While going to UCLA may feel like a dream, it hasn’t been easy for all of us. Annual fees have risen from under $8,000 when I applied to over $12,000 this year. In just the …
Read the full story »what you should know about the issues that matter
join the conversation
keep up to date on the people, places, events, and headlines that matter
Sex, Pop Culture, Activism, and more, regularly updated by our lovely contributors
Fiction, Poetry, Art, Photography and more
“We Were Here,” a documentary examining the early years of the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and its terrifying and heartbreaking effects on the LGBT community in the 80s and 90s, will be released to …
Race Didn’t Cost Abigail Fisher Her Spot at the University of Texas
When the NAACP began challenging Jim Crow laws across the South, it knew that, in the battle for public opinion, the particular plaintiffs mattered as much as the facts of the case. The group meticulously selected the people who would elicit both sympathy and outrage, who were pristine in form and character. And they had to be ready to step forward at the exact moment when both public sentiment and the legal system might be swayed.
That’s how Oliver Brown, a hard-working welder and assistant pastor in Topeka, Kan., became the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that would obliterate the separate but equal doctrine. His daughter, whose third-grade innocence posed a searing rebuff to legal segregation, became its face.
Read more. [Image: AP]
Nonprofit Buys House Across From Westboro Baptist Church, Paints It Rainbow Colored
Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of charity Planting Peace, decided to purchase a house across from the homophobic Westboro Baptist Church and then paint it the colors of the gay pride flag.
According to The Huffington Post, the organization purchased the Topeka, Kansas house for roughly $83,000. Planting Peace calls it “Equality House” and is the beginning of a campaign against the hate group.
“I didn’t know anything about the church or where they were located, but that story kept popping up. And one night I wondered, Where is this church? I got on Google Earth, and I was ‘walking down the road,’ and I did a 360 view. And I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign sitting in the front yard of a house. Right away it hit me, Oh my gosh, I could buy a house in front of the WBC! And immediately I thought: And I’m going to paint that thing the color of the pride flag.”
Read the full article at The Huffington Post.
(Photos: Carol Hartsell / Huffington Post)
