By Stacy Brown NNPA Senior National Correspondent Bill Cosby said his widely criticized admonition that young Black men should “pull their pants up” was less about fashion...

The systemic bias that has historically failed Black people in the USA is no less evident in Canada. That reality is laid bare in the...

Claude Cummings has been unanimously nominated by the NNPA Executive Committee to receive the NNPA 2025 National Leadership Award for outstanding leadership and achievement...

People in the News

Monday, September 15, 2025

People in the News

Monday, September 15, 2025

Does America finally have a Black President?

Is this the President Obama Black America dreamed of nearly 8 years ago?
Is this the President Obama Black America dreamed of nearly 8 years ago?

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama has spoken off the cuff about race relations on a widely circulated podcast (even using the n-word) and then eloquently followed that with what can only be described as a sermon on race relations in America before breaking into song. He’s challenged America to go deeper in its support of equality than retiring symbols of slavery (such as the Confederate flag) and impolitic words (such as the n-word).

Here’s the thing: This Obama might look or sound “brand new” to some Americans. He might even sound a little something like the black president some white Americans across the political spectrum feared (or hoped for). But to people who watch the White House closely, this is the President Obama who has been developing for some time.

Obama came to the NAACP this week convention and laid out a criminal-justice reform agenda that included everything from calls for a close and hard look at what sends people to jail, which crimes and which defendants get the longest sentences, the use of solitary confinement and the loss of voting rights after release. That agenda, Obama said, also has to include resolving the massive disparities in school quality and discipline that federal data tells us begin in pre-kindergarten classrooms.

Read more here.