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In Barack Obama's first year as president, African-Americans have struggled to bridge a wide equality gap with whites, in particular in the area of jobs, a report said Wednesday. In the annual "State of Black America" report, the National Urban League (NUL) said black unemployment numbers were nearly double those of whites as "the ravages of the recession" hit minorities much harder than whites. "These are tough times in America and they require a powerful and immediate response," said Marc Morial, president and CEO of the 100-year-old civil rights group. The "already struggling" African-American community risks falling "deeper into poverty...

Created in 1926 by black historian, scholar, educator and publisher Carter G. Woodson, it began as "Negro History Week." By 1976, it morphed into Black History Month -- a celebration of the contributions of blacks to America and their struggles to overcome. From Africa to slavery. The Civil War. Jim Crow and lynchings. Sit-ins and marches. Brown vs. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act. Assassinations. A historic presidency. With history yet to have its full say regarding President Obama, we interviewed a broad spectrum of his fellow Chicagoans and prominent visitors on what the month means to them...

It was the 1960's, and after decades following the abolishment of slavery, African-Americans were still vying for simple, fundamental human rights, including the most basic form of involvement in society-voting.

SAN DIEGO – The Rev. Jesse Jackson, in San Diego Tuesday for a national gathering of African-American lawyers, called last week's White House “beer summit” between a black professor and the white police officer who arrested him a distraction from more complex issues of racial profiling. “This incident has gone on down the road as a media event, completely ignoring racial profiling in housing, jobs, health care, access to capital,” Jackson said. “We must keep our eyes on the bigger public policy question.” Jackson was on a panel of African-American leaders discussing the roles of black lawyers as social...

It's difficult to recall the 2004 Democratic presidential primary, given the personalities and duration of the 2008 battle in the party. But who will ever forget the comic relief provided by the Rev. Al Sharpton during his 2004 bid for the White House? Now, five years later, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has reached a settlement with the outspoken black preacher and his campaign totaling $285,000 in civil penalties. Also named in the settlement were campaign treasurer Andrew Rivera and, among other enterprises, the National Action Network, a nonprofit Mr. Sharpton founded and has served as president. The FEC-initiated case...

Visiting the Houston Holocaust Museum, activist apologizes for his past hate-filled remarks about Jews The date was Oct. 15, 1995, the place Washington, D.C. On the eve of the Million Man March, a rally organized by the Nation of Islam, the organization's youth minister was ready with rhetoric and venom. Angered by Jewish protests over a conference dedicated to "the black Holocaust," 24-year-old Quanell X told the gathering that offended Jews "can go straight to hell," then expounded on his sentiments to a Chicago Tribune reporter. "The real deal is this: Black youth do not want a relationship with the...

SYLACAUGA, Ala. -- Sylacauga community leaders are preparing to boycott the city's school system. During a community meeting Sunday night, area pastors asked parents to pull their kids out of school this week. Organizers are protesting what they consider inequality in the teaching ranks. They said fewer than 10 percent of the city's teachers are black while black students make up 38 percent of the district's enrollment. The boycott is expected to start this morning with organizers hoping to keep more than 200 students out of the classroom for the rest of the week.

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards included Helena-West Helena in his recent eight-state tour focusing on poverty issues. But local leaders feel somewhat slighted. Mayor James Valley says Edwards' brief visit was disappointing. Valley says he had wanted to hear more about what Edwards envisioned for east Arkansas, and he had hoped to pitch to the former senator from North Carolina reasons why there should be more development in the state's struggling Delta region. The Reverend Julious McGruder of the New Zion Missionary Baptist Church said he was glad to have the chance to see a presidential candidate, but said he...

It is just after Christmas in 2003 and John Edwards is running hard for president of the United States. He is in Iowa, with the caucuses about three weeks away. Pundits, guided by a massive disinformation campaign, have decided that Howard Dean is going to win Iowa. Edwards remains undiscouraged. A highly effective stump speaker, Edwards always gets a laugh by saying, "Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear." Edwards is a product of the American middle class. His father worked in a textile mill, and his mother ran an antique refinishing business and then became a...

Why does the elegant senator from North Carolina continue his run for the presidency? Washington correspondent Geoff Elliott reports: POOR John Edwards. He follows Barack Obama on the podium at a conference of mostly anti-war Democrats and it's like watching air whistle out of a balloon. Obama, a charismatic candidate for change in the mould of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy, has just worked the crowd brilliantly. Then Edwards walks in, a little later than scheduled at the Take Back America conference, thanks to an impromptu grab-and-grip show from Obama. Cameras are being pocketed again and seats resumed for...

