I was among the millions who eagerly looked forward to President Obama’s speech on jobs last week, among the millions who hoped our President would finally get his arms around the issue that plagues millions of Americans. The official unemployment rates, after all, are nothing more than a pleasant fiction. The 9.1 percent unemployment rate […]
Commentary
Obama’s Burden: Addressing the Black Labor Crisis in “Post-Racial” America
By Avis Jones-DeWeever (HuffingtonPost.com) – When President Obama addresses the nation with his long-awaited jobs prescription, one thing is certain. Any strategy he puts forth now must not only seek to move the needle for the nation as a whole, it must also include specific remedies for the ever-deepening jobs crisis within black America. Though […]
Back to School and Back to Work on Creating Jobs – By Marc H. Morial
(To Be Equal #36) – Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer and the start of another school year for more than 60 million public school students. This year, the Labor Day weekend also coincided with the announcement last week that zero jobs were added in August, and African American unemployment has soared to […]
Black America: Truth vs. Myth? Constant efforts to veil the truth of Black Americans from Black America
“History does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.” – James Baldwin Baldwin’s proclamation that “the great […]
WORDS MATTER: King Out of Context – Just Fix It! – By Julianne Malveaux
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was anything but an “arrogant twit”. Yet Dr. Maya Angelou called it entirely correctly when she said that one of the quotes engraved on the side of the new memorial to Dr. King portrays the man as a braggart, not the humble servant leader that he was. “I was a […]
National Urban League Brings Empowerment Summit to Atlanta
Marc H. Morial – “It is troubling that unemployment is so high…and that we are so caught up in details of deficits and debt ceilings that we question whether government has any moral duty to serve the poor, help feed the hungry and assist the sick.” U.S. Representative and civil rights legend, John Lewis of […]
The Banks Are The Real Bank Robbers
By Lucius Gantt (The Gantt Report) – Who is, or should be, known as the greatest robber? Is it Robin Hood or Ali Baba? Could it be Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse and Frank James? Maybe you’d say it was John Dillinger or Baby Face Nelson. I say the greatest bank robbers are United States bankers […]
On Women’s Equality Day… #HERvotes blog carnival
By Shark-fu – In 1971 Congress designated August 26th “Women’s Equality Day” at the behest of the late Rep. Bella Abzug (D-NY). Women’s Equality Day commemorates the passage of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920 that granted women the right to vote. I’m pondering how much has changed and how much has remains […]
Women’s Equality Day – What the heck do I tell my daughter? – #HERvotes Blog Carnival
By Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner – Today is Women’s Equality Day. At the center of my mind is: What the heck do I tell my daughter? How do I tell my daughter about the fact that despite many gains made for women’s (and mothers’) equality, women still don’t earn equal pay for equal work? Women now make, […]