet down" the situation and end it more calmly, according to a review of the case released Wednesday.
June 30, 2010
Top French Schools, Asked to Diversify, Fear for Standards
PARIS — France is embarking on a grand experiment — how to diversify the overwhelmingly white “grandes écoles,” the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life — and Rizane el-Yazidi is one of the pioneers.
June 24, 2010
Boston Police Try A New Anti-Gang Weapon: Shame
Boston police are trying a new weapon in their war on gangs. They're hoping a little old-fashioned public humiliation might help curb inner-city violence. But many fear the new tactic will backfire.
June 20, 2010
A Young Father's Balancing Act
Leon Britton Jr. is a graduate of the Bronx Fatherhood Program, a service that trains men ages 16 to 24 in the ways of fatherhood.
June 16, 2010
CAPITAL CULTURE: Slaves who built Capitol honored
WASHINGTON — African-American slaves sweated in the summer heat and shivered in the winter's cold while helping to build the U.S. Capitol. Congress took note of their service and sacrifice Wednesday by erecting commemorative plaques inside the Capitol in their honor.
June 14, 2010
Art exhibit at ASU captures black history, culture
Marcella Hayes Muhammad said Sunday's opening reception for an exhibit featuring her work was like a homecoming.
June 10, 2010
Rare photo of slave children found in NC attic
RALEIGH, N.C. — A haunting 150-year-old photo found in a North Carolina attic shows a young black child named John, barefoot and wearing ragged clothes, perched on a barrel next to another unidentified young boy.
June 8, 2010
Georgia Escape: Famous men leave imprints on Augusta
The late, great James Brown may be considered Augusta’s most famous hometown hero, but Georgia’s second largest city was also home to two significant figures in American history. The youngest man to sign the Declaration of Independence, Georgia Governor George Walton, moved to Augusta from Farmville, Va., when he was 29. And President Woodrow Wilson moved to Augusta when he was 2 and lived there for a decade. All three men have left their imprints on the city.
June 2, 2010
Study Finds Blacks Blocked From Southern Juries
The practice of excluding minorities from Southern juries remains widespread and largely unchecked.
June 2, 2010
Alabama Voters Reject Coalition Bid
WASHINGTON — Whether it was his vote against the health care legislation or his strategy to sidestep the state’s black political leadership, the decisive defeat of Artur Davis in his quest to become the first black governor of Alabama illustrates the limits of trying to replicate the strategy that helped carry President Obama to office.
May 27, 2010
UWA professor uncovers historic racial struggles
LIVINSTON – Few Alabamians would know that the 1901 constitution has been under attack since its adoption and even before. Black Alabamians—the primary targets of the 1901 constitution—brought the first real challenges to it, dragging it before state and federal courts as early as 1902 in an effort to preserve their voting rights.
May 23, 2010
How Equal Was This Separate School?
You could listen to a lot of dry lectures by a lot of windy history professors and still not learn as much about race issues in the century after the Civil War as you do in “A Place Out of Time: The Bordentown School.”
May 18, 2010
Civil rights activist accused of vandalism at SCLC offices
Groups feuding over who's in charge of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference threatened to bring criminal charges against each other on Tuesday.
May 12, 2010
New York Minorities More Likely to Be Frisked
Blacks and Latinos were nine times as likely as whites to be stopped by the police in New York City in 2009, but, once stopped, were no more likely to be arrested.
May 9, 2010
Lena Horne, Singer and Actress, Dies at 92
Lena Horne, who broke new ground for black performers when she signed a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night in Manhattan. She was 92.
May 1, 2010
A Separate Peace: Collier Heights
An iconic African American neighborhood, home to Kings and Hollowells and Abernathys, makes history again.
April 29, 2010
Civil Rights Leader Is Eulogized by Obama
WASHINGTON — President Obama eulogized the civil and women’s rights leader Dorothy Height on Thursday as a “drum major for freedom,” describing her as an American icon who tirelessly pursued justice.
April 28, 2010
Alvin Ailey Company Names a New Leader
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, one of the nation’s most successful dance troupes, said on Wednesday that it would entrust its future to Robert Battle, a 37-year-old outside choreographer who has had a long association with the company.
April 23, 2010
Ariz. governor signs immigration enforcement bill
PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama on Friday and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation's busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
April 22, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor: Ending the Slavery Blame-Game
THANKS to an unlikely confluence of history and genetics — the fact that he is African-American and president — Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to reshape the debate over one of the most contentious issues of America’s racial legacy: reparations, the idea that the descendants of American slaves should receive compensation for their ancestors’ unpaid labor and bondage.
