Blackinformant.com – African-American culture, news commentary, politics

Although I do not agree with everything in the Bush budget, this story was too crazy for me to pass up: Calling economic injustice among the "gravest of sins," leaders of five mainline Protestant denominations known for left-leaning political activism called President Bush's new federal budget "unjust." Leaders of the Episcopal Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church presented a joint ...More

On this date in 1972 the first National Black Political Assembly was held. Some eight thousand African Americans (three thousand of whom were official delegates) arrived in Gary, Indiana, to attend their first convention, which was more commonly known as the "Gary Convention.” A sea of Black faces chanted, "It’s Nation Time! It’s Nation Time!" No one in the room had ever seen anything like this before. The radical Black nationalists ...More

When African officials and oil industry executives come to Houston, one of the places they can go to get a taste of home is Kenny's restaurant in the southwest part of the city. Owner Kenny Adebiyi, an immigrant from Nigeria, says he is also trying to build an identity for African food and culture among both black and white people living in Houston. (more...) Did you know that there is a ...More

Donna Brazile is uneasy. She has noticed something highly threatening to her party, and she's sounding the alarm. In a column for Roll Call newspaper, Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager, warns her fellow Democrats that Republicans are seeking to make inroads into the African-American vote. "Once they (black voters) start listening to Republicans, some may even like what they hear." (more...) What really concerns me about Ms. Brazile in her ...More

I am saying "The Black church" , but this is really about the Church at large. Thank you to all that commented and to the rest of you that took the time to read the posting I did yesterday on the church. Here on the home front, it seems like everyone I know is either fighting a cold/flu. Of course I have been taking vitamins and herbal remedies as though it was ...More

Since the age of about 9 or 10, my family has been a part of the local church. We always attended ALL of the Sunday services and mid-week bible studies. And of course we always paid our tithes and offerings (lest we be accused of robbing God). I was very fortunate to have a father in my life that took our family to church every Sunday. For us, going to ...More

For over a decade the Marian Anderson String Quartet has brought inspiration and hope to every segment of American society, with performance venues ranging from the concert stage to the soup kitchens; from presidential inaugurals to juvenile correctional facilities. The Marian Anderson String Quartet continues to uphold its mission: To create new and diverseaudiences for the field of chamber music. On September 30, 1989, the members of the Marian Anderson String ...More

This is an issue that I have been wanting to address for a long time, but for me it has been like when you first play double-dutch (jump-rope for those who are not familiar)--it is all about timing and accuracy. As someone who has spent a good part of my life in the church, the list of issues that I would want to address are enough to have its own webpage ...More

According to Target Market, a company that tracks black consumer spending, blacks spend a significant amount of their income on depreciable products. In 2002, the year the economy nose-dived, we spent $22.9 billion on clothes, $3.2 billion on electronics and $11.6 billion on furniture to put into homes that, in many cases, were rented. Among our favorite purchases are cars and liquor. Blacks make up only 12% of the U.S. opulation, ...More

Janet Collins, an African-American ballet dancer and painter, was born on this date in 1917. From New Orleans, Louisiana, she moved with her family to Los Angeles as a young girl, attending Los Angeles City College and the Los Angeles Art Center School. As an accomplished painter, she was able to finance her relocation to New York to pursue a career in dance. In 1941, she performed with the new, but ...More

SELMA, Ala. - Barbershop owner Floyd Tolbert has marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge each year for nearly four decades in the annual celebration of the bloodied pilgrimage of 1965 that was a milestone in the voting rights movement. But as some of the original marchers have grown too old to take part and others have died, not enough young people have the passion to take their places, he said. "Older folks ...More

Images of scrawny, wailing babies born to drug-addicted moms saturated the media, complete with their subtext of hopelessness: A legion of women - most black and poor - churned out a lost generation. But Julius Searight is real-life proof that the “crack baby” fears of the ’80s had little basis in fact (more...) More

As gunplay between two chart-topping gangsta rappers and the trial of a rap diva vie for top headlines this week, federal authorities are pressing a wide-ranging investigation into the $1.5-billion hip-hop music industry, NEWSWEEK has learned. According to top industry insiders, federal investigators are digging into a playlist of crimes, ranging from extortion and robbery to the industry’s persistent violence and mounting casualties—including the unsolved murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious ...More