The Root

Updated as of 1/28/2023 at 3:15 p.m. ETRead more...

February is Black History Month, making it the perfect time to pick up a great book by a Black author. And this month, there are plenty of great titles to choose from. With inspiring memoirs, haunting thrillers and lighthearted love stories, February has something for everyone. So get to your favorite Black-owned…Read more...

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After a few weeks of anxiously waiting, the Memphis Police Department released the footage of the Tyre Nichols traffic stop to the public. Given the graphic description of Nichols being beaten, Tased and pepper-sprayed during the traffic stop, the contents of the video prove what many had speculated already happened:…Read more...

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On Friday, a source seemingly confirmed to CNN that T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach are about to get the boot from ABC. They stated that the pair are in the final stages of negotiating an exit from the GMA3. ABC News has not released an official statement, but it seems like only a matter of time before that happens.Read more...

First things first: none of these are bad movies or performances. We’re really just splitting hairs between great, amazing and life-changing. Angela Bassett has such an undeniable presence and talent, it’s impossible for her to not steal every scene. As she receives well-deserved honors and praise for her work in …Read more...

Grab your Aunties and Grandmamas! One of Motown’s iconic artists Smokey Robinson is set to release his first solo studio album in nearly 10 years titled GASMS (yes, like “orgasms.” Yes like “ear-gasms.” Smokey is coming in hot, in 2023 it seems) this spring.Read more...

Updated 1/27/23 at 1:48 p.m E.T:Read more...

Black people rarely worry about the affairs of white people. But this particular situation required our attention.Read more...

In case you needed another reason to despise law enforcement, look no further than the Pennsylvania police chief accused of helping to distribute narcotics. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors announced that Shawn Denning, 41, could face up to 20 years in prison.Read more...

Hollywood loves the awkward meet the parents trope. Whether it’s played for drama in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, or in a comedy like Meet the Parents, it’s a universal theme everyone can understand. In the new Netflix comedy You People, writer/director Kenya Barris (black-ish) tries to thread the needle between the…Read more...

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The last thing America needs is the overlapping of our school shooting epidemic and the rise of hate crimes. But, here we are with a Kansas high school student caught sending a series of racist messages on social media—with a threat to bring a gun to school as the cherry on top.

Days before Christmas, disaster struck the nation’s oldest Black owned-publisher, Third World Press when a burst pipe destroyed the majority of their inventory.Read more...

The Real Housewives of Potomac have never been ones to look up to as far as fashion goes, but Bravo has released the photos from the season 7 reunion. Here’s a rundown of this year’s looks as well as a look back at season 6 to see if any of them upgraded their wardrobes this time around.Read more...

We love our favorite celebrities who always show up with glowing skin and with every hair in place. And we love them even more when they pay it forward by sharing their favorite products with the rest of us. A growing number of Black celebrities are launching skin and hair care lines that are made with us in mind.…Read more...

On Thursday, the world premiere of Hulu’s The 1619 Project docu-series was released to audiences.Read more...

Russell Westbrook’s time with the Los Angeles Lakers has been anything but smooth. A trade that was made with championship expectations has not even been close to living up to the “hype.” He has been criticized for his play on the court and his behavior in post-game press conferences, which are often filled with …Read more...

An open letter was released on Thursday calling for an increase in funding for Black feminist organizations. The plea came from some of philanthropy’s most prominent figures and organizations, including Rihanna’s Clara Lionel Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Pivotal Ventures and the Ford Foundation.Read more...

The unexpected death of dancer/actor Stephen “tWitch” Boss in December sent shockwaves throughout the entertainment industry. As we all mourn and continue to grapple with questions about why, it’s important that everyone remembers that reckless speculation is inappropriate. If you’re someone who considered yourself a…Read more...

When you go the hospital, you trust that the nurses who take care of you have completed an accredited nursing program, have passed their licensing exams and have gone through rigorous training. But federal investigators in Florida just discovered a widespread plot to help some aspiring nurses get around one of those “…Read more...

It’s not conjecture to say that Black communities throughout the United States are dealing with a water crisis. Just look at Jackson, Mississippi, where aging water structures coupled with extreme weather events have led to frequent and disastrous shut-offs.Read more...

We were all giving the College Board some major side-eye after they announced they were making changes to their African American Studies Advanced Placement course. The timing was just a little too close to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “anti-woke” tirade against the course, where he denounced the program for…Read more...

The past two weeks have been filled with swift action from state and federal agencies in investigating the Tyre Nichols case. In a statement, President Joe Biden called for the public to protest peacefully as tensions rise in Memphis amidst the pending release of the body camera footage of the incident.

Updated as of 1/27/2023 at 9:15 a.m. ET

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Republicans may have wrested control of the House away from Democrats in the Midterms. But that doesn’t mean Black Democrats on the Hill are just bidding their time.Read more...

When you ask hip-hop fans, who’s the best rapper out right now, you’ll get a multitude of answers. Mainstream fans will say it’s Drake, who again dropped two polarizing and popular albums in 2022. Underground fans (like me) will say Boldy James who dropped four exceptional albums last year and showed out on every…Read more...

