Leonard Pitts

They told them they had bad blood. What they actually had was syphilis, but the U.S. Public Health Service never shared that diagnosis with the almost 400 African American men, most of them poor and under-educated sharecroppers, they recruited for a secret study at Tuskegee Institute... Read More

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” — Martin Luther King Dr. King didn’t know the half of it. Those words, after all, are from 1963. Back then, the idea of U.S. citizens and lawmakers attacking their own democracy would... Read More

She is 8 years old. That’s ... what? About third grade? Too young for boyfriends. Too young for R-rated movies. Too young for algebra or a learner’s permit. But she has already experienced her second shooting. It happened a little over a week ago in Washington,... Read More

It was, let us say, an interesting weekend for democracy. Call it a tale of two cities. One is Dallas, where thousands of so-called “conservatives” -- the word has less meaning by the day -- gathered in support of Donald Trump and his ongoing efforts to... Read More

Thirty years ago, when I was still a music critic, I received a letter from a lady who informed me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t know what I was talking about. This was after I‘d written about the origins of gospel music, a subject... Read More

An open letter to the children. We owe you an apology. Meaning all of us in the generations above you. We had one job where you were concerned, and that was to keep you safe. “Save the children,” pleaded a man named Marvin Gaye a long... Read More

Look, I get it, OK? A lot of this, you plain do not understand. Much of it leaves you confused. Well, me too. I have no idea what it must be like to grow up feeling as if you were assigned the wrong body, a girl... Read More

I sat there trying to remember how to breathe. I suspect I had that in common with people — particularly African-American people — all over the country. Didn’t we all hold our breath as we awaited the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin? Then that... Read More

“The anguish we are suffering cannot translate into violence.” So said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey last week in the wake of yet another police killing of yet another unarmed African-American man. The sentiment was altogether fitting and proper, especially given that his city was the epicenter... Read More

There is nothing sacred about nine. The number was not carried down from a mountain on stone tablets, nor did it appear in a burning bush. In fact, before the Supreme Court contained nine justices, it contained six, the number fixed when the tribunal was established... Read More

He was having a bad day. So said Cherokee County Sheriff’s spokesman Jay Baker by way of explaining last week’s mass shootings at three Atlanta-area massage parlors. The suspect, a 21-year-old white man whose name won’t be used here, is said to have told police he... Read More

My brother-in-law died of hogwash. Another brother-in-law, a sister-in-law, two daughters-in-law, two cousins and several grandchildren are all recovering from hogwash. My wife spent a week in the hospital with hogwash. I tested positive for hogwash, but had few symptoms. “Hogwash,” you may recall, was the... Read More

‘You think we’re bad for America?’ Sean Hannity of Fox “News” asked that question of Ted Koppel four years ago as the latter was interviewing him on “CBS Sunday Morning.” Yes, answered Koppel, “because you’re very good at what you do and ... you have attracted... Read More

This is not a feel-good story. Of course, it’s easy to see why it has been positioned as one. Certainly, it contains all the elements: vulnerable people, heart-rending need, someone going above and beyond. But this is not a feel-good story. Not to mock or cast... Read More

An open letter to African-American people: February marks the 95th observation of what started as Negro History Week and later became Black History Month. I wanted to use the occasion to talk about what being Black means, about how it feels, being us. Hearing that, you’re... Read More

So last week, Sen. Josh Hawley complained that he was being “silenced.” He lodged this complaint on Fox “News” and in The New York Post. As social media observers promptly pointed out, that’s a level of media exposure that effectively refutes the senator’s claim. But Hawley... Read More

What is it going to take? For years, that question has weighed upon the rest of us – and even some of its own members – as we watched the Republican Party slide ever deeper into a morass of political extremism, screwball conspiracies, alternate facts and... Read More

And so we reach the end of an unpresidented era. The reference is, of course, to one of Donald Trump’s many Twitter misspellings, this one found in his 2016 description of the seizure of a US. navy drone. He meant to call it “unprecedented.” But Trump’s... Read More

So what now? A few things, actually. But before we get to them, we must recognize last week’s insurrectionist rampage at the Capitol for what it was. It is being seen, and not wrongly, as the angry response of delusional right-wingers lied into believing a presidential... Read More

And so this is Christmas. So sang John Lennon in 1971. The Vietnam War took 2,414 American lives that year, so the song was a prayer of harmony and peace with a scrim of irony. Nor did the irony end there. Lennon was shot to death... Read More

Forgive me for being the ant at the picnic. Certainly, this is a glad moment, an ecstatic and delirious moment. The election of 2020 has ended at last. Joe Biden is finally the president-elect and Donald Trump is finally consigned to the dank well of ignominy... Read More

Bruce Springsteen is wrestling with death. You hear him as you float high above leafless trees dusted with snow. The scene, captured in creamy tones of black and white, is one of beauty almost unbearably elegiac, sacred in its stillness. Then he speaks, giving words to... Read More

America is not guaranteed. There is, in other words, nothing foreordained about this country someday returning to anything approximating normal. That’s important to keep in mind as we await results of the most critical U.S. election since 1860, when Abraham Lincoln came to power in an... Read More

Dear Jared Kushner: So I see where you think you’ve figured out what’s wrong with Black people. Monday, you shared it on Fox “News.” ”One thing we’ve seen in a lot of the Black community,” you said, “which is mostly Democrat, is that President Trump’s policies... Read More

You did not stand up. Granted, America faced neither enemy bombers nor terrorist plot, but the threat to her was — still is — no less real. Your country needed you. And you did not stand up. You told yourself party was more important. You told... Read More

