by Faye M. Anderson
- USA -

With only three primaries remaining, the Democratic presidential nomination battle is nearing the finish line. While Barack Obama has won a majority of pledged delegates, he is still short of the 2,026 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

• Presidential candidate Barack Obama. Photograph by jurvetson. •

The fact is, Obama racked up his insurmountable delegate lead before snippets of sermons by Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. exploded on Americans’ TV screens and computer monitors. While Obama has since severed ties with Wright, the political damage has been done.

by Faye Anderson
USA

Every hour sees the black man elbowed out of employment by some newly arrived emigrant, whose hunger and whose color are thought to give him a better title to the place.

- Frederick Douglass (1853)

• Photograph by Tony Warren •

Why? Jobs.

A new report by the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC-Berkeley confirms that more than half of black workers are employed in low-wage, dead-end jobs. The report, “Job Quality and Black Workers: An Examination of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York,” looks at black employment rates. While the full report is embargoed until Labor Day, its findings include: