DETROIT - It may have been opening day for the Detroit Tigers, but for Detroit's latest urban renewal plan, which changes names the way Justin Verlander changes pitches, it's simply time to step up to the plate and connect with the citizens of city. With two strikes already on the...

It's fitting in our current times that most people believe the phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility" originated in the world of comics. Somehow we forget a carpenter's son said, "To whom much is given, much is expected" about 2,000 years ago; and Voltaire originally coined the phrase hailing...

When Barack Obama was sworn in for a second term as president of the United States last Monday morning in Washington D.C., we witnessed the beginning of a presidential term that may provide one of our final opportunities to preserve our democratic, environmental and economic health both here at home...

As to be expected, there has been a lot of distortion around the Michigan Clean Energy ballot Proposal 3 in the weeks leading up to the election. Those distortions, coming from the usual suspects, are confusing voters about one of the more meaningful proposals on the state-wide ballot this year.

There's a distinct air of ongoing change this fall, which only the most oblivious can deny. A remarkably mild Detroit winter gave way to another spring of unusually lethal tornadoes down through tornado alley, and a summer of unprecedented temperatures, droughts and wild fires across the country.

Mirroring those...

It's hardly a new phenomena to see youth and media come together to make key contributions in almost every social justice movement of the modern era. With today's ever-evolving advances in multi-media technology, youth with access to these technologies are often ahead of the learning curve. But even among those,...

This is the latest in a series of blogs discussing the Environmental Justice Principles adopted in 1991 by the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit. Now up is EJ Principle No. 10 which: "considers governmental acts of environmental injustice a violation of international law, the Universal Declaration On...

In the roll-out of the environmental justice principles, we find ourselves next looking at what may turn out to be one of the most important Environmental Justice principles of them all since our government these days seems to deem themselves above all law (national, international, divine or otherwise). That is...

This is the latest in a series of columns discussing the Environmental Justice Principles drafted and adopted by delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held Oct. 24-27, 1991. This week we're looking at EJ Principle No. 6 which: "Demands the cessation of the...

Even with the February 29 delivery of over 226,000 signatures to a petition to overturn Public Act 4 (also known as the Emergency Manager Law), there has been another brave and bold attempt to overthrow a law that U.S. Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking member of...

This is the latest in a series of blogs discussing the Environmental Justice Principles drafted and adopted by delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held Oct. 24-27, 1991. This week, we're discussing EJ Principle number four: Environmental justice calls for universal protection from nuclear testing,...

At 6 p.m. Wednesday evening, St. Peters Episcopal Church in Southwest Detroit will host a second community hearing over concerns some residents have expressed about the beleaguered community's largest community development corporation, Southwest Solutions.

Until the first hearing held on February 2, my initial introductions into the issues concerning...

Since I arrived in Detroit just over a year ago, it's been hard not to notice that the question of gentrification has been one of the city's more hotly debated topics. About a month ago, my youthful colleague Siwatu Salama-Ra, EMEAC's youth team leader, ably shared her perspective as a...

It may come to the surprise of many people, but the idea of corporate personhood has been a long-established legal tradition in the American system of government. The most recent Citizens United decision (don't be fooled by the Orwellian moniker) handed down by the U.S. Supreme court in 2010, which...