Tommie Smith, centre, in London to promote his bookDo sports men and women of colour care a hoot about their race? The tennis stars Venus and Serena Williams are proud to be Black and beautiful but there are not many others like them. Former sports magazine editor Marc Wadsworth recalls an historic event 40 years ago at the Mexico Olympics which sparked the debate.

Deborah Hobson

The first public monument to Black women in Britain was unveiled in an historic ceremony which took place in Stockwell Gardens, south London on Wednesday.

Chris Gelken

I rested the book on the arm of my chair and gazed through the living room window at the majestic peaks of the Alborz Mountains rising in the distance. "Wow," I thought, "She just described my day. In fact, she has just described my week, my month and my year." I double-checked the publication date. First released in 2003, Azar Nafisi's Reading Lolita in Tehran is a personal memoir of life in Iran before, during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, up to her departure from the country in 1997.

Charlene Muhammad

Times are getting tougher in the United States, but putting an end to the plight of the poor isn’t high on the political agenda. The number of Americans living in poverty increased last year, but advocates for the poor say the situation is more desperate than the rising numbers.

Richard Owen

Spike LeeItalian partisan organisations are to stage protests tomorrow at the Italian premiere of outspoken Black US director Spike Lee's new film, Miracle at St. Anna, which they say is full of lies, and insults the memory of the Italian Resistance during the Second World War.

Cynthia McKinney - Green Party candidate.

The very foundation of the US economy is crumbling underneath our feet. We the people must now seize the time! We have always had the capability of determining our own destiny, but for various reasons, the people failed to elect the leaders who provided the correct political will. There was always some corporate or private special interest that stood in the way of the public good.

Tom the dancing bug cartoons by Ruben Bolling