Feature – Serena Williams is owed an apology for much more than a penalty. And it wasn’t only Williams who was punished for her success at the 2018 US Open — so too was Naomi Osaka. Osaka sat with a towel draped over her head moments after she won, as if she was ashamed of her accomplishment. What should have been a moment of triumph was one that appeared more steeped in grief, so much so that Osaka felt compelled to apologize — for winning! Read more

Obama Begins Midterm Push, Urging Rebuke Of Trump And Politics Of ‘Fear And Anger.’ It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not a cause,” Obama told students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years — a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past, but also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.” Watch Live here 

Black, progressive, insurgent: Is this the future of the Democratic Party? With Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia, and Ben Jealous in Maryland, voters in three states could elect black governors in November — even though the country has elected only two in its history. Read more 

How a Democrat could finagle a win in Mississippi. Mike Espy, shown in 2010, is running in a three-way race in Mississippi for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Republican Thad Cochran. Espy’s maternal grandfather, T.J. — Thomas Jefferson — Huddleston Sr., was Mississippi’s richest African American (nursing and funeral homes). All three will then be on the ballot, with no party labels. Polls show Hyde-Smith slightly ahead of Espy, but both under 30 percent and double digits ahead of McDaniel. Read more

Affirmative Action Spectacle.  Brett Kavanaugh knows firsthand that affirmative action works and he uses it to hire female law clerks. But he opposes it as policy. Read more 

They’re not white nationalists, they’re white supremacists. Lucian K. Truscott IV, descendant of Thomas Jefferson. RACE TRAITOR. That was the subject line on hundreds of emails, almost always in all-caps. I answered call after call on my cell phone from raving white supremacists, screaming RACE TRAITOR, denouncing me for abandoning the white race and sullying the good name of one of our white founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson. The people who called were all men, every single one of them. They were beside themselves with rage. I was a traitor to my family, to the country, and to the white race. Read more 

What it Was Like Inside a Nike Call Center After the Colin Kaepernick Ad Dropped.  People got emotional over Nike’s new ad featuring Colin Kaepernick — and weren’t afraid to tell a young black man at the company’s call center just how they felt. Read more 

Kenny Stills Carries Colin Kaepernick’s Torch by Continuing to Kneel. Stills, Miami Dolphins wide receiver, who has never stopped protesting, said he began kneeling two years ago because he felt helpless watching videos of African-Americans dying at the hands of the police. He wondered how he would feel if one of those people had been his nephew, father or uncle. One day, he broke down crying on the way to work and vowed to do something. Read more 

Malcolm Jenkins, the new face of NFL player protests, says ‘We’re really just at the beginning.’ Jenkins is a 30-year-old captain and two-time Pro Bowl honoree for the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, and the nerve center of a franchise whose locker room is as socially conscious as it is talented. Read more 

Chronicling the Virtuosity and Struggles of 1970s Soul and Funk Musicians. The Pointer Sisters on “Soul Train” in 1975. Bruce W. Talamon photographed some of music’s brightest stars for a decade. He considers himself “a visual caretaker of black folks’ history.” Read more 

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