“Jared Kushner is under federal investigation for diverting money to terrorist organizations according to a guy I met at the gas station who told me he works for the FBI” is something I would never be allowed to publish. “Donald Trump Jr. has an escalating cocaine... Read More

Just last week, the headlines were inescapable. They stemmed from a story in The Atlantic detailing what amounts to the Republican Party plotting a coup. Which is to say, cooking up Electoral College schemes designed to keep Donald Trump in office even if voters turn him... Read More

LOS ANGELES - We gave a damn too late. Sometimes, I think that will be the legacy of this generation. Or maybe I’m just tired of seeing people walking around without masks as if a pandemic had not taken almost 200,000 American lives. Then again, it... Read More

We weren’t going to normalize this. Remember that? Remember the way many of us solemnly vowed we would always maintain the ability to be outraged, hold on to our capacity for shock? Well, after almost four years that have passed like geologic time, that declaration feels... Read More

The American Cemetery at Normandy sits on a bluff overlooking the beach where, on June 6, 1944, American soldiers waded ashore to begin the invasion of France. The old battlefield is marked with shell craters and gun pits offering mute testimony to the fury of that... Read More

This is almost four months early. Ordinarily, Christmas trees are looking peaked, and George Bailey has long since realized that he had a wonderful life when pundits begin to summarize the year and assign it a theme. But given the eight long months of 2020 we’ve... Read More

Apparently, I am supposed to be embarrassed now. That, at least, is my interpretation of a few strange tweets and emails that have come my way in the week since Attorney General William Barr issued his summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report on Donald Trump.... Read More

If you think you're angry now, wait till you read the court documents. Not that the summaries of a college cheating scandal so massive it briefly bumped Donald Trump from the "Breaking News" chyrons were not enough to make a nun cuss. Indeed, the story offered... Read More

As a general rule, I don't curse a lot. I've found that I can usually express myself effectively enough without it. And it's always seemed to me that foul language, used ubiquitously, loses its primary value, i.e., its ability to... Read More

On the last night of the Republican National Convention in 1988, the candidate sought to impart to the country a vision of the America it could be. "Some," he said, "would say it's soft and insufficiently tough to care" about troubled children. Read More

I said it before, I'll say it again. "As this country becomes blacker, browner, gayer, younger, more Hispanic and more Muslim, it is increasingly the case that the GOP cannot win if all voters vote. It cannot win, in other words, without cheating." Read More

The United States is composed of 329 million people spread over 3.8 million square miles. In population and landmass, it's a pretty big place. But those are not the only criteria that matter. Morality matters, too. And on Sunday... Read More

"All life is interrelated." -- Martin Luther King Jr. "Imagine all the people, sharing all the world." -- John Lennon A few words about "us" and "them." It is, of course, the baseline division of human existence, probably dating... Read More

So now Michelle Obama finally tells her truth. There has always been about her a sense that she did, indeed, have a truth of her own and that it was, if not at odds with the one her husband expressed with high-flown... Read More

"The fact that a man is a newspaper reporter is evidence of some flaw in character." -- Lyndon Johnson "They are a sort of assassins..." -- John Quincy Adams "I look forward to these confrontations with the press to kind of balance up the nice and ... Read More

"What are these politicians going to do for us?" A guy in Texas asked that question a few weeks back on "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee," by way of explaining why he won't be voting in the most important midterm election... Read More

Rob Rogers is an editorial cartoonist who was fired in June after 25 years with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. His departure, he said, came after weeks of tension with a publisher who wanted a more pro-Trump stance. Read More

A word for young people, people of color and, in particular, young people of color: The Republicans are scared of you. Maybe you find that hard to believe. Maybe you wonder how the party can be scared of you -- or of... Read More

What if the end of the world came and nobody noticed? It's not quite an idle question. You see, something remarkable happened last week. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of scientists... Read More

The other day, a woman confessed to me that she's a Republican. Republicans may bristle at the verb, but it's used advisedly. The lady admitted her party affiliation the way you would some personal failing. "I don't tell a . . . Read More

Let's get something straight: Men are not the victims here. It is a foolish and offensive line of reasoning, so naturally it has caught traction on the political right. Indeed, for some, it is an article of faith as the... Read More

Give the Republicans credit: they worked hard to create the appearance of enlightened compassion. Meaning, of course, Thursday's Senate Judiciary... Read More

Gina Sosa is not impressed by attempted rape. "What boy hasn't done this in high school?" she asks. "Please, I would like to know." Since she asked so nicely, I went on Twitter... Read More

"Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." Jesus preaches that in the book of Luke. But then, Jesus never had Twitter. Or, for that matter, Instagram or Facebook. He never had, in other words, one of the social media platforms on which millions of us ... Read More

Ari Fleischer wants to know if we're being fair. "How much in society should any of us be held liable today when we've lived a good life, an upstanding life by all accounts, and then something that maybe is an arguable issue, took place in high... Read More

"Where have you gone, Bob Woodward? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you." I asked that question in January, repurposing a Paul Simon lyric to implore the dean of American political reporters to help us make sense of the mess that is the Trump White ... Read More

When the history of this era is written, when future generations wonder how a mostly educated and largely literate nation became mired in "truthiness," when they ask how we became so mentally muddled that we lost the ability to identify facts and the capacity to care, ... Read More

Colin Kaepernick is staring at you. It's a black-and-white image, a portrait taken from a distance that feels painfully close, even intimate. Read More

For a man who places such a premium on loyalty, Donald Trump inspires remarkably little. Bad enough his administration is a sieve, embarrassing accounts of bungled phone calls with foreign leaders and cheeseburger-fueled rants with cronies regularly showing up in the news. Bad enough top aides... Read More