The Root

On Wednesday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the city of Birmingham violated Alabama’s monument protection law when it placed a plywood screen around a Confederate monument in a downtown park on August 18, 2017.Read more...

I’m not always the fondest of turkey, but I always look forward to shopping on Black Friday. Although the day after Thanksgiving is often reduced to “capitalist consumption for the unwoke masses,” it has become a favorite family tradition of time spent with two women I love, my mom and aunt. It always includes a meal…Read more...

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Legendary Chicago preacher, celebrated gospel artist and longtime civil rights activist Rev. Clay Evans has passed away at age 94.Read more...

The New York Jets signed Wyatt Ray to its practice squad this week.Read more...

Whoever said politics doesn’t belong at the dinner table has never been to a black Thanksgiving. With food, family and maybe a sip of something, very few topics are out of bounds at my Aunt Sara’s house.

Forever First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off the holiday season with great cheer by posting a family photo on social media.Read more...

It’s an experience not unfamiliar to many women: walking past, and ignoring, a stranger’s catcalls. It’s so common that our responses are automatic—a sharp retort, maybe, or an exasperated eye roll. Many of us show no reaction at all, turning up the music in our headphones or continuing to stare straight ahead at the…Read more...

If you wear clothes, there are deals for you to take advantage of this Black Friday. We’ll be collecting our favorite clothing & lifestyle sales below, including apparel, cosmetics, grooming essentials, outdoor gear, and fitness & health products. Stay tuned, we’ll be updating this post as deals go live, and…Read more...

A high school English teacher in Fort Worth, Texas, may be allowed to return to her job after being fired in June for tweeting to Donald Trump and asking for his help in getting rid of “illegal students” at her school.Read more...

How does one say farewell to an icon?Read more...

According to a new report, life expectancy rates in the United States have dropped for the third consecutive year.

The mother of a 21-year-old killed by a police officer has filed a federal lawsuit against the officer and the city that employs the cop who shot and killed her son at an Alabama mall in 2018.Read more...

As Black Thanksgiving quickly approaches, it may be necessary for some people who are unfamiliar with this holiday to understand the black genealogy. In black culture, the family dynamic is not dictated by genetics, DNA or blood. Instead, much like race, “family” is a social construct.Read more...

If Barbara Hillary was going to go to the South Pole, she was going to make it worth her while.Read more...

Netflix and When They See Us writer-director Ava DuVernay are fighting back on a lawsuit filed against them and the figurative punches are formal.

Earlier this month, Steve Foster of Concord, Calif., made headlines when he was detained by BART police for—wait for it—“illegally eating.”Read more...

America’s Got Talent will be returning for its 15th season next year, but there will be two hosts noticeably missing from the host lineup: Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough. The show, produced by Simon Cowell, aims to find America’s next great superstar.Read more...

The Root’s video team, including host and producer Felice León, went on a mission to test the black cards of one of the black meccas in America: Harlem. We wanted to see how much 125th Street residents knew about some of the top nominees recognized in The 2019 Root 100.Read more...

A Marshall speaker Gold Box, egg bites tray, Switch Lite bundle, and an ABH eyeshadow set lead off Wednesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Have you ever known a person who just lies for no reason? Like, they stay making stuff up all the time just for the sake of talking and conversation? Their stories have little basis in reality; they just want to get one off, and to do that, they make up whatever details they need to in order for the story to sound…Read more...

“There are no real plus size icons for me,” The Real co-host and author Loni Love told Hello Beautiful earlier this month—ironically, while hawking her first fashion collaboration with full-figured fashion stalwart Ashley Stewart. While The Glow Up and a whole gang of Aretha, Oprah, Queen Latifah, Jill Scott, and…Read more...

The first thing you should know about me is that I absolutely hate talking on the phone.Read more...

Alfred Chestnut knew he was innocent, and after more than thirty years behind bars, he had faith that he could convince others to see it, too. Now, thanks in part to his efforts, he and Andrew Stewart and Ransom Watkins, all wrongfully convicted for the 1983 murder of a 14-year-old Baltimore boy, are free men.Read more...

The nation’s 1.3 million public housing units are woefully underprepared for the worsening climate crisis. Nearly half a million government-subsidized households are in flood plains, and when climate disaster hits, affordable units are less likely to get rebuilt.Read more...

