Attorney General Eric Holder

Gregg Reese  |   OW Staff Writer
May 31 2012

Open season on the president

“Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.” —Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Does it disturb you that so many people hate you?” —Conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly to Barack Obama on a Feb. 6, 2011, during a White House interview.

Jan 12 2012

The lender will pay $335 million in mortgage-loan discrimination case

Bank of America’s agreement to pay the largest housing fair lending settlement in history to settle allegations that Countrywide Financial Corp., its recently acquired subsidiary, has proved to be another indictment of the mortgage banking industry.

The Department of Justice alleged in its case that Countrywide engaged in widespread discrimination against African American and Hispanic borrowers just before the near-collapse of the U.S. economy.

Bank of America has agreed to pay $335 million. The bank agreed to acquire Countrywide four years ago.

Sikivu Hutchinson  |   OW Contributing Columnist
Sep 1 2011

Suspensions of African American youth soar as the school system—and parenting—fails them.

Sitting in the sparsely filled auditorium of Gardena High School in Los Angeles at the beginning of an annual senior awards ceremony, I looked around, and wondered; where the hell are the Black parents? I was attending the ceremony to see students from my Women’s Leadership Project program—the majority of whom are African American and en route to four-year colleges—receive much-deserved awards for service and academic achievement. 

Juliana D. Norwood  |   OW Staff Writer
Oct 28 2010

Years of talking yield little action

With a sloped back, cracked hands, and veined and muscled arms, Destin Samford, a sharecropper now generations away from Minkah, his African ancestor, cultivates a field in Alabama. In August, he turns away from the white-orange sun fading against a wine-colored sky to scan the earth speckled with cotton bolls framed by green leaves. He bends, back curved and crooked in places, to pull a boll of cotton from the tough spiny casing, marking the beginning of the harvest.
- Diane Glave

History Of Black Farmers And Their Loss

Across Black America

Here’s a look at African American people and issues making headlines throughout the country.
 

Alabama
Freeman A. Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, will address the annual African American Business Council luncheon on June 28. Hrabowski, who is chairman of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Education Excellence for African Americans, has a national reputation for his work studying the performance of minority students in math and science. Hrabowski, named one of the 10 best college presidents in the country by Time magazine, was a child leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham in the 1960s.
 

Arkansas
The Liberty Counsel filed a motion and a brief in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas seeking to intervene on behalf of a Concepts of Life crisis pregnancy center to defend against a suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Reproductive Rights. The groups seek to impose a permanent injunction before the Human Heartbeat Protection Act goes into effect July 18. Liberty Counsel also filed a brief opposing the ACLU’s request for an injunction. The “Heartbeat” bill states that when a woman seeks an abortion at or after the 12th week, doctors must test for a fetal heartbeat before an abortion is performed and inform the pregnant mother that the child in her womb has a heartbeat. If a heartbeat is detected, a woman cannot have an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest, and if a mother’s life is in danger. “As we promised when the legislation was introduced, Liberty Counsel will defend this law without reservation for the people of Arkansas, born and pre-born,” said Matt Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “No right is more foundational than the right to life. Without life, all other rights are irrelevant,” concluded Staver.