January/February 2005

CONTENTS

ISSUES & VIEWS
— Stealing Liberty
Politicians are increasingly manipulating the electorate and therefore influencing election outcomes
By Spencer Overton

— Highway Robbery
Discriminatory distribution of public transportation funds leaves minority communities by the side of the road
By Robert D. Bullard

FEATURES
— Regime Change
* After Kweisi Mfume’s departure from the NAACP, what challenges will face the next leader of the oldest and largest civil rights organization?
By Michael A. Fletcher

— Bound by Slavery
Two Families — one Black, one White — meet for the first time in rural Kentucky to explore their shared history
By Lori S. Robinson

— Encore Performance
Last year, Arthur Mitchell’s Dance Theatre of Harlem closed its doors. Will an infusion of cash and a turnaround plan sustain its resurrection?
By Leon E. Wynter

— While the World Watches
Since 2003 Arab Militia have killed more than 70,000 Black Africans in Darfur, Sudan, and displaced 1.7 million. The genocide continues
By Jahi Chikwendiu and David Ruffin

Cover: AP/WIDEWORLD

DEPARTMENTS
- Editor's Note

- Up Front: Has Black History Month become too commercialized?; California votes to maintain three strikes law; Mel Watt assumes leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus; FBI reports increase in hate crimes; Coalition to address issues surrounding mandatory minimum sentencing; Clark Atlanta University closes its library studies program
Questions: Roderick Jackson, a girls’ high school basketball coach in Alabama, has taken his Title IX complaint all the way to the Supreme Court

- Health: Is a new heart drug targeted toward African Americans a welcome breakthrough or bad medicine?

- Crisis Forum
* Television: The PBS documentary Slavery and the Making of America emphasizes the impact the chattel institution had on the development of the nation
* Books:
— Reviews of Jed Horne’s Desire Street: A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans;
— Angel of Harlem by Kuwana Haulsey;
— Mary Seacole: The Most Famous Black Woman of the Victorian Age by Jane Robinson; and
— Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey Ward

- Backstory: Documentary filmmaker Shola Lynch remembers political pioneer Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman to run for president

- The NAACP Today
* Texas NAACP helps death row inmate get stay of execution;
* Los Angeles branch honors Black theater;
* Branch News: Catholic University in Washington, D.C.;

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