By Phill Wilson, NNPA Columnist This Friday, February 7th, is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NBHAAD). It’s an opportunity for the nation to take a look at the AIDS epidemic in Black America from a uniquely and unapologetically Black point of view.  Given the demographics of the AIDS epidemic in this country, this is a […]

By Valeria Fernández, Special to the NNPA from New America Media PHOENIX – It was tough to convince Viridiana Hernández to call the Phoenix police when her house was broken into. She now has a work permit, under Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan, which temporarily protects her from deportation.But when someone broke […]

By Lorraine Farquharson NEW YORK — It was a long and hard 10 hours of labor“Don’t give up,” Carolina Pinheiro recalls her doula urging, as she provided both physical and emotional support.“If you feel safer in a hospital then do that, but there should not be an assumption that hospitals are safer than home. " […]

By Jazelle Hunt, Washington Correspondent WASHINGTON (NNPA) – George Zimmerman. Paula Deen. And, more recently, Seattle Seahawks star defensive back Richard Sherman. Just the mention of their name ignites a passionate discussion about race.The good news is that we’re talking about race. The bad news is that the discussions too often fall short of the […]

By Marc H. Morial “Art is a weapon in the struggle of ideas, the class struggle.”                Amiri Baraka On January 9, with the passing of the prolific poet, playwright, essayist, and critic Amiri Baraka, one of the literary giants of the 20th century was called home.  As we offer condolences to his wife, children and […]

By Floyd Alvin Galloway, special to The NNPA from the Arizona Informant PHOENIX – As most citizens across the country were celebrating the life and stellar accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. over the federal King Holiday Weekend in a respectful way – some by attending special programs and others by volunteering for community […]

By Bryant Harris WASHINGTON (IPS) — Seventy-five economists, including seven Nobel Prize laureates, sent an open letter to President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, urging them to raise the federal minimum wage.The same day, the president formally endorsed legislation that would incrementally raise the minimum wage to 10.10 dollars by 2016."When you’re […]

By Gareth Porter WASHINGTON (IPS) — Criticism in the memoirs of former secretary of defense Robert M. Gates of President Barack Obama’s lack of commitment to the Afghan War strategy of his administration has generated a Washington debate about whether Obama was sufficiently supportive of the war.But the Gates account omits two crucial historical facts […]

By Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. The 50th anniversary of Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a war on poverty brought long overdue attention to his commitment. Today, with one in five children in America still raised in poverty, an accounting is vital as part of a renewed commitment.But largely absent from the debate around the war on […]

By Lee A. Daniels Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. hasn’t been this alive since 1968.He’s no longer that visually distant, two-dimensional figure, limited to speaking a single sentence taken out of context and shorn of its true meaning. Instead, the honest scholarship and media commentary considering what King faced and what he did have broken […]