I have spent the past week with Troy's family. He wanted the world to know that he understood that this struggle goes beyond just one man. Troy was prepared to die tonight. As he said again and again, the state of Georgia only held the power to take his physical body.

Today, nearly a quarter of all Democratic voters say they are dissatisfied with the results of Obama I, according to a CNN poll broadcast last Tuesday. If this continues through the Christmas season, the chances for Obama II will hardly worth a $2 bet.

African-Americans once were clustered so heavily in urban areas that the terms "black" and "inner city" came to be used almost synonymously. According to the 2010 U.S. Census results, that time is history.

Many of you are likely to stay home Tuesday, May 17, 2011. That's because without the usual blizzard of television commercials associated with big ticket races, like the contest for mayor, few seem interested in following the debate. This is regrettable.

It's 2011 starting point of the second decade of a new century. Democracy is breaking out in parts of globe where most rational people just a year ago had no clue ordinary citizens would risk their lives to march unarmed in their streets demanding their entrenched dictators give up power.

Reforming the nation's criminal-justice system is one of the most urgent civil rights Issues of our time. One shocking fact illustrates why: More African-American men are entangled in the criminal-Justice system today than were enslaved in 1850.