As 2014 draws to a close, I wanted to celebrate four great rainbows for justice who passed away this year but left us a much better people and nation. My brother-friend Dr. Vincent Harding , much loved historian, theologian, social justice activist, and visionary, never lost sight of the “beloved community” his friend and colleague Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed our nation and world could become. A close confidant of Dr. King, he helped draft several of Dr. King’s most important speeches, including the landmark 1967 antiwar sermon “Beyond Vietnam.” His books include the powerful essay...

In the wake of Ferguson and a series of young Black male deaths at the hands of official law enforcement personnel (and one self-appointed neighborhood watchman who cost Trayvon Martin his life), I hope we will use this November time of Thanksgiving and celebration of Native American Heritage month by some first Americans, as an opportunity for national and personal soul searching and discussion about what it means to be an American. I also hope we will recommit to doing what we can to serve, speak up, and work with others to build a nation where every child is safe, seen, heard, respected...

For many years I've been blessed by my friendship with Pamela Ferrell, one of the country's leading experts on natural Black hair. Pamela and her husband Taalib-Din Uqdah co-founded the Washington, D.C. hair salon Cornrows & Co. in 1980, pioneering the natural hair care movement with African-inspired braids and hairstyles. They point out that their philosophy and the natural product line they created for their styles long predated today's green movement: Cornrows & Co. has always featured a chemical-free salon with plant-based products, focusing both on protecting each client's health...

Each year at Halloween, our neighborhoods are bustling as children go door to door dressed as zombies, vampires, skeletons or something else fantastic and scary. For many children Halloween is the rare occasion to indulge in a fun time of ghost stories and goblins and trick or treats. But at the end of the night they put away their costumes and make-believe in their closets and return to their normal lives. Sadly, too many children do not have normal or safe or protected lives and their monsters are real. They do not have closets in many homeless shelters or on the streets or church steps...

While we rarely hear good news these days about Congress, I have some to share. Continuing a long tradition of bipartisan leadership on behalf of abused and neglected children, last month both the House and the Senate passed and the President signed into law the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act (H.R. 4980/P.L. 113-183). This new legislation improves the child welfare system to prevent children and youths in foster care from becoming victims of sex trafficking and protects foster care youths who are already victims. It offers new hope of permanent families for children and extra support for those youths who end up aging out of foster care. The Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) and many other children’s advocates strongly supported this bill, and we applaud Representatives Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sander Levin (D-MI), Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Representatives David Reichert (R-WA) and Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) who led the charge in responding to some of our most vulnerable children’s needs.