Redefining Black Power: Reflections on the State of Black America |

Redefining Black Power

The Obama presidency represents a major milestone in black history and the struggle for political, economic and cultural equality in the United States. But how–if at all–has the first black presidency helped move things forward for people of color? Has it delivered the “change we can believe in” and “deepening of democracy” that communities of color organized around? How...

Linn Washington Jr.

Linn Washington Jr. is a journalist and journalism professor. He writes a weekly column for the Philadelphia Tribune focused primarily on social justice issues. Washington is a co-founder of the online newspaper This Can’t Be Happening – where he writes regularly on topics involving the news media, the criminal justice system and racism. Washington has won many awards for investigative reporting and...

Joanne Griffith

Joanne Griffith is an award winning international broadcast journalist who has reported, produced and hosted programs for the British Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio and the Pacifica Radio Network. Joanne has spent her career telling the stories of tragedy and triumph throughout the African Diaspora; from voting rights in the United States, the legacy of slavery in the Caribbean, the...

Dr. Julianne Malveaux

As the 15th President of Bennett College, Dr. Julianne Malveaux has been the architect of exciting and innovative transformation at America’s oldest historically black college for women. Dr. Malveaux has long been recognized for her progressive and insightful observations. She is a labor economist, noted author, and colorful commentator. Dr. Malveaux’s popular writing has appeared in USA Today, Black...

Van Jones

Van Jones is an award winning pioneer in human rights and the clean-energy economy. In 2011, he launched, with others, Rebuild the Dream, the hub of the American Dream Movement. Van is also a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior policy advisor at Green For All. At Princeton University, Jones holds a joint appointment as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for...

Dr. Vincent Harding

As one of the icons of the civil rights movement, activist and author Dr. Vincent Harding was a friend and colleague of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. and worked with Coretta Scott King to establish the King Center in Atlanta, serving as its first director. A distinguished theologian and historian, he is the award-winning author of several books, including ‘There is a River’, ‘Hope and History’ and...

Esther Armah

Esther Armah is a radio & tv host, playwright and award-winning international journalist. In New York, she hosts Wake Up Call, WBAI 99.5FM’s morning show and is a regular commentator and guest host on GRITtv with Laura Flanders and MNN’s Ancestor House with Camille Yarbrough. Esther has written extensively on African Diaspora issues for The Guardian in London, Essence magazine in the US and...

Michelle Alexander

Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who currently holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Alexander was an associate professor of law at Stanford Law School, where she directed the Civil Rights Clinics. For...

Ramona Africa

Ramona Africa is the Minister of Communication for the MOVE Organization; a group of revolutionaries founded by John Africa with a focus on natural law. Ramona Africa is the sole adult survivor of the May 13th 1985 bombing on the MOVE home in...