On August 19, 2019, #TheChickening came home to roost when the Popeyes Chicken Twitter account tweeted two simple words in response to Chick-fil-A: “Y’all good?”Read more...

You may not know India Mackey (in fact, chances are you don’t), but you know exactly what the young Michigan woman saw in the moments before her death. We know because she filmed it: She, in the driver’s seat of her boyfriend’s van on Nov. 19, her phone trained on her 18-year-old boyfriend, Kevin Dixon, in the…Read more...

20% Off Sitewide | Dagne DoverRead more...

It’s strangely fitting that one of history’s earliest renegades has been immortalized with an opera that also defies convention—and indeed, for those unfamiliar with the music of Philip Glass, the operative word some may use to describe his opera Akhnaten might be “strange.” For the genre’s purists, the Metropolitan…Read more...

In a wide-ranging interview that spanned multiple phone calls, prisoner number NN7687 spoke out on his refusal to admit guilt, his time behind bars, black families, his accusers, Michael Eric Dyson, the infamous “Pound Cake Speech” and how he might have stopped a prison murder.

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of Hollywood patting themselves on the back because awards season is ramping up once again!

In a ruling late Monday, Federal District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said former White House counsel Don McGahn must obey a subpoena to testify before Congress. The subpoena, issued in April, came from the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into possible obstruction of justice by President…Read more...

If I pause, perhaps over a cup of tea or while looking at a beautiful sunset, to take stock of my life, there are very few moments that I can point to directly as the moment where things suddenly became different. Most big changes seem, for me at least, to happen gradually. There are only a handful of moments where I…Read more...

The heads of woketeps must be exploding right about now: T.I. is out here being castigated expeditiously on Red Table Talk over something that every self-respecting man believes in: He is responsible for protecting his daughters from both themselves and indignity. What the hell is everybody upset about? All of these…Read more...

It’s always amazed me that some people can watch a concert or musical with no visible emotional response. I always say that it’s cultural—that in the African (American, Caribbean, Latinx, etc.) tradition we “talk back,” “chat back,” “shout back” “sing back”—and though I know different communities have different…Read more...

A huge Gravity Blanket sale, Vinebox Advent Calendars, BioBidets, and a Galaxy Fit activity tracker lead off Tuesday’s best deals from around the web.Read more...

Beyond the political allegory of two black people going on the run after killing a cop, Queen & Slim is a love story. Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) have bounties on their heads for the crime they’ve committed and throughout all of their trials and tribulations, they find a special sense of…Read more...

Seven thousand three hundred twenty-two dollars.Read more...

On its face, it’s a welcome proposition: people incarcerated in West Virginia prisons will be given access to electronic tablets, allowing them to read books and articles, listen to music, write emails, and send photos and video chat with their friends and family. But it will cost them: $0.03-$0.05 cents a minute if…Read more...

Although the heinous 2016 police shooting only garnered marginal national attention, eight judges refused to try the case. The trial venue was changed from a majority-black city to a rural, mostly white county…in Alabama. The defendant was a white cop who shot and killed a black man...in Alabama. Still, in less than…Read more...

A few weeks back, I wrote a piece that was critical of “yasiin bey: Negus,” the travelling art exhibit/listening installation curated by yasiin bey, the artist formerly known as Mos Def. My overarching point (perhaps fairly called “mean” in the comments on the actual piece, and disregarded as close-minded on Facebook)…Read more...

After some promotional teasing, the time has come for T.I., also known as Tip Harris, to sit down at the famous red table.

“You heard ‘bout Big John?”Read more...

The Root is looking for freelance writers to cover nights and weekends. Do you fit the description?

There are two films chronicling Michael Jackson’s life that always seems to cause discussion in the black community: the amazing miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream and whatever Flex Alexander was doing in Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story.Read more...

As Solange once crooned, “this shit is for us.”

Award-winning bodybuilder Willie Murphy gave a suspected home invader a lesson he won’t soon forget: You’re never too old to catch—or deliver—a good ass whooping.Read more...

I think I have some thoughts today about Patrick Patterson, the NBA player who implied that black women are “bulldogs” in an Instagram comment while defending his marriage to Sarah Nasser (a white woman).Read more...

U.S. Senator and 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris has released a comprehensive mental healthcare plan that calls for ending the “mental illness to jail pipeline” by reclassifying disorders, ending solitary confinement and a range of other proposals the campaign released this morning.Read more...