Dr. Julianne Malveaux

One hundred and nine Bennett College students shook my hand and received their diplomas on Saturday, May 5. With big smiles and a little swagger, they went through the time-honored ceremonies of baccalaureate and commencement. And, we were blessed to have phenomenal friends join us. Rev. Al Sharpton was our baccalaureate speaker, and the Hon. Alexis Herman was our graduation speaker.

President Barack Obama hit a home run when he traveled to three colleges last week, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Iowa.

When Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen said that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life”, Ann Romney behaved as if she had just hit the lottery.  She smugly made the media rounds talking about how hard it was for her to raise her five sons.  And she’s right.  Stay at home moms work extremely hard to cook, clean, run a shuttle for their children and their various activities, participate in school activities like “Room Mom” and “Cookie Mom”.

Now that former Senator Rick Santorum has withdrawn from the Republican race for nomination, it is a foregone conclusion that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney will be the Republican nominee.  To be sure, he still has to deal with the nuisance factor of Newt Gingrich, whose lack of money has not only torpedoed his campaign, but also one of his “think” tanks.

Dimitris Christoulas was a retired pharmacist whose neighbors said had enormous dignity.  At 77 years old, he looked forward to a comfortable old age.  He had saved during his 35-year career and did not expect government to, at all, be involved in his pension.

I have two nephews that I love with an amazing passion. Anyi, 28, is a Los Angeles based comedian, who kinda looks like me and acts like me. He is my absolute escort of choice when I am in Southern California. Armand, 25, is an Oakland-based aspiring writer, and a 2008 graduate of University of California, Santa Cruz. Both of these young men are well over 6’3″, but neither carries any extra weight. Both of them wear hoodies.

Forty years ago this month, ten thousand African Americans thronged to Gary, Indiana for the first National Black Political Convention.  They gathered to develop a black agenda, and to influence 1972 presidential politics.  One of the things on the agenda was the development of an independent black political party and to explore the notion of independent black politics.

Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West deserve high props for their summer poverty tour. They started on an Indian reservation, hit the inner city, and looked at poverty, in all of its manifestations. While many dismissed their high-profile tour as a political ploy, I am absolutely convinced of their sincerity. In addition, these two men […]

When I went to Bennett College for Women in 2007, I declared that I was “on fire” for the institution. I still am. And I also yield to the biblical verse that says for everything there is a season, a time for everything unto heaven. I had a season to build four buildings in four […]

I still have not gone to see the movie, The Help.  I read the book and that was enough for me.  I read a book where a white women fully engaged herself in cultural appropriation, putting 21st century voices into 1960s throats.  Which black women, in 1960, would have said that black men left their […]