Speak Out!

The Washington Post reports that attempts to keep out illegal immigrants are threatening the financial health of some communities:

As cities across the United States spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend against lawsuits and other challenges to their ordinances enacted to keep out illegal immigrants, some groups are warning that their communities are risking financial disaster. Dozens of cities and counties have proposed or passed laws that prohibit landlords

The house passed a bill last week that establishes a new division which would focus exclusively on unsolved murders from the civil rights era. Named for Emmett Till, it would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade:

The bill, which is also moving swiftly through the Senate, would authorize $10 million a year over the next decade to create a unit at the Justice Department to pursue cases that have sat cold for decades.

The author of a Salon.com op-ed piece wonders whether the NAACP is on the verge of collapse:

With Bruce Gordon's recent departure as president after just 19 months and the recent announcement that the NAACP is shuttering its regional offices, the future does not look bright for the nation's oldest advocacy organization.

Has the NAACP outlived its usefulness?

An MSNBC article references a Census Bureau report which indicates approximately 1 in 4 children were living in households without a father—that translates to 56% of Black children living in single-parent families:

More than 19 million children — about one in four — were living in households where no father, biological or other, was present, according to a Census Bureau report in 2005. The statistics also show that this burden falls more heavily on black children.

In conjunction with the launch of an online database that analyzes high school graduation rates, it's being reported that the dropout rate is worst for urban schools and minority males:

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said the data show that half of the nation's dropouts come from a small group of largely urban "dropout factories," high schools "where graduation is a 50-50 shot or worse."

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