April 20, 2010
Civil rights activist Dorothy Height dies at 98
WASHINGTON — Civil rights pioneer Dorothy Height, the president of the National Council of Negro Women for more than 40 years and a pivotal figure during the civil rights era of the 1960s, died Tuesday at the age of 98.
April 19, 2010
Embattled Civil Rights Group Struggles to Survive
ATLANTA (AP) -- Two factions of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference gathered Monday for separate meetings, hundreds of miles apart, with each group claiming to be the SCLC's board of directors as the embattled 53-year-old organization struggles to survive amid legal woes and bitter infighting.
April 18, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist: Welcome to Confederate History Month
It's kind of like that legendary stunt on the prime-time soap "Dallas," where we learned that nothing bad had really happened because the previous season's episodes were all a dream. We now know that the wave of anger that crashed on the Capitol as the health care bill passed last month — the death threats and epithets hurled at members of Congress — was also a mirage.
April 15, 2010
Aaron's hometown gives Hall of Fame-style honor
MOBILE, Ala. — Hank Aaron gathered with a handful of fellow Hall of Famers on his front porch and grabbed a seat next to commissioner Bud Selig.
April 15, 2010
Group to buy church housing Scottsboro Boys museum
SCOTTSBORO — A private foundation has come up with the money to purchase an old church housing a new museum dedicated to the “Scottsboro Boys” case.
April 15, 2010
Mants an important figure in civil rights movement
WHITE HALL -- He might not have been as well-known as John Lewis or Stokely Carmichael, but Bob Mants forged his own civil rights reputation, at times on the back of a borrowed mule.
April 15, 2010
Benjamin Hooks, who boosted NAACP, dead at 85
NASHVILLE – Civil rights leader Benjamin L. Hooks, who shrugged off courtroom slurs as a young lawyer before earning a pioneering judgeship and later reviving a flagging NAACP, died Thursday in Memphis. He was 85.
April 12, 2010
Son of Former Congressman Enters Race to Take Rangel's House Seat
Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV said that Charles B. Rangel's departure as chairman of a powerful Washington committee helped pave the way for him to run.
April 9, 2010
White House butler Eugene Allen's humility recalled at funeral
In the end, Eugene Allen, a White House butler who lived a life behind the scenes of history, was the subject of wide acclaim.
April 6, 2010
Wilma Mankiller, former Cherokee chief, dies at 64
Former Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, one of the nation's most visible American Indian leaders and one of the few women to lead a major tribe, died Tuesday in Oklahoma after suffering from cancer and other health problems. She was 64.
April 5, 2010
University of Alabama to mark Wallace's 'stand'
TUSCALOOSA — For years, the only marker on the University of Alabama campus of George C. Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" was a small brass plaque on a decaying building.
March 30, 2010
Tavis Smiley tackles Martin Luther King Jr.’s anti-Vietnam War speech
Martin Luther King Jr.’s life has taken on a hagiographic glow more than 40 years after his assassination in 1968. He not only has a national holiday named after him, but his name is attached to schools and streets nationwide.
March 29, 2010
Black farmers call for action on discrimination settlement
WASHINGTON -- Congress will not meet a March 31 deadline to set aside $1.2 billion to settle thousands of black farmers' discrimination claims.
March 28, 2010
Next Year in the White House: A Seder Tradition
WASHINGTON — One evening in April 2008, three low-level staff members from the Obama presidential campaign — a baggage handler, a videographer and an advance man — gathered in the windowless basement of a Pennsylvania hotel for an improvised Passover Seder.
March 17, 2010
Wayne Collett, Track Medalist Barred Because of a Protest, Dies at 60
Wayne Collett, a runner who won a silver medal for the United States in the 1972 Munich Olympics and who was then judged to have acted so disrespectfully during the medal ceremony that the International Olympic Committee barred him as a competitor for life, died Wednesday. He was 60 and lived in Los Angeles...
March 4, 2010
Debate rages over burials at Lincoln Cemetery
No record of burials is kept at Lincoln Cemetery, so no one is sure if bodies have been buried one on top of another, and no one is responsible for its upkeep, including the skeletal remains that are visible in some parts of the cemetery...
March 3, 2010
Seeking Your Questions on Historically Black Colleges
More than 100 institutions of higher learning in this country are classified as historically black colleges and universities. That formal designation originated in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order to establish a federal program “to overcome the effects of discriminatory treatment...
March 2, 2010
ASU Sit-In Anniversary Image Gallery
The Studen Sit-In Movement at Alabama State University, A One Day Conference: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary. Image Gallery.
