Few Black women have chipped away at the glass ceiling of political journalism as Gwen Ifill did in her decades-long career. The veteran journalist succumbed to cancer at 61, PBS Newshour confirms.
Ifill became the first Black Woman to host a political talk show when she took over as host of PBS' Washington Week in Review in 1999. Ifill was a skilled debated moderator. She led Vice Presidential Debates in 2004 and 2008 as well as a presidential primary debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in February.
In 2013, Ifill was named co-host of the PBS NewsHour.
Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, said Ifill was "a fundamental reason public media is considered a trusted window on the world."
"Her contributions to thoughtful reporting and civic discourse simply cannot be overstated," Kerger said.
She noted her commitment to empower Black girls who want to enter the field of journalism as she accepted the 2007 NPF Taishoff Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
"If it's a young Black girl I feel a special responsibility," she said, "because I know that when I was a young Black girl I didn't see a lot of people who looked like me on television. And so it's important that she has something that she can look at and say, "Oh that's something I could do."
Political correspondent Danielle Moodie-Mills joined the Canadian Broadcast Corporation's election night coverage to tell the world exactly what so many of us are feeling about Trump's win.
Moodie-Mills explained to the host that Clinton's loss is not just about the country's sexism.
“I do not believe that this is people saying I couldn’t possibly have a woman in this role,” Moodie-Mills explained. “This is so much bigger than that. This is about — and I will say it because I have literally nothing left to lose tonight — this is literally white supremacy’s last stand in America. This is it. This is what this looks like.”
The activist was talking about the wave of hatred Donald Trump embraced throughout his campaign.
“This was black people being pushed out of rallies. This was a young boy with cerebral palsy and having his wheelchair kicked,” she continued. “This is hatred on a level that we have not seen since Jim Crow.”
Most people of color have recognized that Trump's movement is bolstered by hatred.
“We underestimated as Americans how deep our hatred was of ‘the other’, how deep white uneducated Americans felt about the demographic shift,” she said. “We underestimated that level of insidious hatred. And what you have is a man, he went around, he stoked every fire, he lit every bridge — every bridge — and just opened the floodgates.”
Angela Davis has been a revolutionary freedom fighter for more than four decades. Many cite her work on prison abolition as a catalyst for today's movement against the Prison Industrial Complex. Hers is a voice we continue to look to for insight into the current political conversation.
She sat down with Democracy Now to discuss the current landscape for electoral politics in the United States and offered comments on the international freedom struggle and the continued protection of Assata Shakur.
When about endorsing a candidate she said: “I don’t endorse... I believe in independent politics. I still think that we need a new party, a party that is grounded in labor, a party that can speak to all of the issues around racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, what is happening in the world. We don’t yet have that party.”
Since she stormed on the scene with her impressive EPs, Janelle Monaé has given us something different. "I represent the other," she told CNN during a recent a sit down.
Jessica Williams is inarguably one of the best parts about The Daily Show. And on Monday night's episode, she made us love her even more during her segment on Detroit's water cut-off to low-income residents.
I had the pleasure of joining Aisha and Danielle Moodie-Mills yesterday on their Blis.fm show, Politini, to discuss the Donald Sterling controversy, the piece I wrote earlier this week, and the contemporary racial landscape. We also discussed what the changing demographics of the American electorate means for the future of the United States.
I had a blast. Watch below (I'm on at about 18:30).
First Lady Michelle Obama visited Chicago today to address the city's rampant gun violence. Mrs. Obama played the role of policy ambassador for her husband President Obama. In her short speech, stressed the importance of gun control legislation at an event in Chicago. Mrs. Obama attended the funeral of 15 year-old Hadiya Pendleton earlier this year.
From The Black Power Mixtape, this unseen footage of random street interviews along with private interviews & speeches from educator, author, the nation's first Black female congresswoman (1968) and first Black candidate of either major party for President of the United States(1972).
