The Root

Remember when I attended the BET Awards last year from the comfort of my home just like everyone else? Well this year, we’re back to regularly scheduled programming folks—WE OUTSIDE! That’s right, I had a seat right at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. Talk about night and day!Read more...

Remember the name Gabby Thomas when the Tokyo Olympics come ‘round next month.

Sixty years after the Freedom Riders–a group of civil rights activists dedicated to fight against segregation–traveled through hostile Southern states by bus in order to spread their message, a new group of activists followed their lead in an attempt to fight for equal voting rights throughout the country.

Forensic researchers in Tulsa have discovered 35 unmarked coffins from a mass grave that may be connected to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. So far, preliminary analysis has been done on the remains of 19 people exhumed from the site.

Earlier this week, The Root covered the ongoing efforts of Black creators on the app who want to let all of the white creators who have gotten comfortable with pilfering and profiting from their creativity that they have had E N O U G H.

Another slave owner’s legacy took an L this week after officials in Johnson County, Iowa unanimously decided to rename the county after Lulu Merle Johnson– a long-time academic who was the first Black woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Iowa and in the entire state itself.

Timothy Jerome Parker–better known as the aptly-named Gift of Gab, one half of the Bay Area rap duo Blackalicious–has died at the age of 50.

Listen: You can either complain about student “indoctrination,” or you can monitor the thoughts and views of students through government decree—unless you’re Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in which case, your own hypocrisy is your greatest weapon and you can do both.Read more...

Sweet mother of everything that is holy, someone call the “in my feelings” police (but not the racist ones) because for some reason #HotGirlSummer has left the chat this week and #SadBitchSummer has entered.Read more...

We may not be completely ready to return to live theater yet, but the theater is returning to us, with Broadway productions slated to open as early as August of this year. But while we’ve all been aware of the challenges faced by the theater world in the face of the pandemic, equally difficult to navigate has been an…Read more...

As the CROWN Act slowly inches closer to becoming a national mandate (12 states down, 38 to go), an “intimate and authentic” upcoming docuseries intends to explore “the connection between Black women, beauty and identity through the lens of Black hair.”Read more...

On the latest episode of The Boardroom’s Out of Office With Rich Kleiman, superstar Kevin Durant takes a trip down memory lane and reveals that while he’s hailed for his composure on the court, things haven’t always been easy off of it—especially prior to games. NBA basketball is a demanding sport, and between the…Read more...

Hennepin County District Judge Peter Cahill denied Derek Chauvin a new trial shortly before sentencing him to 22.5 years in federal prison on Friday afternoon.Read more...

A Florida state trooper is under review following an incident earlier this month in which he tased a biracial teen twice after catching the teen cutting through bushes to get to his girlfriend’s house. Typically, the trooper claimed the teen looked suspicious, that he feared he might be armed, and that he didn’t…Read more...

I’m beginning to get a little worried.Read more...

Jay-Z’s damn near flawless debut album, Reasonable Doubt—arguably one of the greatest debut albums in hip-hop history—was released 25 years ago, today, on June 25, 1996.Read more...

America is running a new counterintelligence program against both Black and white people.Read more...

Each week on The Ringer’s The Bakari Sellers Podcast, the popular author and commentator draws from his vast experience as both a lawyer and politician to tackle current events and myriad other topics with high-profile guests. He’s discussed transitioning into the cannabis industry with NBA vet Al Harrington, prison…Read more...

This country is filled with some weirdos. A statue of George Floyd was unveiled in Brooklyn this month of Juneteenth, and not even a full week went by before a group of white nationalists decided to vandalize it.

I don’t know what it is about being down 0-2, but that fight-or-flight response brings out the best in the Los Angeles (formerly Temecula) Clippers. We saw it this postseason against the Dallas Mavericks; history repeated itself against the Utah Jazz, and on Thursday night, it was the Phoenix Suns’ turn to incur the…Read more...

The Justice Department announced Friday that it has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Georgia because the Peach State is one of several that are pushing new restrictive voting legislation that the department (and everyone with critical thinking capabilities) believes targets Black voters and is only being…Read more...

No one shoe should have all this power—especially not one this ugly (sorry to The Root’s resident Yeezy lover, VSB Senior Editor Panama Jackson, but I said what I said). Kanye West’s sartorial ode to the Alien franchise is yet again causing a stir, as the entertainer and fashion entrepreneur just upped the ante in an…Read more...

