A decade ago, Brockton High School was a case study in failure. Teachers and administrators often voiced the unofficial school motto in hallway chitchat: students have a right to fail if they want. And many of them did — only a quarter of the students passed statewide exams. One in three dropped out.

In our course on urban inequality at Harvard this semester, we want our students to understand the roots of the social conditions in America’s inner cities. To that end, we get some help from Bodie, Stringer Bell, Bubbles and others from HBO’s The Wire.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has come under fire from his predecessor former mayor John Street who questioned the current mayor’s blackness, sentiments Nutter tells theGrio.com are “ignorant and undignified.”

This morning, Yolanda Adams spoke to Marvin Sapp in his first interview since the passing of his wife MaLinda. He discusses how he and his children are doing, and also releases his new single “He Has His Hands On You.” Find out why this song is especially significant for his family, and hear him explain […]

First African Lodge established by Prince Hall (1784). Edward Thomas Demby elected suffragan bishop of the Protestant Episcopal diocese of Arkansas (1918). US merchant ship Booker T. Washington gets its first Black captain, Hugh Mulzac (1940). President John F. Kennedy sends federal troops in to aid the integration of University of Mississippi (1962). Lt. Gov. […]