By Jesse Jackson The student loan burden is reaching crisis proportions. Young Americans are being saddled with unsustainable debts. A New York Federal Reserve Bank study found that a stunning 43 percent of 25-year-olds had student loan debts in 2012. Debt now averages over $25,000 for graduates of four-year colleges. Student loan debt now is [...]

By State Representative, Leon D. Young Back in February, Governor Scott Walker announced that he was rejecting Medicaid expansion under the federal health care law. He cited two reasons for this decision. First, he wanted to have fewer people in the state who are uninsured. And second, he emphasized that he’d like to have fewer [...]

By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall Justice Sonia Sotomayor was brutally honest. No U.S. Supreme Court Justice has ever revealed such personal details of life behind their rise to this nation’s most coveted law job. President Barack Obama made history when he nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2009. A graduate of Princeton University [...]

By State Representative, Leon D. Young Question: What do 50 million Americans have in common? A few years ago, an insightful response (to the aforementioned question) might have been the number of Americans without health insurance. But, the Affordable Health Care Act is now the law of the land, which is intended to address the [...]

By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall “They betrayed everything we worked for,” says Jocelyn Cooper, 84, her delicate voice firm with rage. With yet another Black politician indicted for corruption, she, like so many others, wonders if the community will ever realize its full political potential. Mrs. Cooper remembers when she and her husband, Andy Cooper, took [...]

By State Representative, Leon D. Young Two weeks ago, Major League Baseball observed the 66th anniversary of a most historic event, when Jackie Roosevelt Robinson broke the color barrier with Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Little did Branch Rickey know what this seminal moment would mean not only to professional baseball but to the [...]

By Senator, Lena C. Taylor My son, Isaiah, is my first priority and my greatest joy. When I was young, my mother guided me, protected me, and taught me to make peace out of conflict. My mother shaped my life. In fact, I remember when my mother decided it was time for me to go [...]

By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall Immigrants to America would gain tremendously by learning of the struggle for racial justice. Millions of immigrant families are navigating American life with time for little else. However, immigrants should study this nation’s racial history. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were mere words for people of color until African-Americans [...]

By Senator, Lena C. Taylor Think about the women in your life—in the office next to you, in a school teaching your child, your mother, the teen checking you out at the grocery store, the woman sitting next to you in church, the bus driver who took you to work this morning, your daughter. One [...]

By Gloria J. Browne-Marshall Until the Lion writes his own history he will always be misrepresented. That’s what Frederick Douglass said. Until America convenes a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on racism, the complete African American story will not be told. Last month, an exasperated Justice Elena Kagen asked attorneys arguing the Shelby County voting rights [...]