Clergy and lay people have played a crucial role in Ferguson. These religious leaders provide a buffer at protests, press for justice for Michael Brown, and witness against systemic racism and inequality.

Police are equipping themselves with a variety of high-powered firearms because they feel outgunned by the criminals they have to defend themselves against.

Republicans should explain poverty using more words than "single mother" and "culture." The unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a town with 75 percent African-American citizens and double the poverty rate of Missouri, is a testament to the economic segregation faced by black citizens.

When I was a child in grade school, whenever a teacher asked us who Abraham Lincoln was and what he did, in unison we would all delightfully answer, "he freed the slaves." Yet it would be many years before I was able to fully comprehend the magnitude of what that entailed.

While every election day has it's share of robust talk from both sides of the aisle, something rather interesting kept coming from Romney supporters on Twitter this time around.

Too many close elections are decided by the margin of eligible voter absence at the polls. Turnout matters. What's your excuse going to be?

Berating the resentful among the white working class for their bigotry would, without question, lead any of them who were listening to stop, and to dismiss the speaker as someone who just doesn't get them.

While many have connected me with the destruction of the black community, those same detractors fail to have a historical grasp on this countries long cyclical history of slavery, convict leasing, chain gangs and now mass incarceration. My role as a kingpin was as much a stop-gap to poverty...

When more black men were killed in one year (2009) than all of the US soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars to date, we must give this problem the utmost attention. We must find solutions to curb the violence.

I stand firm in my conviction that Barack Obama is one of the greatest presidents America has ever seen. Here are twelve reasons why I am for the reelection of President Barack Obama and why you should be too:

Prosperity Economics provides an excellent policy platform for building an equitable and sustainable economy. The nation is now undergoing an unprecedented demographic transition, and it is time for policymakers to incorporate these solutions into national policy.

In its zeal to maintain the death penalty at any cost, North Carolina officials ignore the problem the Supreme Court first tried to address in 1986--the widespread disenfranchisement of blacks from the judicial system.

I'm not saying Obamacare is perfect. No government program can be. Yet having fewer sick people today and in the future is what any American, Supreme Court justice or otherwise, should want -- and what only partisan ideologues can possibly oppose.

This past Sunday, the state of Georgia took a bold step in reforming its criminal justice system. The state implemented a package of new laws establishing alternatives to incarceration for low-level, non-violent offenders.

Birth control has had such a dramatic impact on women and families in this country that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention named it one of the top 10 public health achievements of the past century.

The Civil War and the abolition of slavery are neither white history nor black history. Today is Juneteenth. This holiday, which commemorates the end of slavery, tells us as much about what America means as the Fourth of July, Presidents Day, or Memorial Day.