Patrik Henry Bass

Back in August of 2008, during the Democratic National Convention, we sent Takeaway contributor Patrik Henry Bass out to report from Denver.  He visited a hair salon called Hairworks ...

It's the first day of a brand new decade; we're hoping to jump in and begin this one fresh-faced and optimistic.  All this week we've been taking a look back at the 2000s and how we'v...

Today, on the day that the National Book Award winners will be announced, Patrik Henry Bass, Takeaway contributor and books editor for Essence, tells us who's nominated, who he thinks...

It’s the first Tuesday in November, and voters in New Jersey, Virginia and cities across the country are headed to the polls. As the voting gets underway, we take a look back to this...

Today in Stockholm, the Nobel prize committee announced that Romanian-born German poet Herta Muller has won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Literature. Muller is the author of such books as ...

This week marks 25 years since "The Cosby Show" first hit the airwaves. The show documented the rich and often hilarious family life of the Huxtables, an upper-middle-...

The nation is still buzzing over the arrest of eminent African American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. at his home in Cambridge, Mass., two weeks ago. Today the president will sit down...

Last night the first African-American President of the United States, Barack Obama, addressed the NAACP convention. His speech was a poignant capstone for the organization's hundred-y...

After 16 years, Vibe magazine made a big announcement: it's closing. The magazine founded by Quincy Jones covered the world of hip hop. But as the economy slumped, so did ad sales. Es...

The election of Barack Obama may have had what we'll call The Urkel Effect. Takeaway Contributor and Senior Editor at Essence Magazine, Patrik Henry Bass says the rise of the bookish ...

The winning line-up of this year's Pulitzer Prizes for literature was a far more diverse group than in years past. Two African American women were winners: Playwright Lynn Nottage won...

Novelist J.G. Ballard, famed for novels such as Crash and Empire of the Sun died over the weekend. His style was so distinctive that there's now an adjective, "ballardian" that descri...

70 years ago African-American opera singer Marian Anderson sang on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from performing at Const...

Last week, the U.S. lost a seminal historian of the African-American experience when John Hope Franklin passed away. His books, includingFrom Slavery to Freedom: A History of African ...

Britain celebrated World Book Day last week, and put out a poll to go along with the celebration. People were asked if they had ever claimed to read a book when they hadn't and 65 per...

Today marks the 100-year anniversary of the NAACP. Formed by a multi-racial coalition in 1909, the urgency to form the civil rights group was sparked in 1908, during a deadly race rio...

The economic spending bill now being debated in the Senate would pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. But it wouldn’t do anything to help the transit system in St. L...

Sri Lanka marks its 61st Independence Day today, but the celebrations have been muted by ongoing skirmishes between the government and separatists. The President declared that the mil...

The election of Barack Obama brought, for the first time, a black family to the White House. But more than that: there’s a new black family in the neighborhood. Long a haven of ambiti...

President Obama launched a media blitz yesterday, doing so many prime time interviews you would think it was campaign season again. This time, though, he was touting his economic stim...