THE BRIDGE: The Death of The Black Activist

Tweet (Akiit.com) “How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look? Some say it’s just a part of it, we’ve got to fulfill the book.” —Bob Marley *My column evokes starkly divergent emotions from person to person. For people who are the target of my chastisements, the emotional response is typically […]

Is Black America Any Better After Integration?

Tweet (Akiit.com) Racial integration has failed because it has barely been tried. – John Hope Franklin, black historian and author The screams of hatred and the horrific stares encountered in her walk to the front door of Little Rock’s Central High is a scene that Elizabeth Eckford will never forget. To imagine that America once […]

Drug use called No. 1 AIDS risk for black and Hispanic men

Tweet (Akiit.com) Drug use and the resulting risky behavior are the biggest factors in the spread of HIV/AIDS in the United States, and Hispanic and black men are more likely to be infected this way than others, an AIDS expert told a national AIDS conference in Miami Beach on Monday. ”Drugs, whether you inject them, […]

What Works: Role models of excellence

Tweet (Akiit.com) “I sure hope Timothy doesn’t come to school today.” It was when that thought came to mind, says Frederica Wilson, surveying the faces at the conference table in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools headquarters, that she knew she had a problem. After all, she was a school principal, a black woman. And Timothy […]

Together, we can save the next generation

Tweet (Akiit.com) Black men are in big trouble. And if black men are in trouble, the black family and the whole black community are also in trouble. America has already lost one whole generation of black boys to poor education, chronic unemployment and underemployment, hyper-incarceration, and senseless violence. Many black men seem to be in […]

Fatherless boys faced with big disadvantage

Tweet (Akiit.com) The black males I work with suffer from hopelessness and delusions about life. Many are from single-parent homes and lack positive male role models to encourage, guide, nurture, discipline, and love them. While I applaud black mothers who have tried for centuries to fill this gap, fatherlessness is a major crisis for black […]

Minority health issues often tied to diet, culture

Tweet (Akiit.com) Keecha Harris is a registered dietitian, holds a doctorate in public health and is president of Keecha Harris and Associates Inc., a food systems and public health consulting firm. She is also a spokeswoman for the American Dietetics Association, a former columnist for MSN.com and an authority on African-American nutrition. Here is her […]

Getting Black Boys to Read Books

Tweet (Akiit.com) Editor’s note: Long-time observers of African American reading habits are alarmed. On public transportation at least, African American romance novels and fiction seem have found a comfortable — and profitable — niche among adults. Rarely seen: history, science, cultural criticism. Even rarer, any book in the hands of a young African American male. […]

Michael Vick Is A Victim of OJ Simpsonitis

Tweet (Akiit.com) With hate Michael Vick mob hysteria raging in the sports world and among the general public it seems Tasha Levin is about the only person that got it right about the embattled Atlanta Falcons quarterback. The Northeastern University student stood outside the federal courtroom in Richmond, Virginia where Vick was arraigned on dogfighting […]

Urban League conference: Blacks must have a vision

Tweet (Akiit.com) The spotlight was on politics at the National Urban League conference in St. Louis last week, but the agenda was all about expanding opportunity for black Americans. From pundits to preachers and from executives to teachers, three ideas echoed — lifting up the poor, answering the call to lead and achieving independence through […]

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