February 28, 2010
MLK documents: A national treasure unearthed
It was December 2007 when Elizabeth City State University archivist Jean Bischoff plunged into the depths of the basement in the G.R. Little Library to find a national, historical treasure — boxes of correspondence from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
February 25, 2010
Democrats retreat on new privacy protections
WASHINGTON – Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the nation's primary counterterrorism law, stymied by Senate Republicans who argued the changes would weaken terror investigations.
February 25, 2010 (Event)
The Student Sit-In Movement at Alabama State University
The National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture at Alabama State University is sponsoring a one day conference in observance of the 50th Anniversary of the sit-in movement, with a special focus on the 1960 Alabama State student sit-in campaign at the Montgomery County Courthouse.
February 13, 2010
Louisiana Museum Confronts Segregation
BATON ROUGE, La. — When Eddie Robinson was growing up here in Louisiana’s capital city about 80 years ago, he discovered the only way a black person infatuated with football could attend a game at the state university: He showed up at 5 a.m. on Saturdays to clean the stadium.
February 13, 2010
American Speedskater Shani Davis Belongs to the World
RICHMOND, British Columbia — In the serpentine mixed zone at the Richmond Olympic Oval, the young Dutch speedskater Arjen van der Kieft turned a corner after a training session last week and came upon a half-dozen journalists from the Netherlands, who nodded benignly in his direction.
February 10, 2010
SCLC internal battle continues
A Fulton County judge has signed an order cutting off the access the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's national treasurer has to SCLC funds. In his place, two of three people – board members Curtis Harris, Rita Samuel or Jewel Devereaux – are now required to sign any checks drawn on the organization's bank accounts, according to the order Fulton Superior Court Judge Alford Dempsey signed Monday.
February 8, 2010
Black history sites immortalize fights for freedom
Not all the historical black history sites in Montgomery are areas of reverence. The spot on Court Square Fountain is where families were forever broken apart during slave trading, where mothers sometimes saw their children for the last time, where men's mouths were inspected as though they were cattle.
February 5, 2010
Ancient Tribe Goes Extinct as Last Member Dies
(Feb. 5) – Marking the end of a language and an entire people, the last member of the Bo, an ancient tribe that lived in the Andaman Islands, has died.
February 3, 2010
Lee A. Archer Jr., Tuskegee Fighter Pilot, Dies at 90
Lee A. Archer Jr., a pioneering black fighter pilot who was credited with shooting down four German planes, three in a single day, when he flew with the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II, died Jan. 27 in Manhattan. He was 90 and lived in New Rochelle, N.Y.
February 2, 2010
Fairview Avenue planning draws crowd
More people than expected, about 150, came to a city of Montgomery meeting Monday seeking input on the future of West Fairview Avenue. The information collected will become part of the master plan for what is a prominent commercial corridor in west Montgomery.
February 1, 2010
Civil rights attractions draw cache of tourists to Alabama
Shirley Cherry considers Dexter Parsonage Museum one of Montgomery's emerging gems that never should have been hidden. It was home to 12 pastors of the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church -- most notably, it was home to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as well as the Rev. Vernon Johns and the Rev. Arnold Erasmus Gregory.
February 1, 2010
Civil rights leader urges crowd at Scottsboro Boys Museum opening to rededicate themselves to cause
SCOTTSBORO, AL - Seventy-eight years after the Jackson County trial of nine black men accused of raping two white women caught the world's attention, officials on Monday dedicated a museum they said shows how far the civil rights movement has come.
February 1, 2010 (Event)
Fun is definitely a good bet for ASU’s E-mail Trivia Pursuit game. All players have to do is show how much they know about the University. The following details the rules and prizes for the winners.
January 31, 2010
New Exhibition Transports Visitors To The Skies Over War-Torn World War II Europe
The Test, an exciting new exhibition about the "Tuskegee Experiment" and the first African-American combat aviators in the U.S. Military will open at the Frontiers Of Flight Museum in Dallas, TX on 10 February 2010. The exhibition premiered at the Main branch of the Kansas City Library on 12 December 2009.
January 29, 2010
BALTIMORE — President Barack Obama on Friday accused Republicans of portraying health care reform as a "Bolshevik plot" and telling their constituents that he’s "doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America."
January 29, 2010
Louis R. Harlan, Historian of Booker T. Washington, Dies at 87
Louis R. Harlan, whose definitive two-volume biography of Booker T. Washington convincingly embraced its subject’s daunting complexities and ambiguities and won both the Bancroft Prize and the Pulitzer Prize, died on Jan. 22 in Lexington, Va. He was 87.