It’s about that time, again: The Summer Olympic Games officially kick off in Tokyo on Friday.

Isaiah Stokes, who has appeared in television shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Boardwalk Empire and Power has been indicted for murder in New York City by a Queens grand jury and arraigned in Supreme Court.Read more...

Some months ago, I was listening to an episode of a very popular podcast hosted by a very popular person. This particular episode was about a very popular Black movie that featured some very popular Black people. The very popular podcast host, though, is not Black, though he was joined by Black people. In any event,…Read more...

Tennis phenom Coco Gauff announced Sunday that she is withdrawing from competition at the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19.

A federal lawsuit has been filed against Albuquerque’s public school district, accusing the district of discriminating against a Black student due to her hair.

Forty sites and organizations with deeply-rooted ties to Black history will receive more than $3 million in grants from the African-American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, ensuring that they’ll be preserved for years to come.

A tech startup founded by two Black entrepreneurs is getting a $1 million boost, thanks to Pharrell Williams and his Black Ambition prize competition.

Public schools in Texas are one step closer to no longer being required to teach about various American civil rights movements in social studies classes.

An American Psychological Association analysis of body camera footage from more than 100 police officers found that during traffic stops, officers tended to speak to Black men in a less respectful and less friendly tone than they typically did with white men.

Civil rights activist Gloria Richardson, whose fearlessness was famously immortalized in a photo of her pushing away a National Guardsman’s bayonet during a 1963 protest, has died at age 99.

Biz Markie, the rapper best known for his iconic wail over the ’80s classic “Just a Friend,” died at the tragically young age of 57.

Disclaimer: Mild spoilers for Space Jam: A New LegacyRead more...

There’s always going to be a rift between Black people and police officers as long as cops believe even the slightest challenge to their authority warrants their reckless aggression and uses of force no matter how minor the original offense was.Read more...

Sixteen members of a Florida white supremacist gang have been charged in a 12-count racketeering indictment that includes allegations related to weapons and drug distribution as well as kidnapping and murder. The gang is known as The Unforgiven, and if that name sounds familiar, it might not be because you enjoy…Read more...

On a recent episode of The Breakfast Club, the topic of a hypothetical Geto Boys Verzuz N.W.A. event came up, prompting rapper and record producer Scarface to propose a one-on-one battle against Ice Cube. However, Scarface put his creative thinking cap on and came up with something beyond the basic protocol—he…Read more...

Colin Kaepernick has never shied away from being different; it was obvious when he first took a knee for Black lives, and apparently, was true even in childhood, as the biracial child of white adoptive parents. As the activist-athlete announced on Thursday, that’s the story behind I Color Myself Different, an upcoming…Read more...

WNBA star Liz Cambage has withdrawn from the Australian Olympic Team so she can take time to focus on her mental health.

Before we start, The Root would like to issue a disclaimer to never do what this woman did in this story unless you are this woman, who clearly trained in the House of LaBeija, has done at least three overnight shifts at the International House of Pancakes and grew up in the House of “Who you think you’re talking to?”

Earlier this spring, FX announced it had ordered a new television series pilot based on the late Octavia E. Butler’s iconic novel Kindred.Read more...

A white man in California was arrested last week after being found with an arsenal of weapons, ammo, and a manifesto saying he wanted to kill Black, Hispanic and Jewish people.

On April 21, 32-year-old Isiah Brown was shot numerous times by a Spotsylvania County, Va., sheriff’s deputy not long after the same deputy had given him a ride home after his car broke down. The deputy had been called back to the scene to investigate a domestic disturbance, and at the time of the shooting, which the…Read more...

Ain’t it just like the man to shadow ban the player who started the movement and then come back and embrace the movement but not the player?

Pregnancy means a time of joy, full of celebrations and preparations for exciting changes. But in the United States, for Black women on a journey to parenthood, it could mean a direct pathway to incarceration.Read more...

What’s new this week in the world of entertainment? Though the world was collectively shook this past March at the revelations put forth in the Oprah with Meghan and Harry interview, there’s no doubt that it made for great television. In fact, we know it made great TV because the Television Academy saw fit to nominate…Read more...