Many Mary J. Blige fans (including myself) often consider Blige’s catalogue at its highest when she’s singing about pain—mostly because many of us can relate. Granted, I was a smooth ten years old when her beloved second studio album My Life was released, but I sang the heart-wrenching songs like a woman who’d lived,…Read more...

Let’s make something clear off jump: I love cyberpunk...the genre.

The man who directed a film that looks like trash—whether it’s a lazy copy of Jordan Peele’s Get Out or not—is vehemently denying that his film is a direct copy of Jordan Peele’s Get Out.Read more...

Wow.

One thing about Republicans: They know how to get their people all riled up over a lie.Read more...

One of the key parts of the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan was $4 billion in funding to pay off debts for Black farmers who have historically been disadvantaged in their ability to obtain credit and federal grants. Obviously, white people don’t care about the historical context and the factors that led to…Read more...

Body camera footage was leaked last month showing the brutal, fatal beating of Ronald Greene by Louisiana State Police officers. Now, two years after the incident originally took place, the attorney for Greene’s family says federal investigators have launched an investigation into a potential pattern of racism in the…Read more...

On Thursday, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the honorees for the 2022 Governors Awards and two of them are Black AF: Danny Glover and Samuel L. Jackson!Read more...

In the weeks and months after the November 2020 election saw President Donald Trump catch a much deserved L, Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani tried their best to argue that the former president didn’t lose, actually. They filed multiple frivolous lawsuits in states that Trump lost, alleging that there was…Read more...

If you’ve yet to get your summer body-ody-ody-ody-ody where you want it (and to be clear, where you want it needn’t correlate to anyone else’s beauty standards), Megan Thee Stallion and Beyoncé are offering some added incentive. This week, the Grammy-winning “Savage (Remix)” collaborators each gave us a peek at their…Read more...

While many of us are vaguely familiar with the storied history of the Negro Leagues, there are plenty of folks who have no idea what they actually entailed. Case in point, what position did Jackie Robinson play for the Kansas City Monarchs? Who founded the Negro National League and is known as “the father of Black…Read more...

At this point, I assess racial progress in America by asking myself one question: Is Rev. Jesse Jackson still getting arrested at protests?Read more...

One of the things I love about Twitter is that at any given moment, on any given day—you can find a myriad of “hot takes.”Read more...

One of the biggest revelations to come out of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s widely publicized interview with Oprah was that, in addition to concerns being raised about the skin color of couple’s firstborn son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, he was denied the title of prince by Buckingham Palace. But new…Read more...

I hope John Boyega is OK.Read more...

“People always say, ‘What made you want to write about race?’” says writer Kiley Reid. “I personally feel like you cannot theme your way into a plot. It has to be the other way around.”

Throughout the Boston Celtics’ illustrious 75-year history, there have been plenty of white coaches at the helm, but a surprising number of Black coaches have also been handed the keys to the franchise.Read more...

On Wednesday, elected officials and military officials met for a House Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss the 2022 Defense Department budget—at least that’s what it would have been if Rep. Matt Gaetz and other Republicans weren’t so hellbent on turning it into an anti-Critical Race Theory interrogation as if…Read more...

I wasn’t allowed to watch scary movies growing up.Read more...

There’s a lot that goes into assessing a professional athlete’s value.Read more...

That moment when a movie genre that typically doesn’t hold my attention preemptively snatches my wallet quicker than the fastest-gun-drawing cowboy in the wild, wild west. As The Root reported in September 2020, The Harder They Fall has quite the cast, “chock-full of some of the most exciting and talented Black actors…Read more...

Since 1866, Juneteenth has centered radical joy and serves as a reminder of what is at stake, and how critical our movements for liberation are.

As we reported yesterday, audiences can expect a new horror film about racist white people.

Michael B. Jordan may play the lead in Without Remorse, but in real life, he’s issuing an apology.Read more...

In a move that gets us one step closer to actually treating the incarcerated like people, Connecticut has become the first state to make prison calls free for inmates and their families.

One reason it’s important to study Critical Race Theory in America is that Black people always appear to be statistically disadvantaged when it comes to, well, everything—from employment to income to criminal justice to education to mortgage acceptance and homeownership—and CRT explores why that might be instead of…Read more...

Originally hosted by “The Podfather” himself, podcast pioneer Reggie “Combat Jack” Ossé, Gimlet’s Mogul, a Spotify Original, has undergone a series of twists and turns since its debut in 2017.Read more...

Senate Republicans blocked one of the widest-ranging federal attempts to strengthen national voting rights on Tuesday, preventing Democrats from advancing the For the People Act toward becoming federal law.