Tanya M. Odom, Ed.M.

Education, diversity and inclusion consultant and executive coach.

As our world changes, it will be important for us to expand our ideas and expectations of leadership, leadership models and who we see as leaders.

John Muller

Local journalist and historian

If you want to go the unveiling of the Frederick Douglass statue this Wednesday at 11 a.m. in the United States Capitol Visitor Center's Emancipation Hall, don't bother: You're not invited.

Alan A. Aja, William A. Darity Jr. and Darrick Hamilton

While more students generally attend racially and economically diverse schools, it is no secret that our schools are anything but unitary.

Tiffany Aliche

The Budgetnista

In honor of Father's Day I want to share the most important, financial lesson I've learned to date. It's one that my dad taught me and is the reason I am The Budgetnista. The Bike Story...

Tyler R. Tynes

Sportswriter, Radio personality, Play-By-Play Analyst, Broadcasting & Journalism major at King's College

Most kids my age back then didn't see the importance of having a father or father-figure in their lives; they were more concerned about escaping the hood. While it is a valid mindset to have in a city known for handgun murders, most stemming from where I grew up, I could never replace my dad.

Shaun Ossei-Owusu

American Bar Foundation Doctoral Fellow, UC Berkeley PhD Candidate

Dr. Cosby is continuously making it harder for me to vouch for him. A recent piece by the entertainer titled "A Plague Called Apathy" has a slice of the black media and blogosphere up in arms, and the other part looking at him askance with a serious side-eye.

Benjamin Todd Jealous

President and CEO, NAACP

"This is not a black thing, this is not a white thing. This is not a poor thing, this is not a rich thing. This is not a Christian or Jewish or Muslim thing. What hurts one person, hurts us all."

Adrian Grenier

Actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur

For too long we've exclusively emphasized punishment for non-violent offenders over treatment and rehabilitation. The current system is unbalanced, unsustainable, and unnecessarily cruel. It's time to legalize or at the very least, decriminalize all drugs.

Kia Makarechi

Entertainment Editor, The Huffington Post

It seems like what's happening here is that Miley Cyrus "loves" "hood" culture, thinks it's amusing and has no problem co-opting it for singles and/or viral videos, but doesn't love the idea of herself being seen as part of it. And that's gross.

Rashad Robinson

Executive Director, ColorOfChange

The targeting of Blacks and Latinos through biased law enforcement practices has split our state in half -- where the New York you live in depends on factors such as race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status

Craig Washington

Community organizer, writer and HIV activist

How do we reconcile the explicit messages we present to black gay men countering homophobia and HIV stigma with the messages we imply through our HIV closets? Where is the integrity in challenging gay men to relinquish their imbedded shame as we demonstrate and justify our own?

Michael A. Hardy

General Counsel/EVP, National Action Network

Whether Mr. Snowden is a heroic whistleblower or a violator of U.S. criminal laws will be for the lawyers, prosecutors, diplomats and the courts to sort out. One thing that Mr. Snowden did was to give a wake up call, if you will, to us as citizens of this great nation to ask how much is too much.

Doug Ibendahl

Chicago attorney and former General Counsel of the Illinois Republican Party

If Erika Harold prevails she would become the first female African-American Republican congressman in American history. There have been black male Republican congressmen, but never a black woman on the GOP side from any state.

Daniel Cox

Research Director, Public Religion Research Institute

Last month, we unearthed a surprising divide between support for the general principle of affirmative action and its application in college admissions.

Yousef Abukhdair

Freelance Political Writer

To say all police officers in New York City take advantage of their power and persecute people of color would be absurd, but to say that none of them do like Mayor Bloomberg suggested is equally absurd.

Charlie Nelms, Ed.D.

Higher Education Expert and Consultant

As a child born to a subsistence farm couple in an area characterized by racism and poverty, hardly a day passes when I don't think about my parents. The older I get, the more intrigued I become with what motivated them to possess such unyielding faith in the power of education when they had so little formal education themselves.

Fire

Singer

After years of rap music struggling in the muck and mire of misogyny and money, one of the greatest rappers ever has had it up to here with the 'New Slavery' of commercialism, materialism and hedonism.