Edwards to announce poverty tour Can JRE pull off a JFK, or an RFK (asks Politico chief political writer Mike Allen, who is sharing guestblogging duties while Ben is on vacation)? John Edwards plans to announce Monday that he’ll take a break from fund-raising and campaigning in early-voting states next week for a three-day, eight-state, 12-city “Road to One America” tour aimed at calling attention to poverty in the deep South, the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and the Rust Belt. The campaign points out that none of the states he’ll visit has an early 2008 primary, and says Edwards won’t be...

We got our hands on an upcoming New York Times magazine cover story examining Edwards and his poverty platform. Some highlights of the piece: -- “What stands out the most about Edwards’s antipoverty ideas is their familiarity. It’s as if he has taken most of the proposals that have been talked about in policy groups and at university forums since the 1990s and thrown them all together into one comprehensive and expensive package. The individual proposals themselves, far from being radical or populist, basically sound — there’s no other way to put it — Clintonian”... “Exiling oneself from Washington and...

There’s a little hustler in every politician. But sometimes there’s a little politician in a hustler. Such is the case with John Edwards. Last week, we learned that Edwards received $55,000 to give a speech, “Poverty, the Great Moral Issue Facing America,” at the University of California, Davis. The poor students who attended were charged more than $17 a ticket. Earlier this month, it was reported that despite the fact he denounces predatory lending and subprime mortgages for the poor, Edwards made nearly $500,000 as a consultant to a hedge fund involved in that business. The former senator defended his...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who as a Democratic presidential candidate recently proposed an educational policy that urged "every financial barrier" be removed for American kids who want to go to college, has been going to college himself -- as a high paid speaker, his financial records show. The candidate charged a whopping $55,000 to speak at to a crowd of 1,787 the taxpayer-funded University of California at Davis on Jan. 9, 2006 last year, Joe Martin, the public relations officer for the campus' Mondavi Center confirmed Monday.

Let us say right up front that it's terrific that John Edwards lives in a country where he can lose an election and still land a $480,000 part-time job as a consultant to an investment firm that keeps its hedge funds in the Cayman Islands as a tax shelter for its clients. This truly is the land of opportunity. We're also encouraged to hear that, according to the former Senator's spokesman, "John Edwards is running for President to give every American the opportunities that he's had." While there may not be enough half-a-million-dollar-a-year part-time consulting gigs to go around just...

Goffstown – Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards proposed today that the United States spend $5 billion annually to lead a worldwide effort to end global poverty through education and health care initiatives. The former North Carolina senator said his effort would not only be a “good and moral thing,” but it would also make the United States safer. “We know that terrorists thrive in failed states and in states torn apart by internal conflict and poverty,” he said in a speech at Saint Anselm College. In Africa and Muslim countries, he said, millions of children are being educated “in madrassas...

NEW ORLEANS -- Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama blasted the Bush administration Monday for the slow pace of Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts and what he saw as a lack of urgency at the White House. "There is not a sense of urgency in this administration to get this done," said the Democratic senator from Illinois. "You get a sense that will has been lacking in the last several months." Obama, the nation's only African American senator, was in New Orleans for a field hearing conducted by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The devastation in New Orleans and...

http://fancyford.com/Congressman Harold Ford, Jr. likes to live the good life...perhaps a little too much. Lavish hotel stays. Fine dining. Couture suits. Parties with Playboy Playmates...all on his campaign contributors' dime.It makes you wonder...what would the folks back in Tennessee think?

esse Jackson Gets Involved In Owens Case Add the Rev. Jesse Jackson to the list of famous people who want to get involved in Terrell Owens' suspension from the Eagles. Jackson has joined another former presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, in calling for the NFL to let Owens rejoin the Eagles or release him from his contract. "This punishment is much too severe for the charge," Jackson said. "If (Owens) had been caught shaving points, selling drugs, carrying a gun or fighting some fans, who provoked him, and he had not shown sufficient restraint, we could understand the severe suspension." "If...

Court Rules Jesse Jackson Must Face Civil Trial for Assault and Civil Rights Violations Judicial Watch represents Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson in claims against Jackson (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes corruption, today announced that on January 17, 2006, Jesse Lee Peterson, et al., v. Jesse Jackson, et al. (BC 266505) will go to trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court after a ruling last week by Judge George H. Wu. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit against Jackson, his son Jonathan, and others on behalf of Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who was the victim...