WASHINGTON (NNPA) - Civil rights leaders and a leading scholar on Black politics said that if the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of a case that challenges a central provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Blacks will encounter widespread discrimination in trying to assert their political rights.
The high court has agreed to hear the case of Northwest Austin Municipal District Utility No. 1 vs. Mukasey, which argues that a utility district located in Texas does not have a history of discrimination and, therefore, should not be subjected to the VRA's Section 5 preclearance requirements, a provision at the heart of the law ...

For nearly 150 years, the autobiography of William Grimes sat in relative obscurity on the shelves of a New Haven, Connecticut Historical Society.
It wasn't until the late 1990s when Regina Mason, the great-great-great-granddaughter of Grimes uncovered her familial link with a man who had chronicled his life's story as a freed slave nearly four decades before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed ...

Middle College program manager Damon Hickok, a Portland Community College and Portland Public Schools program that targets low-income and first generation college students and allows them to obtain college credits before finishing high school, says 91 percent of students are successful ...

When Cornel West gave us his first book, "Race Matters," the world in 1993 was a much different place than it is today. "We are in a new day. I couldn't have said that 15 years ago with Race Matters because I wrote Race Matters in the middle of the bleak ages, political Ice Age," West said.
But with the transcendent election of President Barack Obama, it is clearly a new day for America and the world. And with this new day, West has given us a new book, "Hope on a Tightrope: Words & Wisdom."
"I think it's a metaphor for our lives, for our nation and for the world that is hanging in the balance ...

After a blistering report released early this month confirmed that a senior official in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department illegally hired and fired career attorneys based on their political alignment with President Bush, Civil Rights lawyers around the country say the new head of the Civil Rights Division – yet to be named by President Barack Obama – will likely be "pivotal" in the presidential administration.
"The assistant attorney general heading the Civil Rights Division will perhaps occupy a pivotal seat in the Obama administration. President Obama has been quite publicly critical of the DOJ's positions on civil rights issues and with three major cases raising important race issues, that person will have a full plate from  the beginning,"  ...

LAUREL, Mississippi (AP)  The work has always been stupefying and hard. Hour after hour standing on the line, soldering or welding or drilling in screws.
Even in today's nightmare economy, most people wouldn't want this daily grind that steals the soul in 12-hour shifts paying as little as $280 a week, before taxes.
But such labor prospers here in mostly rural Jones County, home to Laurel, where the area's biggest employer, Howard Industries, maintains a sprawling factory that builds electrical transformers and other big equipment behind a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. ...

Don Imus makes no excuses for his offensive remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team, but says: "I deserved a second chance." He's 14 months into that second chance, trying to make the most of it. The new "Imus in the Morning" has key differences from the old one in tone and is certainly different visually, with the addition of two comedians who are Black, Karith Foster and Tony Powell. "What happened is what should have happened," Imus said in an interview. "So much good has come out of what happened. I really do think it's like an alcoholic, which I am, and a drug addict, which I am. You're presented with the unique opportunity to be a better person than you had been. ...

Zimbabwean police called off an opposition rally in their capital Sunday, prompting accusations of political interference on the eve of a regional summit on the southern African nation's political crisis. Opposition spokesman Nelson Chamisa said leaders of his Movement for Democratic Change had organized the rally to update members on their position headed into the talks, set to take place in South Africa on Monday ...

OLYMPIA—Attorney General Rob McKenna Thursday applauded the U.S. Supreme Court for reinstating the murder convictions of an accomplice in a gang-related drive-by shooting at Seattle's Ballard High School.
"Today's decision helps brings closure to the family of a girl murdered on the steps of her high school," McKenna said. "Our office argued, and the Supreme Court agreed, that the convictions for the accomplice in this despicable drive-by were constitutional." ...

Richard Hugo House's InPrint Series presents "Online Publishing, Blogging, and Marketing for Writers," a panel discussion with writers, bloggers and editors who have made the Internet work for them, on Thursday, Jan. 29, at 7 p.m. at Richard Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave in Seattle.
Panelists include bloggers-turned-novelists Rebecca Agiewich and Cherie Priest and writer/editors Eileen Gunn and Cat Rambo.
"As old-media publishing houses face increasing challenges in these uncertain economic times, writers must think outside of the box," said InPrint coordinator Leslie Howle. "Blogging, Twitter, podcasting and social networking sites are tools writers can use to build their reputations and readership at very little cost." ...