It was hard for me, as it was for most Americans, to hear coverage of the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the doctor convicted of killing a woman and three infants in a horrifically unsafe Philadelphia abortion clinic. Gosnell preyed on the low-income women whose search for affordable abortion...

On Wednesday, April 17, the U.S .Senate filibustered a bill to expand background checks on gun sales. The next day, more than a dozen Americans were felled by gun violence. One was 26-year-old Sean Collier, the MIT police officer killed by the Boston bombing...

Civil rights hero Bayard Rustin once said, "God does not require us to achieve ... the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying."

Known as a man with purpose and heart, Rustin, who was an...

This week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Shelby County v. Holder, a case challenging the protections of the Voting Rights Act. Based on a simple idea, one that is enshrined in our Constitution, the right to vote cannot be denied on the basis of race....

"I am my mother's child. The one she told one day many years ago, as I laid on a hospital table that, 'God did not intend for your life to be like mine!' The forms had been signed, we were in agreement and I was tearfully rolled into the very...

On a weekend that features both the third anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. FEC and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, it is a timely moment to "take the temperature" of our democracy. Dr. King once said, "So long as I do not firmly...

Last month, African Americans across the country voted in record numbers. That was a victory, but not an ending. Now, we have to stay involved. Just as President Obama and Congress turned immediately from the election to negotiating a path away from the "fiscal slope," Americans who turned...

In 2008, for the first time in our history, African Americans turned out to the polls at the same rate as white voters.

Then we spent the next four years hearing that that high turnout was a fluke. "Experts" told us we would lose our enthusiasm. We'd...

I was in the audience at Mitt Romney's address to the NAACP convention this week, when he told us, a room full of informed, politically engaged African Americans, "If you want a president who will make things better in the African American community, you are looking at him."

I was...

Just two months ago, internal documents released as part of a lawsuit against the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) revealed in explicit terms how the organization views racial wedge strategies as key to its political goals. If you need reminding just how crass that strategy is, here are some of...

I was thrilled yesterday when President Obama finally decided to express his personal support for marriage equality for gays and lesbians. But I was dismayed by a particular thread in media reaction: the speculation that the main thing the president risks in supporting equality is driving African American voters away...

Today, as Americans across the country celebrate the life and work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must also consider the future of his legacy. Dr. King's movement achieved great strides for African Americans and others who had been left out of the American dream. But even as...