The PlayStation Vita remains my favorite handheld console to this damn day. One of my favorite titles on the console was Gravity Rush, an action title with a unique mechanic—gravity manipulation. It’s not quite flying but once you get the hang of it, it sure feels like it.

Normani. Kordei. Hamilton.Read more...

The Root has published numerous stories demonstrating how voice and facial recognition software often leads to racial bias. We’ve reported stories that show Black people are found to be more vulnerable to being misidentified by this technology than our white counterparts. Despite this, many companies and law…Read more...

Disclaimer: Full spoilers for the season finale of Loki below.

Dwayne Haskins is back in the news and this time it’s not for being a bust with the Washington Football Team. Sorry, I am a WFT fan and he was a huge disappointment that is rivaled only by the WFT ownership.

Cops across the country seem to believe that civil disobedience should be met with sheer, brute force. Very rarely do they face consequences for their actions because the legal system is essentially built to protect them above anyone else. So, it’s not necessarily surprising that in one of the few times a cop is held…Read more...

One of the things that both impresses and frightens me about the internet is how it can give so many people a voice. Anyone can make or say anything online, which can be great when you see content creators rise to prominence on the back of their talent alone. It can be not so great, and frankly downright dangerous,…Read more...

Media industry peers and fans were stunned to discover that the beloved print and broadcast journalist Ayesha K. Faines had died unexpectedly on July 2. Many took to Twitter to pay tribute, including her close friends and peers at the digital series The Grapevine TV.Read more...

Michelle Obama will be making her first in-person appearance soon!Read more...

It’s been somewhat of a hard-knock life for Chrissy Teigen lately.Read more...

In 1961, James Baldwin famously said, “To be a negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost all of the time.”Read more...

Turns out Simone Biles might be human after all.

The history of Black people in America is broad, layered and nuanced—layers which M Shelly Conner tackles in her debut novel, Everyman: A Novel, out July 20. The Chicago native turned Arkansas educator spent 16 years developing her first book, which takes readers on a similar arc from the urban enclave back to Ideal,…Read more...

Imagine reading this blog text in the branded salmon pink and apple green because Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. has announcements to make!Read more...

Booooy, the hits just keep on coming for a certain peeled Mr. Potato Head-looking racist from New Jersey whose unbridled caucasity led him to harass his Black neighbors with racial slurs and then turn on his own location, resulting in more than 100 people deciding to pull up. Mount Laurel’s Edward Mathews is facing a…Read more...

On Wednesday, NFL free agent Richard Sherman was arrested after reportedly breaking into a family member’s home and scuffling with police before being taken into custody.

Somehow, the already-too-lengthy Jussie Smollett court narrative is still going...and of course, COVID-19 induced lockdowns have only extended it.Read more...

Comedian and TV correspondent for The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Roy Wood Jr. will be taking the reins of a brand new original podcast series soon.Read more...

The family of Andrew Brown Jr., a Black man fatally shot by deputies in North Carolina earlier this year, has filed a $30 million federal civil rights lawsuit.

Sometimes white people take their sense of entitlement and authority to levels that make them dangerous to people around them—especially to Black people.

Grandparents all over the nation who “don’t know how to work no damn streaming” and grandkids who bonded with them while watching classic Black-ass sitcoms can rejoice!Read more...

If you eat, sleep, and breathe all things money, power, & respect— then this latest Verzuz news might be right up your alley!Read more...

In what sounds like a bad TLC reality show just waiting to happen, a family of five from Texas has been charged for their alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Do you expect to open up a book, get into it, get really invested and then BOOM! have it tear you to shreds emotionally? I sure do.Read more...

I abhor all conservatives, but I hold special contempt for Black conservatives. This isn’t just because of their ideology; it’s also because they don’t have to be qualified experts in literally anything for white conservatives to uplift them as lackeys who are willing to tow a generic, substanceless white nationalist…Read more...

Outspoken NFL free agent Richard Sherman was arrested early Wednesday after reportedly breaking into a family member’s home in Redmond, Wash.