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Sidney Poitier

The legendary actor from classic films such as In The Heat Of The Night and Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, and plays like A Raisin In The Sun, was born on Cat Island, Bahamas.

Lenny Kravitz

Rocker Lenny Kravitz is known for hit songs like “Fly Away” and “American Woman,” and as holder of the record for most consecutive Best Male Rock Vocal Grammys (4). His mother is Bahamian and he built a studio on Eleuthera, near his mother’s hometown.

Tia & Tamera Mowry

The 2020 Presidential election is going to be one of the most important in our lifetimes. 

It will determine whether Donald Trump and his allies continue to enact their racist, sexist, classist agenda - or if a challenger will get into the White House to hopefully go a different direction.

But just because Democrats will spend the next year courting the Black vote, doesn’t mean they’ve got our best interests at heart.

There have been some recent, positive declines in statistics about mass incarceration, but it’s not all good news. Actually, the way that the system works has just changed. If we’re going to stop Black people from being targeted by the unjust prison system, we have to be aware of this. 

August 18, 2020 will be the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which ended the prohibition preventing women from voting. But which women?

Seneca Falls, the first major women’s rights convention in 1848, excluded Black women entirely. Susan B. Anthony prohibited the National American Woman Suffrage Association from supporting racial justice. 

That didn’t stop Black voting activists from doing important work. But their contributions have largely been erased.

State Senator John Alexander, and the whole Republican party in North Carolina, are in trouble. A court determined that the state’s Republican-drawn election maps - which determines whose votes count in which district - were biased!

Drawing these maps to guarantee your party’s victory is called “gerrymandering,” and it’s especially illegal when you do it along racial lines. 

North Carolina is redrawing the maps to make them fair, but there’s been a LOT of controversy. 

Althea Gibson was athletic from a young age. First training in boxing and paddle ball, then running away from home at age 13 in favor of street fighting, she took up tennis reluctantly. 

“I really wasn’t the tennis type,” she wrote. “I kept wanting to fight the other player.”

Regardless, she was a natural, and with her aggressive style began winning  tournaments. But she struggled to get allowed to play in whites-only competitions.

Eventually she did - she was the first Black player to compete at Wimbledon!

Filming the police is a right - but there are some important details you should know: it matters where, when, and how you pull out your camera to record. Here are some things to remember in these high intensity moments when cops are under pressure, because things can turn deadly.

Filming the police should be protected under your First Amendment rights. Be careful how you reach for your phone, though, especially if you’re Black and you’ve been stopped. Sudden movements and police that are on edge are a bad mix. If you’re lawfully in a public space you have the right to record!

Lawmakers have a plan in Michigan, and people from both sides of the aisle are coming together to make it happen. It’s called “expungement reform.” This is a plan that could help a lot of people with convictions get their records cleared. Here’s how it works.

Under Michigan’s current law, people can have one felony conviction, or two misdemeanors, set aside after five years. The Detroit News reported that a new bill “would remove barriers allowing automatic expungement for certain offenders, cover more offenses and shorten the eligibility period.” 

Drug Enforcement Agency special agent Chad Scott is well known. He’s embraced an image of himself as a so-called “white devil” and accordingly, made a name for himself being a ruthless cop. In the process, he targeted a legendary rap label and its most famous artist...

Houston rapper Scarface of the Geto Boys was targeted, along with Rap-A-Lot Records, by Chad Scott. He tried to set them up, targeting over a dozen people associated with the label! Arrests were made, though Scarface and the label’s CEO J. Prince always maintained their innocence.

Mainstream music awards have been doing Black women artists wrong for decades. Did you know Aretha Franklin was NEVER nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammys? 

Well, MTV is finally acknowledging a legendary hitmaker for something we’ve known for decades. That legend is Missy Elliott. And she DESERVES the Video Vanguard Award.