emmett till

After 69 years of life experience, even in a white bubble, I should have known that blackface isn't portrayal but ridicule. But I didn't.

While the gruesome practice of lynching is most closely associated with the Southern states of the former Confederacy, hundreds were committed elsewhere in the country — including at least 44 in Maryland.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: It is hard work teaching a black child value himself in a nation where his worth is ever in question.

Sometimes the Christmas season can feel like the 6 o’clock news, full of death and disaster. But as we wrap our brains around workable solutions to the ills of our world, the holiday season inevitably brings moments of sheer unfettered joy.

Simeon Booker, a trailblazing journalist and the first full-time African-American reporter at The Washington Post, has died at the age of 99.

Fred Wilson's "Mining the Museum," put on by The Contemporary Museum in 1992 at the Maryland Historical Society, was a landmark exhibition for both the artist

Feb. 8

Benjamin Banneker is among dozens of Marylanders and Baltimoreans represented in a collection of approximately 40,000 artifacts — some 3,000 onsite. Objects of local origin include a stone slave auction block from Hagerstown. A pinback from the Baltimore Elite Giants, a Negro League baseball team. Colorful entertainment placards produced by Baltimore's own Globe Poster Printing Corp.

Fifty years since Kwanzaa was created by Maryland native Maulana Karenga, its adherents say the holiday holds as much meaning as ever, offering the African-American community a chance to celebrate its accomplishments and remember where it came from.

Leonard Pitts Jr. says he is worn down by the latest betrayal of black people in America: the mistrial of Walter Scott's killer.

There is an emerging American consensus that says painful things, like Emmett Till's murder, are better off forgotten, says Leonard Pitts Jr.

"Stay Woke: The Black Lives Matter Movement"  is television that matters in its own right.

There are few places more dangerous for black children than Chicago, says Leonard Pitts Jr.

Rachel Dolezal thinks she's the Caitlyn Jenner of race, says Leonard Pitts Jr.

Last week, Young Moose, one of Baltimore's most popular rising young rappers, released a new video for his Freddie Gray-related protest song, "No SunShine."

A second list of 10 films scheduled for the 2015 Maryland Film festival includes offerings from MFF vets Bobcat Goldthwaite, Todd Rohal and Alex Winter

Before we can have a fruitful "conversation on race," we need to first have education on race, says Leonard Pitts Jr.

Poverty and division still plague the black citizens of the Mississippi Delta, writes David Horsey.

The Rev. Jamal Bryant saw in Ferguson protests a modern incarnation of Martin Luther King's legacy.

JET magazine, the pocket-sized source of news about blacks since 1951, has bowed to the ages and gone digital with a new app. But its debut digital issue this month makes clear that JET is no longer the magazine for anyone who claims to be at least middle-aged.

The first list of 10 films scheduled for the 16th annual Maryland Film Festival includes the Ocean City-set "Ping Pong Summer."

I feel like my husband and I are in the midst of this never-ending war, the same war that my parents and my grandparents fought. It is the same war that black people have been fighting in this country since American slavery was first legalized. This war is simply to keep our boys safe in a society that devalues them, suspects them, fears them and often dismisses them. It is a war that I now fear I am losing.

Thousands of people are expected to descend on Washington this weekend to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington civil rights event. Several events are planned for the weekend and on Wednesday, Aug. 28, the anniversary of the day of the march. Baltimore-area civil rights groups are scrambling to keep up with the demand for bus reservations.

The NAACP and a Baltimore mega-church pastor were among those calling Sunday for a federal civil rights case against George Zimmerman after the Florida man was acquitted in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager.

HoCoPoLitSo's writer-in-residence Derrick Weston Brown

UMBC exhibit shows how African-Americans have portrayed themselves and been portrayed by others

Photos focus on young newspaper boys and girls to mark Afro-American's 120th anniversary

Even in Baltimore, where juveniles are the victims of homicides about once a month, the slaying of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin has struck an unusually deep chord. Why?

Pastors and parishioners wear hoodies Sunday to honor Trayvon Martin, the Florida who was slain last month.

The shooting death of Trayvon Martin shows the folly of Florida's lax gun laws

Leonard Pitts says Ann Coulter is the latest Republican to demonstrate a tin ear on the subject of race