The black and brown stripes on Philadelphia’s new rainbow flag are inspiring hope in some and anger in others.

June is Pride Month for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities across the country — and parades abound.

When it comes to Caitlyn Jenner it is difficult to fathom how she went from icon to outcast.

Pepsi ads aim to emphasize its youthful brand by championing it as “the choice of a new generation.”

When artist Dana Schutz presented “Open Casket,” an abstract painting of Emmett Till’s open casket-the Chicagoan 14 year old African American male teen lynched  in the  Mississippi Delta in the summer of 1955- she could not have fathomed the conflagration that erupted. 

This year’s Oscars were the most diverse in history. With six nominations for six African-American themed films and at least 10 black actors and filmmakers.

February 1 begins Black History Month, a national annual observance since 1926, honoring and celebrating the achievements of African Americans.

Trump’s public statement commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day omitted any mention of Judaism, anti-Semitism or the Nazis’ systematic program exterminating European Jewry.

The number of people who took to the streets for Women’s March on Washington, D.C. and its sister marches across the country and the globe far exceeded the expectations of local and national organizers.

When news hit the airwaves that Bishop Eddie Long died from an unnamed aggressive cancer resulting in dramatic weight lost, many throughout the black church community wondered if his death was due to AIDS, and he was too embarrassed to admit it or seek medical care until it was too late.

If he were alive today, King would be 88, and he would have seen that a lot has changed in the U.S. since that dark day he was gunned down on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968.

As I prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, I am reminded of the autumnal harvest time’s spiritual significance.

When I was told that the framing devise of SpeakEasy’s  current production of “The Scottsboro Boys” is a minstrel show I was aghast.

In the words of the lesbian poet and scholar Judy Grahn, Halloween is “the great gay holiday.”

The Jills were the envy among us lesbian couples of African descent.

Before any of us in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities laud Malcolm X as our new gay icon or castigate him for being a black heterosexist nationalist on the “down low,” we might need to closely examine the recent revelation that for a period in his life Malcolm X engaged in same-sex relationships.

Queer Civil War buffs have been arguing for some time that the deafening silence around LGBTQ Confederate and Union soldiers indicates proof of their very presence.

In this tech savvy era of  electronic companions and social networking tools—like Facebook, Twitter,  Match.com and Tinder—dominate the hook-up scene.

Black votes matter! So, too, do the black lives many politicians pander to in order to get them.

I am always worried, to the point of nail-biting, when my spouse leaves in the morning for Boston Medical Center.