In the second book of the Bible, the story of the Golden Calf is a warning about what happens when people replace truth with idols of their own making. In Exodus 32:4, the Israelites fashioned a golden calf and proclaimed,…
Understanding the legacy of Roots after 50 years
As we approach the 50th anniversary of Alex Haley’s novel Roots, we are not merely commemorating a book and a subsequent television event, we are revisiting a cultural earthquake. Before the bright lights of Hollywood casting calls in 1976 —…
Jesse Louis Jackson Sr.: An American icon
This week, the nation pauses to honor the life and legacy of Jesse Jackson, an American icon whose voice shaped movements, elections, diplomacy and generations of hope. For more than six decades, Jackson stood at the intersection of faith and…
How Bad Bunny gave America a real reflection
When the Super Bowl halftime stage centered Grammy-winner Bad Bunny, Spanish was not a provocation — it was a translation of reality. What unfolded was not controversy but clarity: a portrait of the United States as it actually exists, a…
Happy 50th birthday, Black History Month
Happy Birthday to Black History Month — 50 years federally recognized and 100 years strong in purpose, beginning as “Negro History Week” in 1926. While the United States formally recognized Black History Month in 1976, the acknowledgment of Black history…
The dawn of Apple Pie ISIS
Let’s be clear about language before we are clear about lives. The word “agent” will not be used here to describe armed, militia-style bullies with low emotional intelligence who terrorize communities, abduct children in Walmart parking lots, ambush day laborers…
Mackenzie Scott rewrites philanthropy
A woman, not a man, has done more for HBCUs than any person in history in just five faithful years. MacKenzie Scott has rewritten the moral and financial law of modern philanthropy. She has done what few policies, pledges or…
America’s dangerous double standard in war and law
More than 20 years ago, Queen Padmé Amidala, portrayed by Natalie Portman in Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, delivered a line that has aged like prophecy: “So this is how liberty dies — with thunderous applause.”…
Trump is who he is; who are you?
America must stop pretending this is about Donald J. Trump. Trump is Trump. Historically, socially, morally, financially and ethically, he already has revealed himself to the nation and the world. Without exaggeration, he stands as the most socially corrosive president…
The power of active learning
Resilience rarely announces itself. Sometimes it shows up quietly — in the form of an 18-year-old freshman named CoMarion, standing outside Arkansas Baptist College without a car, without certainty, but with a deep desire to learn beyond the classroom. His…
The ICE Age is upon us
Besides water hoses, German Shepherds, Billy clubs and racial epithets, what truly makes today’s ICE agents — dressed like militarized Klansmen and women — any different from yesterday’s state-sanctioned terror? The Ice Age, the one taught in science class, ended…
What does this mean?
Last night, America witnessed a political tremor that may very well be a preview of a historic electoral tsunami in 2026. From Virginia to New York, from Boston to Cincinnati, and across the statehouses and city halls of this nation,…