Is the coast clear? Any instances of blackface or diversity snafus on the horizon to mar Black History Month? Any of that nonsense to call out? Only last year and the year before did rashes of both spread in news headlines. But not this year. We’re conditioned to anticipate them like clockwork, but it’s a relief not to see them. Too soon to call it? Anyway, this year’s Black History Month is starting on a more auspicious note. Read more →

A Q&A with Sherrilyn Ifill | Our national engagement with this history of lynching is a process, and so I think it’s important to offer new opportunities to new generations of readers who want—or maybe will discover they need—to learn more about this important part of our past. Read more →

Sherrilyn Ifill asks women who are trying to have it "all" to get behind economic empowerment for the women who face the biggest challenges. Read more →

Lynching victims were not metaphors. They were real people who suffered unimaginably. Read more →

With the media's attention on Snyder v. Phelps, Sherrilyn Ifill looks at a Supreme Court case with broader-reaching implications. Read more →

The author of On the Courthouse Lawn says of Shirley Sherrod's speech that it "should be required listening for those who want to understand the arc of race and racism in America and the possibilities for redemption in this country." Read more →

Just because Elena Kagan is white didn't stop Republicans from injecting race into her Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Read more →

Sherrilyn Ifill responds to the idea that the election of an African-American president means that traditional black civil rights thinking is now outdated. Read more →

Sometimes, you just can't be cynical. Sometimes – even though you know that we still have a long way to go, that the work of achieving a racially just society is far from over, even though you don't subscribe to the messianic fervor that sometimes surrounds talk of about this presidential campaign – sometimes you just have to stop for a moment, and acknowledge the extraordinariness of this moment in American history. Read more →

by Sherrilyn A. Ifill In the flush of the current presidential campaign, when crowds of blacks and whites caught up in Obama fever chant together, “race doesn’t matter,” and even the mainstream media seems delirious with the possibility that the... Read more →

Halloween is a time for "gallows humor," but macabre displays of fake bodies swaying from trees are not a laughing matter for those who understand the legacy of lynching in America. From Crystal Lake, Florida, to Stratford, Connecticut, hanging dummies... Read more →