It’s fitting that Oprah is ending her show in May, the month that not only celebrates mothers, our very first teachers, but graduation as well. For me there have been two remarkable teachers that I have admired in my life, my mother being the first and Oprah.

Menthol cigarettes are risky. All cigarettes, of course, are dangerous. Smoking is the single-most preventable cause of disease, disability, and death in the United States. Each year an estimated 443,000…

Read the full issue brief here. This post was originally published at the Center for American Progress website. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is currently considering a ban on the…

As Black women, it’s often a struggle to find places where images of ourselves are reflected at us in the media. Advertisements in magazines or on television seldom illustrate our…

This week the Supreme Court ruled in an 8-1 decision in favor of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas’s right to protest at the funerals of slain servicemen and servicewomen. The Westboro protesters believe, and now the Supreme Court has confirmed, that they are within their First Amendment right to use the funerals of dead soldiers as an appropriate venue to vocalize their hatred of the gay community. Yes, that’s right: The Westboro church believes that America suffers ills such as war and terrorism because of its acceptance of gays and lesbians.

Remember that piece of paper called the Constitution with that little section called the Bill of Rights that’s supposed to ensure that all Americans are treated equally under the law? Well, the Obama administration signaled this week that same-sex married couples are entitled to the same protections guaranteed in the Constitution such as social security benefits, joint taxes, and health insurance coverage as their heterosexual counterparts.

Repealing Progress Conservative ringmasters in the House of Representatives have staged yet another political circus. This time, gay African Americans are the elephants in the room. The dead-end vote in…

Conservative ringmasters in the House of Representatives have staged yet another political circus. This time, gay African Americans are the elephants in the room.

The dead-end vote in the House to repeal the Affordable Care Act took center stage last week. It marked the first salvo in House conservatives’ campaign to derail any and all progress made by the Obama administration. Their crusade promises to dominate the 112th Congress and the 24-hour media cycle as these lawmakers pledge to slash funding for health care and frustrate other initiatives the president supports. Their agenda, in no uncertain terms, is to stick it to him.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” poses an imminent threat to gay and straight black women. So, where is the outrage?

Black women have taken up arms alongside their male counterparts for decades, dedicating their lives to defending our freedoms even at the expense of their own. Today, however, our sisters in the military are under attack, not just from ominous enemies abroad but by discriminatory practices at home that put them in harm’s way and lead to career-ending discharges.

The military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy, which bans gays and lesbians from serving openly, threatens all servicewomen…