The Cleveland Observer

Volunteers paint columns in a hallway during the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service at Ron Brown College Preparatory High School in Washington, D.C., in 2019. Katherine Frey/The Washington Post via Getty Images by Jason Oliver Evans, University of Virginia Since 1983, when President Ronald Reagan signed Martin Luther King Jr. Day into […]

Grouping Christians by whether they are ‘practicing’ or ‘nonpracticing’ can show interesting patterns. Nikada/E+ via Getty Images by Michael Emerson, Rice University During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump spoke at a gathering of conservative Protestants, imploring them to vote for him “just this time.” In “four more years, it’ll be fixed, it’ll be fine, you […]

  President Joe Biden, right, listens as Vice President Kamala Harris, left, speaks during a briefing from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, on screen top right, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator Deanne Criswell, on screen top left, and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, on screen at bottom, regarding the federal response to the spread of wildfires […]

Former President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 at age 100, had a surprising connection to a Black music legend. In his 2017 book, “Ancestors of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter,” Carter’s son, Jeff, traced his family’s roots to legendary producer and Motown Records founder Berry Gordy. Their family ties reportedly date back to 1854, […]

Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages held in Gaza gather in favor of the ceasefire deal in Tel Aviv on Jan. 16, 2025. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images by Gregory F. Treverton, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences A ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas is expected to take effect on Jan. 19, […]

Mob rule is not conducive to representative democracy. Nosyrevy/iStock via Getty by Rachel Locke, University of San Diego Threats and harassment are pushing some politicians out of office, scaring off some would-be candidates and even compelling some elected officials to change their vote. Those are some of the conclusions of a new study I led on […]

Bluesky is having a moment as millions of people have joined in the wake of the 2024 election. Anna Barclay/Getty Images by Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder What would you say at Twitter’s funeral? That’s the question my collaborators and I asked over 1,000 people on social media as part of a broader research […]

Francisco Rodrigues dos Santos, who was an enslaved farmworker in Brazil, clears land in 2015 in Monsenhor Gil, Brazil, after obtaining his freedom. Millions of people are still enslaved worldwide. Mario Tama/Getty Images by Monti Datta, University of Richmond Several high-profile celebrities were slapped with human-trafficking charges in late 2024, from music mogul Sean Combs, known […]

Two people embrace on Jan. 9, 2025, in Altadena, Calif., amid property destroyed by the Eaton Fire. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images by Anthony W. Orlando, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona The wildfires raging across Los Angeles are setting the scene for a real estate nightmare. Thousands of homes and other structures are destroyed and hundreds of […]

JANUARY 15 1908—Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Black Greek letter sorority, is founded on the campus of Howard University in Washington, D.C., by Ethel Hedgeman Lyle of St. Louis, Mo. The sorority gradually branched out to other campuses and became one of the leading organizational vehicles for college-trained Black women to make their mark on […]