Les Payne

Mike Bloomberg: Mayor for Life

October 6, 2008

Papa Doc Bloomberg, Mayor for Life.

    Recent columns

  • In tennis as in politics, race colors the game

    September 29, 2008

    With the first presidential debate behind us, the next big showdown looms in the Spring of '09. By then, if the U.S. Constitution holds, the nation will have seated its harried 44th president and his stressed-out Treasury secretary.

  • GOP duo Palin-McCain hardly puts America first

    September 22, 2008

    The "Palin and McCain" team stalled its cold-war buildup against Russia and even gave Iran a breather, as the ticket's "junior" partner attended to economic matters even he admits to knowing little about.

  • Media, Sarah Palin: Game on

    September 15, 2008

    Gov. Sarah Palin did about as well on her national security quiz as could have been expected, which is to say she flunked. The world beyond Alaska simply has not grabbed her attention - until now.

  • A pitiful showing at McCain/Palin GOP convention

    September 8, 2008

    Upstaging the GOP presidential candidate who can't read a speech, the exuberant Gov. Sarah Palin exposed the nominee as a listless, 72-year-old senior citizen taking a tricky handoff from the nation's most unpopular commander-in-chief and likely its most incompetent.

  • Michelle, Barack Obama had to prove patriotism

    September 1, 2008

    DENVER

  • Barack Obama stands alone on national podium

    August 25, 2008

    The U.S. Olympic team is a study in subtle separation, where white athletes cluster in events fielding few blacks, just as African-Americans tend to dominate in those sports abandoned by their colorless, fellow countrymen and women.

  • It's all about the oil, in this game

    August 18, 2008

    'We are all Georgians," declared Sen. John McCain, swearing his campaign loyalty, and perhaps one day our national blood and treasure - to the homeland of Josef Stalin.

  • Regrets, no apology, by Obama, many for slavery

    August 11, 2008

    My petition for readers to respond to the U.S. House apology for slavery drew a virtual earful from dozens and dozens of e-mailers ranging the opinion spectrum from drop-dead opposed to what took so long.

  • House issues apology for slavery

    August 4, 2008

    As a full-blooded descendant of Africans enslaved in Alabama, I admit to a cautious surprise Tuesday upon hearing that the U.S. House of Representatives passed an official apology for slavery, the segregated Jim Crow era and the "vestiges" of racial discrimination that "still linger to this day."

  • Is John McCain, messy maverick, qualified?

    July 28, 2008

    If elected president, Sen. John McCain promises to stage a press conference every week, a singular horror that, of itself, should be enough to doom his chances.

  • CNN to offer a glimpse of black life in America

    July 21, 2008

    As the world's window on the United States, CNN is offering its second documentary on black life in the republic, as Barack Obama is visiting Europe and the Middle East, with the three TV network anchors in global tracking mode.

  • Time for Rev. Jackson to step stage right

    July 14, 2008

    As Nelson Mandela walked the line of dignitaries at Kennedy Airport during his historic 1990 U.S. visit, the Rev. Jesse Jackson positioned himself before the TV cameras, then reached up and needlessly adjusted Mandela's tie.

  • What's Left Is Too Much To Take In

    September 18, 2001

    The Pile is the great unifier.

Les Payne

Les Payne

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Walt Handelsman

Newsday's Pulitzer
Prize-winning cartoonist.
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The fight for civil rights

civil rights, timeline, history, living to tell The local and national struggle

Forty-eight years after the Greensboro sit-in sparked a movement, we reflect on local leaders, then and now, doing their part to push for equality.

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