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(ThyBlackMan.com) Country legend Dolly Parton was known for her powerful voice, bubbly personality, and timeless music. But there was another side of Dolly Parton, a side that she quietly and consistently showed up for the Black community. As a lad, this writer grew up in the “hood” but was fascinated by a song recorded by this talented country music artist. My daughter, Dr Kathryn, would often ask me facetiously, “Dad, […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) A very wise man once said, “elections have consequences. Shortly less than two years after the 2024 presidential election many Americans and others have come to understand how true that statement is. There were many Americans who voted in the November 2024 election who voted not for someone but against someone. Despite one candidate being heads and shoulders over the other, far more qualified to be the leader of […]

(ThyBlackMan.com)  “A people without the knowledge of their history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” – Marcus Garvey When I graduated high school in New Orleans, America was a different place. Black Americans were all but locked out of economic opportunity because of the color of our skin and the racial caste system that saw us as no more than servants to White Americans; many of whom benefited […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) You can look at a tool label in a store and see a dry little number stamped into metal or printed on a box. Two tons. Three tons. Six thousand pounds. It seems harmless, almost boring. But when you are crouched beside a vehicle, gravel pressing through your knees, your hands dirty, your heart moving a little faster than usual, that number stops being abstract. It becomes trust. It […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Collegiate sports are undergoing arguably its most unpredictable era ever. There are several NFL rookies leaving NFL training camps with the hopes of joining a college football team this upcoming 2026 college football season. The NCAA announced a five-year, age-based eligibility model earlier this year that starts with an athlete’s 19th birthday or the day they enroll at a school, whichever takes place first. However, there are over a dozen […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) There is a particular kind of foolishness that only pride can buy. Duane Davis, the man the streets came to know as Keffe D, spent close to two decades telling anybody with a microphone or a publishing deal exactly how Tupac Shakur died. He talked to police. He talked to television cameras. He put his name on a memoir. And on Monday, in a Las Vegas courtroom, twelve people […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) On Tuesday, authorities in Pennsylvania reported two deaths from measles. Both of the patients were unvaccinated. Measles is reportedly ravaging Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, where 70 people have been hospitalized so far and hundreds infected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has so far this year reported 2,777 cases nationwide, the highest level since 1991. And what does every responsible public health official say and do in response to […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) I have lived long enough to watch an entire generation start believing a person is whoever his pictures claim. That belief has cost people plenty. The federal complaint against Daejon Love, filed this month in the District of Oregon and later made public, is among the clearest warnings I have seen in a while about how easy it has become to buy trust with props you never actually owned. […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) Every young brother I know has heard the sermon. Buy the house. Stop throwing money away on rent. Build something you can leave behind. For years I preached that same gospel myself, standing in barbershops and cookouts telling nephews and coworkers that a deed was the closest thing to freedom a man like us could hold in his hands. Most of it I still believe. What I stopped believing […]

(ThyBlackMan.com) A little more than seven months have gone by since Kanye West bought a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal and addressed it to everyone left wounded in his wake. That January statement was, on its surface, everything critics had asked of him for years. It started with his account of a car wreck in 2002. He said an injury to the right frontal lobe of his brain […]