The Black Experience: Top Stories

How has the election of Barack Obama changed the public dialogue about race and the realities for African Americans and other people of color?

In honor of Black History Month, NewsTrust teamed up with PBS Engage, PBS’s Tavis Smiley and Santa Clara University students to focus on the Black Experience in America. All last week, we sought out the best journalism on issues of economic empowerment, social justice, and the contributions of African Americans to the country’s cultural landscape. In our final tally, we reviewed 84 stories on the Black Experience from dozens of mainstream and independent publications.

Our top rated story was 'The Other Black President,' a profile of the NAACP's new 35-year-old president, focusing on the challenge of keeping his organization relevant in the era of Barack Obama. The story appeared in the monthly magazine American Prospect and drew high marks from several members, including two of our partner bloggers from PBS. Sean Nixon called it a "very well written thorough analysis of the NAACP. The author takes adequate time to relay the organization’s history, its challenges, and introduce the new NAACP president Ben Jealous." Tamika Thompson praised it for "using Jealous to situate the NAACP in a 21st Century context."

'The Year in Hate,' published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, reported on the gamut of hate groups operating in the United States. It detailed the activity of the three most dangerous factions of white supremacists, and warned that Obama's election, the economic recession and the immigration debate had renewed their energy.

Other top news stories covered a sampling of issues involving race relations and the status of blacks in America. The Washington Post reported that in the first month of Obama's presidency, top government officials have begun to address race "more freely, with a boldness and confidence they once shunned." The article cited several administration officials, including the EPA administrator and Attorney General Eric Holder, who have recently discussed race in public appearances.

Striking a cultural tone, Ebony Magazine's 'Letter from Atlanta' depicted the Georgia capital as "a scale model of black America with all of our glories, vanities, contradictions and failures." And in 'Saga of NFL's African-American pioneers is an untold story,' the Dallas Morning News explained the reintegration of black football players and their coaches in the early days of the NFL.

In our top opinion, The Root, an online magazine not previously listed in our source database, posted two highly rated stories. The first, 'More than beads, booze and boobs,' acknowledged the 100th anniversary of the Zulu krewe parade in New Orleans, which began as a celebration for blacks who were excluded from Mardi Gras. The second, 'Approaching the whites-only bench,'called attention to the lack of diversity among American judges and argued that a "systematic approach" is needed to make courts more representative of their constituencies.

Top Stories on the Black Experience
Here is a list of our top news and opinion on the Black Experience:

News

The Other Black President
American Prospect
The Year in Hate
Southern Poverty Law Center
Saga of NFL's African-American pioneers is an untold story
Dallas Morning News
Top officials expand dialogue on race
Washington Post
Letter from Atlanta
Ebony

Opinion

Race and the stimulus rejectionists
Salon
More than beads, booze and boobs
The Root
Approaching the whites-only bench
The Root
New eyes on bigger prizes
Washington Post
On different pages when it comes to race
Chicago Tribune

Most trusted: top rated stories on the Black Experience (full list ranked by rating)

Most recent: top stories on the Black Experience (full list ranked by date)

Thanks to our partners
We'd like to extend a warm thanks to our partners from the Tavis Smiley team, PBS Engage,and Santa Clara University, who contributed so much to this project last week. Tavis Smiley's Young Voices bloggers Tamika Thompson, Sean Nixon and Jeremy Freed posted a total 47 story reviews and offered some great notes to back up their ratings. SCU professor Lehrman and her students also came together to submit 33 reviews on our Black Experience stories. And thank you to the folks who helped organize this News Hunt in the first place: Laura Hertzfeld, Jayme Swain, Kevin Dando and Amy Baroch from PBS Engage; and Philip Dunn and Ariel Fox of KCET.

From the NewsTrust community, we'd also like to recognize the great reviews and submissions from our most active members: Kristin Gorski, Dale Penn, Dwight Rousu, Patricia Blochowiak, Kenneth Sibbett, Kevin Barry and Peter Combs. We enjoyed working with you again, and your participation is an inspiration to us.

This Week: Community Picks
This week on NewsTrust, we invite you to submit a story for review. Have you come across a good news story today? If so, please share it with us. Pick a story -- on any topic -- that you think deserves to be reviewed and post it here. Can you help us rate this week's best stories? Please review some of the stories dug up by your peers, to help us determine which community picks to feature on our home page. We're particularly interested in your reviews on unrated stories (indicated by a gray icon), in our Stories for Review listing.

-- By Derek Hawkins, with Kaizar Campwala and Fabrice Florin