On message and with a streak of steel, Barack Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett made it clear that the president is fighting back challenges to his agenda. It “takes a certain temperament, perseverance and stubbornness” to make changes in Washington, Jarrett said.
She addressed poll numbers, town hall disruptions and what it will take [...]

Education matters.
That is the message from President Barack Obama, especially to those who think the economy is challenge enough. But even a president with a message will become distracted by events — by swine flu or torture memos or instability in Pakistan.
You need only look at last week’s Presidential press conference to know that [...]

When I heard about the death of John Hope Franklin, I grabbed my copy of “Mirror to America,” his 2005 autobiography. The blurb on the cover reads: “The twentieth-century fight for civil rights told in the first-person singular by a preeminent American historian.”
An understatement.
For 94 years, John Hope Franklin lived the history he wrote about [...]

Now is not the time to be reminded of Charles Dickens or the French Revolution, it would seem. Life in 2009 America is already plenty bleak. Yet Marc Morial, National Urban League president and CEO, channeled “A Tale of Two Cities” to summarize the league’s State of Black America 2009 Report.
It is “the best of [...]

In the photograph, lawyer Julius Chambers stands in the rubble of his fire-bombed office. His firm is in the middle of more than 30 desegregation lawsuits before courts in North Carolina. And the Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools case – which would be a landmark win for school desegregation and the law firm – is pending [...]

While commentators debate whether a New York Post cartoon that links cops, a dead monkey and perhaps a president is stupid, racist or both (that last one gets my vote)…
While citizens weigh in on Attorney General Eric Holder’s labeling of America as a nation of “cowards” when it comes to dealing with the issue of [...]

They walked along Pennsylvania Avenue and the crowd roared. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama looked relaxed and not the least bit cold and – just like that – it was real.
Men jumped on other men’s shoulders to get a better look, parents held children high in the air and throngs of [...]

Each night leading up to the inauguration of Barack Obama brings more celebrations, more of that particular mix of celebrities, politicians and media folk. Sunday night, the Root inaugural ball also added history. At the party at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of American History, you could see film director John Singleton ducking into a [...]

What a homecoming!
The Obamas and the Bidens — on their whistle-stop train trip from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. — made a stop in Baltimore, where I was born and raised. It’s where I was once refused entrance to an amusement park on the Baltimore County line because of the color of my skin.
Did that [...]

Washington is holding its breath — and it’s not just because of 14-degree weather. The city is getting ready for Tuesday’s inauguration of a new president and it wants everything to be perfect. On Friday bleachers set-up outside the White House stood empty. That will change.
A few bundled-up pilgrims made their way to peek through [...]