If you had to guess the single strongest factor in determining who escapes poverty, what do you think it would be? Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is transportation.

It was mid-summer 1992. A black airman with the Virginia Air National Guard walked into the Richmond Free Press newsroom and asked to see a reporter.

As our nation prepares for its annual celebration of Independence Day, I re-read Frederick Douglass’ Fourth of July speech delivered 163 years ago in Rochester, N.Y. I look at it with a specific eye toward what we can learn from …

There’s a lesson to be learned from the Confederate flag quickly and unexpectedly falling into disfavor following the murder of nine Bible-studying African-Americans, including the pastor, at Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, S.C. The lesson is that the economic clout …

Could this, at last, be the end of the Civil War? Or, as some fans of Southern heritage call it, the War Between the States? Or the War of Northern Aggression?

In recognition of the 75th anniversary of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, it is important to emphasize both the historical and contemporary mission, value and success of the Black Press in America. For the past 188 years black Americans have …

By the time you read this, millions of college students will have graduated and be looking for jobs. Many will be going on to grad school and millions suddenly will be faced with paying off college loans or contemplating obtaining …

In his speech the night before his murder, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. repeated the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan who stopped and helped the desperate traveler who had been beaten, robbed and left half dead as he journeyed …

Conservative blogs, websites, newspapers and pundits are at it again, screaming that young black males are killing each other with abandon in city after city. They repeatedly toss out the supposedly raging murder violence in Baltimore, Chicago and New York …

All across the country, people are gathering to observe an annual academic rite of passage — graduation. In a scene that will be played out countless times during this season of celebration, family and friends will dutifully take their seats …

Let’s do this. Put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. It’s time for the face of this nation’s currency to catch up with the great changes this country has undergone since the end of the Jim Crow era. Putting the …

The frequent and serious fights which in recent years have broken out among middle and high school students present a cause for alarm and distress. In some cases, absolute cruelty has been displayed. One wonders why so many young people …

On Oct. 16, we will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. In the subsequent two decades black Americans have experienced great triumphs, tragedies and tribulations.

I was released from prison approximately three years ago, but my past has stifled any and all progress. I have served my time, but I feel as if I am still being punished.

Freddie Gray is neither the first nor will he be the last person to die in police custody. According to a 2011 report from the U.S. Department of Justice, 4,813 people died in police custody between 2003 and 2009 (the …