D’Angelo was a defining voice of late-20th- and early-21st-century R&B, an artist whose work helped shape the sound and sensibility of neo-soul. Across three landmark albums, Brown Sugar, Voodoo and Black Messiah, he fused church-honed musicianship with hip-hop rhythm and classic soul, influencing a generation of singers, producers and bands. Despite his impact, D’Angelo remained […]
Assata Shakur, the Black Liberation Army member convicted in the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster, fugitive since 1979, and the first woman placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list, has died at 78. Cuba’s Foreign Ministry and Shakur’s family confirmed she died in Havana on Sept. 25, 2025. Born JoAnne […]
Dr. Quintard Taylor, the distinguished historian of African American history and founder of BlackPast.org, has died at 77. Born in Brownsville, Tennessee, Taylor built a towering academic legacy documenting Black life across the United States, especially in the American West. His scholarship includes the Pulitzer Prize–nominated Search for the Racial Frontier: African Americans in the […]
James E. Ferguson II, a towering figure in the civil rights legal movement who spent more than five decades dismantling racial injustice in schools and courtrooms, died on July 21 in Charlotte, N.C. He was 82. His son, James Ferguson III, said the cause was complications of Covid-19 and pneumonia. Early Activism in the Jim […]
The first Monday in September is more than just the unofficial close of summer in the United States, it is a day set aside to honor the labor day and the workers whose contributions built the nation. But for Black Americans, Labor Day also carries the weight of history, rooted in generations of struggle for […]
