Beats

R&B crooner The-Dream put his usual love tracks to the side for the video release of “Black”, a mellow, darker song about race and inequality in the United States. At one point the singer even references the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X’s legacy, Nelson “Madiba” Mandela and Marvin Gaye, singing: And I’ll […]

British screenwriter William Nicholson, who wrote the screenplay for the biopic “Nelson Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom” starring Idris Elba, claims his film failed because…

National News

Nelson Mandela may be resting in peace, but the former South African president’s family could potentially be at odds over his will. Mail & Guardian notes that a power struggle within the Mandela family is looming after the civil rights activist chose Graca Machel, Makaziwe and Zenani to represent the family on big decisions. At […]

National News, News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Nelson Mandela‘s estate, worth roughly $4.1 million, will be shared between his family, members of his staff, schools that he attended and the African National Congress, the movement that fought white rule and now governs South Africa, the will’s executors said Monday. Mandela’s third wife, Graca Machel, is the main beneficiary of […]

If You Missed It, Little Known Black History Facts, Originals

In 2015, a 25 year-old South African man named Mandla Maseko will be the first African to go to space. Maseko was chosen through a competition organized by the Axe Apollo Space Academy. He was up against one million international competitors. Maseko and 22 other winners will travel 64 miles into space. The journey there […]

National News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — A new, 9-meter (29.5-foot) sculpture of Nelson Mandela is billed as the biggest statue of the South African leader. It also has a tiny, barely visible quirk: a sculpted rabbit tucked inside one of the bronze ears. South African officials want the miniature bunny removed from the statue, which was unveiled outside […]

National News, News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The bogus sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela‘s memorial said Tuesday he had translated for years at big events for the South African ruling party and government, which is investigating how a self-described schizophrenic said to have been involved in mob killings got such a sensitive job in which he stood close […]

National News, News

PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) — Joyous crowds of black South Africans celebrated the unveiling of a new Nelson Mandela statue in Pretoria on Monday while many white Afrikaners on the other side of town expressed their worries about the country’s future as they celebrated the 175th anniversary of a bloody victory over the indigenous Zulus. […]

National News

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The bogus sign language interpreter at last week’s Nelson Mandela memorial service was among a group of people who accosted two men found with a stolen television and burned them to death by setting fire to tires placed around their necks, one of the interpreter’s cousins and three of his friends told […]

National News, News

QUNU, South Africa (AP) — Anti-apartheid champion Nelson Mandela was buried in his home village on Sunday after a funeral that mixed ancient tribal rituals with a display of the might of the new, integrated South Africa. Military officers, both black and white, rolled Mandela’s flag-draped coffin to the family burial plot in the village […]

News

QUNU, South Africa (AP) — The rural home where Nelson Mandela grew up in the 1920s had mud walls, a grass thatched roof, and a floor polished smooth with cow dung. When throngs flood Mandela’s hometown on Sunday for his burial, they will visit a simple place steeped in old ways but which now has […]

It’s only been a week since Nelson Mandela passed, but Bernice Jenkins got the chance to talk to him in heaven. Listen to the audio player to hear…