As a New Jersey native, I’ll truly be damned if my “20 regular, please” was met with “We don’t serve Black folks.” Ms. Rose Wakefield, 63, held her composure better than I would have after being put in the exact same position. Instead of cussing them out, she took them to court and walked away with 10 times my student…Read more...

Meta has reinstated Donald Trump’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. This brings an end to his two-year suspension after praising the Capitol rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. Meta’s decision is a vital one, since it comes ahead of Trump’s plans to run for president in 2024.Read more...

There’s no question that moms and dads do things differently. But a new study from the Pew Research Center, “Parenting in America Today,” dug into some of the specific differences between how mothers and fathers do their thing and how they feel about it.Read more...

When we first meet singer Teyana Taylor’s Inez in A.V. Rockwell’s directorial feature debut A Thousand and One, she’s fresh out of Rikers Island, walking the streets of a gritty New York City in the mid-90s.Read more...

Listen, kids. If you’ve never seen the classic Eddie Murphy stand-up films Raw and Delirious, they’re like a filthy, offensive time machine into the past. They’re from the ‘80s, so the jokes are definitely going to be inappropriate to today’s sensibilities. But his delivery and the way he works an audience is a…Read more...

Nowadays, if you walk up to a basketball fan and ask them how they feel about Kobe Bryant, many of them will say, “Black Mamba,” “The Greatest,” or “GOAT.” All respectable and appropriate descriptions of one of the best basketball players of all time, but not exactly what comes to mind when I think of him.Read more...

On the latest Twitter thread to rock the timeline, a Black mother over in the United Kingdom has called out her daughter’s school for punishing the student based on a “racist” dress code policy, per the Daily Mail. We can drop the quotations. Most dress codes, especially for Catholic private schools, exclude Black…Read more...

After spending most of 2022 wrongfully detained in Russia, WNBA star Brittney Griner is ready to get back to her regular life–including basketball. Following a prisoner swap that led to her release in December, the Phoenix Mercury center made it clear that her career on the court was far from over. In a December…Read more...

On the bingo card no one was expecting, a YSL co-founder says Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis represented him in a 2019 aggravated assault case. Yes, the same Fani Willis who is currently working to put the YSL crew in prison. Her former client says this isn’t the real her. So now we’re asking, who is she?

The effects of HB 1467 are being felt in Florida as counties are starting to comply with Governor Ron DeSantis’ law. It mandates that all books in classroom libraries must be approved by his administration.

What seemed like a crazy chicken and egg court battle between rapper T.I. and his wife, singer Tameka “Tiny” Harris, versus a popular toy maker ended in a mistrial yesterday when a federal judge in Santa Ana, California, decided that testimony accusing the company of cultural appropriation would leave the jury…Read more...

With less than a month away from the release of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania—the official start of phase five in the Marvel Cinematic Universe—star Jonathan Majors is opening up about his role as Kang the Conqueror, the next gargantuan-level, multi-variant supervillain.Read more...

After a 6-year-old student shot and injured his teacher at Richneck Elementary, the Newport News school district was left looking like a deer in headlights. According to CBS 6 News, their latest plan of action was firing Superintendent George Parker III. Both staff and parents are left wondering what the decision has…Read more...

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Weddings are never easy. Underneath all the flowers, cake and fancy clothes is a barely contained madness that borders on chaos. Add in the extra element of taking the show on the road for a destination wedding and things can go completely off the rails. The usual wedding craziness is ramped up a few levels in the new…Read more...

On July 3, 2020, a pregnant Sha-Asia Semple went to Brooklyn’s Woodhull Medical Center in labor. She delivered a healthy baby girl, but Ms. Semple would never meet her. The 26-year-old mother, who should have been gushing over her newborn with her partner, died during childbirth due to complications with her epidural.

The folks at Yelp just came out with their 10th annual list of Top 100 Places to Eat in 2023. The site dedicated to connecting people with local businesses analyzed millions of user reviews and community suggestions to compile a list of their favorite places to get food (besides their grandma’s kitchen, of course).…Read more...

We already laid out some of the best hip-hop songs of 1993, so why not mention the best albums? The year was filled with talented upstarts and savvy veterans who were masters with their pens.Read more...

It looks like Anna Delvey aka Anna Sorokin aka the fake German heiress has landed her own reality series. Variety reported Wednesday that the show, entitled “Delvey’s Dinner Club,” will be filmed inside her apartment (in NYC’S East Village) where she is currently serving house arrest.Read more...

An attorney for Abigail Zwerner, a first grade teacher who was shot and seriously injured by her 6-year-old student, claims the school had prior knowledge of the firearm. Specifically, they alleged administrators were issued three warnings about the child and still failed to act, according to The Associated Press.

Whether you can believe it or not, the 2023 Grammys are less than two weeks away! Ahead of music’s biggest night, we now know the first set of performers who are expected to take the stage. According to Variety, those include folks like Mary J. Blige, Steve Lacy, Lizzo and one other rapper who just might be making his…Read more...