By Marc H. Morial “Never did we think we would be planning a funeral, we were waiting on his first day of school. They robbed us of that.” Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown“In too many communities around the country, a gulf of mistrust exists between local residents and law enforcement. In too many communities, […]

By Bill Fletcher, Jr., NNPA Columnist Under other circumstances one could simply ridicule the explanations offered by the Ferguson police regarding the killing of Michael Brown. To suggest that the killing was the result of the alleged theft of a $50 box of cigars or, for that matter, an angry exchange in connection with jaywalking, […]

By George E. 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 […]

By Julianne Malveaux It doesn’t matter if you are state legislator or an alderman, a journalist or a local leader. If you are in Ferguson, Mo., you won’t get any respect. You can be the uncle of a victim whose body was left to lie on the street for several hours and you will not […]

By George E. Curry  Although the continent of Africa has 54 countries, the nation that received the most attention at  last week’s US-Africa Summit in Washington, D.C. was China. That’s because the U.S. is trying to catch up with and surpass the Asian superpower.Africa has six of the top 10 fastest-growing economies: Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, […]

By Marian Wright Edelman Bishop Minerva Carcaño, the Los Angeles Area Resident Bishop of the United Methodist Church, is acting with urgency. Along with more than 100 other religious leaders and activists, she was arrested for civil disobedience at the White House for protesting the deportation of the unaccompanied children crossing our border after fleeing […]

By Marc H. Morial “The purpose of the law is simple…those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public.” —President Lyndon B. Johnson, July 2, 1964  July 2 […]

By George E. Curry The two conflicting appeals court rulings last week on the legality of a key provision of the Affordable Care Act – one supporting it and the other rejecting the health law – underscore the nexus between politics and the judiciary. All of the judges voting to uphold the ACA were appointed […]

By Walter Fields, NNPA Columnist It was one of the most difficult scenes in Spike Lee’s classic movie “Do the Right Thing,” the brutal strangulation of peace-loving Radio Raheem by New York City police in a Brooklyn pizza shop. That scene touched a raw nerve as it recalled the 1983 death of 25-year-old graffiti artist […]

By Julianne Malveaux The South African charity Feed a Child (http://www.feedachild.co.za/) chose to highlight child poverty in South Africa by portraying a little Black boy being fed like a dog by a seemingly affluent White woman. In the ad, the boy has his head on the woman’s lap, at her feet, on his knees, and […]