The Root

In Chesterfield County, Virginia, Michael Mason is doing his best to help with America’s shortage of school bus drivers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fisk University celebrated the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ 150th anniversary last week.

Calls for the removal of monuments that honor racist and problematic themes in American history have resulted in school names being changed and statues in capital cities coming down across the country. After last summer’s racial reckoning, people everywhere are finally recognizing just how distasteful it is to have…Read more...

Peace of Mind With Taraji, the Facebook Watch series dedicated to destigmatizing mental health in the Black community and beyond, premiered its second season on Monday.Read more...

I’m not big on the hate-speech scene, so there must be a book or something of outlandish claims to make during speeches that only Trump and other elected officials who follow Trump have access to.

City officials will meet this week to discuss a lawsuit filed by Boynton Beach’s first Black female firefighter after she was depicted as a white person on a public mural.

In thismultipart series, HBCU alums share their favorite moments from their alma mater as a testament to what these institutions have meant to them.Read more...

I don’t know where they get this stuff from, but apparently, white people who voted for Trump are worried that Starbucks won’t have pumpkin spice in October. I guess they are concerned that the re-released episodes of Friends will have actual Black people living in New York City, and that hot sauce will become the…Read more...

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is under fire after video of him surfaced on social media disparaging the LGBTQ+ community this summer.Read more...

Two women have filed a lawsuit against a beach town police chief in South Carolina after he allegedly sent them nearly 20 unsolicited and inappropriate images that were racist and sexist in nature during a law enforcement conference back in November of 2019 in Myrtle Beach.

In today’s dose of “All-caps YIKES,” a North Carolina eighth grade teacher has resigned after a “racially insensitive” lesson sparked outrage from parents.

Body camera footage released on Friday showed police in Dayton. Ohio forcibly removing a Black paraplegic motorist from his vehicle and throwing him to the ground as he repeatedly told them he can’t use his legs.

Dang, people are still out here listening to Chocolate Factory? In the year of our Lord 2021?

Real estate agent Eric Brown, along with his client Roy Thorne and Thorne’s teenage son Samuel, have filed a federal suit stemming from an August incident where Wyoming, Mich. police ordered them out of a house they were touring and placed them in handcuffs.

Kenosha, Wis. police Officer Rusten Sheskey, who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times last year, will not face federal civil rights charges in court.

You know what they say, dear reader: “What’s emailed in the dark will eventually come to light.” Or ... something like that.

Tina Turner said, “Viva la money.”

“OK. Alright. That’s fine. OK.”

A woman is facing a civil rights violation after allegedly threatening a 9-year-old Black boy who was playing in a park with her son in Dover, N.H. The state attorney general’s office filed the complaint in Strafford County Superior Court alleging that Kristina Graper, 51, threatened the boy and called him racial…Read more...

Maya Angelou, the award-winning poet and social activist, will be honored along with four other women from various ethnic backgrounds on new quarters set to be released in 2022. The U.S. Mint announced the coin designs in a news release on Wednesday. All five women are recognized as trailblazers in American history.Read more...

The Oregon Court of Appeals has reversed the murder conviction and ordered a retrial for Jesse Lee Johnson, a Black man who has been fighting to prove his innocence for 20 years.Read more...

New body camera footage shows Minneapolis Police officers shooting rubber bullets at protesters while joking about “hunting” activists. It happened just five days after George Floyd was murdered.

I’m a sucker for nostalgia.Read more...

James Rosemond was a hip-hop manager who once represented such famed artists as Salt-N-Pepa, the Game, Akon and Brandy.

Amid the ongoing backlash following his latest comedy special on Netflix, Dave Chappelle hosted a star-studded screening of his latest documentary, Untitled: Dave Chappelle Documentary on Thursday at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.Read more...

Bomani Jones’ gradual ascent has been something to behold.

Yikes.

...And alligators.Read more...

In a legal battle that lasted more than a decade, Brookline Town voted Tuesday to award an $11 million settlement to a Black former firefighter who said he experienced racial discrimination at the fire department.

According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “over 140,000 kids have experienced the loss of a parent or caretaker since the COVID-19 pandemic began.” The study also noted that the demographic hit hardest by these tragic events were Black and brown children.Read more...

The foundation of one of the oldest Black churches in America was uncovered in Williamsburg, Va., and will now be included in a living art museum that wants to tell the truth about Black colonial America.Read more...

Letitia Wright is not Shuri.Read more...

There has to be balance.

Tanner Holt, a Knoxville cop who was knocked out after he allegedly made racist comments to a Black man during a wedding they both attended, has resigned. Holt quit last week during an internal affairs investigation into his behavior, Know News reports.Read more...

Black in the Day is an ongoing series about Black nostalgia that covers very specific topics. This week it’s all about hip-hop fashion and the trends that made headlines from the ’80s to the early 2000s.

The Critics Choice Association will be presenting its fourth annual Celebration of Black Cinema and Television.Read more...

When the Chicago Sky reeled in hometown hero Candace Parker this offseason, the franchise believed it had finally secured the final piece to its championship puzzle. And while their journey to get to the WNBA playoffs got a little bumpy—as evidenced by a seven-game regular-season losing streak that was immediately…Read more...

Khalil Wheeler-Weaver, a serial killer who used dating apps to lure and kill three women in 2016, was sentenced to 160 years in prison on Wednesday.

Black Democrats in Virginia are calling out the state Republican Party after a series of eight flyers from their opponents were mailed out showing Black legislators strung up like puppets.Read more...

A construction company is being accused of discriminating against Black workers and firing two employees after they complained about a hostile workplace, according to a lawsuit filed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The suit, filed on Sept. 30, alleges that while working on a job site for the…Read more...

What is it about YA? Even at our big ages, the genre holds immense appeal, especially as a more diverse pool of writers and stories gain well-earned prominence; a number that includes previous It’s Lit! guests Jason Reynolds, Karyn Parsons, and Maika and Maritza Moulite. Who got next? Ayana Gray, whose debut novel, …Read more...

After conquering both the fashion world and the Billboard charts, it would appear that Kanye West is now extending his reign to include high school basketball.Read more...

In this multipart series, HBCU alums share their favorite moments from their alma mater as a testament to what these institutions have meant to them.

Damien Williams was confirmed by the U.S. Senate this week to be the next United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, the first Black person to lead the office in its 232-year history. The position makes him the most powerful federal law enforcement official in Manhattan at the age of 41 years old, …Read more...

In the opening of Dave Chappelle’s newest comedy special on Netflix, The Closer, he tells his Detroit audience: “Comedians have a responsibility to speak recklessly.”

This upcoming season, not only will NBA players not have to worry about Kyrie Irving busting their ass all year—that is, unless he finally decides to get vaccinated—but they won’t be subject to random marijuana testing.

A Virginia Beach, Va., community has come together to support a Black family that has been the victim of racist noises from a neighbor by holding a rally in the neighborhood. So far, it has worked to quiet the ruckus, according to the Virginian-Pilot.Read more...

At only 6 years old, South Fulton’s Kendall Rae Johnson used her love for vegetables to become the youngest certified farmer in the state of Georgia.

Carlos Watson is a finesser.Read more...

In the past year, we have heard that Black people were disproportionately affected by the pandemic when it comes to job loss, access to vaccines, inadequate health care and more.Read more...