commentary

When Sputnik circled the earth in 1957, Americans were agog that the Russians had beaten us into space.  In Black barbershops, segregated classrooms of the South and other spaces where Black folk could speak openly, it was undisputed that America’s inability to focus on the “space race” was because of its obsession with the “race question.” Three years earlier, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that the doctrine of “separate but equal” was unconstitutional and one year after that, the Court had ordered the desegregation of public school with “all deliberate speed.”  These directives for fairness and equality for African Americans set the South ablaze and racial bigots raised every imaginable barricade to prevent equal educational opportunities for Black children.  Some people will say that desegregation had nothing to do with the space race.  But the number of Black astronauts, physicists, engineers and mathematicians who have contributed to America’s space efforts since integration exposes that bit of white supremacy for what it is.  Prohibiting African Americans from attending many universities with advanced science programs, and participating fairly in the aerospace industry and the effort to conquer space, amputated a valuable portion of this nation’s brain power.  Today, we again find ourselves in competition with Russia on another geopolitical chessboard. Russia, Brazil, India and China have pushed forward on the global...

All oppressed people know this feeling. Tevye expressed it best in “Fiddler on the Roof” when he said there are times “when our hearts...

     For years and years and years, people of color around the globe have been victimized by Political Plantations.      A plantation is an estate, or...

By Lucius Gantt      I am writing this week’s column with a heavy heart. My condolences go out to my great friend Garth Reeves on the passing of...

Felicity Huffman says she just wanted to give her daughter "a fair shot" at getting into the college of her choice. That is the...

     I’m a “Grady baby”. That is what Atlantans call themselves that were born in Grady Hospital.        Atlanta, Georgia is my hometown. I was...

It’s déjà vu all over again. The defeat of the Democratic presidential candidate in 2016 was crushing, and many reasons have been given for why...

“The strongest middle class the world has ever known was not built overnight. It was achieved by men and women who believed that living...

"Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. Whether it is...

    On any given day, someone is your community is waiting for something!      They wait on God to shower them with financial blessings, they...