As we pull up a chair to the table to eat a Thanksgiving meal with our families, we ask our readers to not forget those less fortunate.

Remember when the street lights came on that signaled you either had to be in two places -- your porch or inside the home.

The formal dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Sunday was a fitting tribute to a man recognized as one of history’s greatest leaders. The dedication of the first memorial to an African American leader on the National Mall was done in a ceremony featuring an address by the nation's first African American president on the site where King delivered his I Have a Dream speech nearly a half-century ago.

They call themselves “Occupy Wall Street,” and no one should be confused about their numbers swelling and their protests expanding to more and more cities outside of New York City.

There was a time when Black people, even if they were at each other’s throats with anger, would never let those outside of the African American family know that there was dissent or discord within the ranks.

The state of Georgia put Troy Davis to death last week.

There is very little argument about the need for Chicago Public Schools students to have more classroom time, better classroom time or even more recess time. The amount of time our students spend in a classroom, getting instruction, is an embarrassment, and it should have been addressed years ago.

Ten Septembers have come and gone since that awful morning. But on this 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we are summoned once more to honor those we lost by keeping our country strong and true to their memory.

Due to inclement weather, at an undetermined future date, a monument to perhaps the most well-respected African American ever, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., is being dedicated on the National Mall.

One thing that was supposed to be clear was that the one issue everyone should be focused on in this post-recession economy is jobs.

He wasn’t even supposed to be the headliner that day. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was just one of the speakers on August 28, 1963. The well-known names, like A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Whitney Young of the National Urban League and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, had called for this March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and an estimated 250,000 showed up, the largest demonstration ever in the nation’s capital.

For more than 30 years, officials of the city of Chicago have stood in the way of justice regarding Jon Burge.

It is with great sadness that we must introduce the “race-card” into the present debate about the American economy, presidential leadership and the direction of the country. But the reality is the facts lead us to no other conclusion.

In the political mess that unfolded in Washington, D.C. over the past few weeks regarding deficit reduction and debt ceiling, all the American public got to witness was some really mangy dogs.

The numbers keep increasing.

They are small amounts, usually overlooked by most customers and, according to recent Federal Communications Commission estimates, affect 15 million to 20 million American households.

As someone with decades of experience working in and around anti-poverty programs, I have witnessed firsthand the important role that government can play in helping families that are literally living from paycheck to paycheck.

Over the long holiday weekend, children gathered in towns and cities around the country ooh-ing and aah-ing over fireworks, marching in parades, proud of their heritage and proudly waving the American flag. Most of them still believe in the promise of America-a promise reflected in so many of the values and ideals that underlie the founding documents of our nation and the Pledge of Allegiance so many of us learned as children and repeated each morning in school.

It is not often that a $39 billion corporate merger stirs comment all the way down to street level.

The first day of summer usually brings up thoughts of cold drinks, beach attire and vacations.

Toyota has made and sold cars and trucks in the United States for almost 60 years, and the company states that two tenets guide all of its business practices, “continuous improvement and respect for people and all consumers equally.”

Now that Republicans have found out that too many people have been voting contrary to their views, they are on a mission to make it much more difficult for those people to vote.

Last week President Obama gave a major address on the Middle East, laying out some of the parameters necessary for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.

For the past eight months, the man behind the curtain has been Richard M. Daley. He has been in plain sight, carrying out his mayoral duties, visiting neighborhoods, cutting ceremonial ribbons and shaking hands.

It is hard to believe that it has been 25 years since America chose to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a national holiday. So much has changed in those 25 years, and not all of it for the better.

There is no question that the death penalty, as administered by the state of Illinois, has been unfair.

As we come to the end of another challenging year at the Defender and in our country, I wish to thank all of the readers, advertisers and community leaders for their support throughout 2010.

As 2010 closes out and we reflect on the coming year, we urge each of you to do your part to set a different tone for 2011.

This time of year, many Americans are taking a break from the drudgery of work, and enjoying the holidays.

At one point it was the most notorious public housing address in the nation.

The National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) has partnered with the Greater than AIDS movement and the Black AIDS Institute to reengage Black Americans in fighting the AIDS epidemic by making an historic commitment to cover AIDS in Black America in the nation’s Black press.

There is a battle going on for the soul of this country, and it will be played out in the polling places on November 2. One side’s battle cry is “take back our country!” They say they want to return to the days when the government did not spend beyond its means and didn’t intrude in every household – which would mean the Clinton Administration.

The Republican Party has spent most of the past two years as the "Party of No," opposing nearly every policy proposed by President Obama and Democrats in Congress --a strategy that has worked politically, according to polls that say this November's election could sweep Republicans back into the majority in the House and possibly the Senate. But until last week, the Republican Party had offered no agenda of its own--so party leaders finally produced one: the lofty-sounding "Pledge to America."

It’s time to stop the nonsense.

The city has announced that one of its programs to combat youth violence this summer will be to step up enforcement of the 11 p.m. curfew for children under the age of 17 on weekends. But in certain high-crime districts, those weekend curfew violators will not go directly to jail. They will go to the park.

What happened to the Illinois capital plan? I remember reading about the 439,000 jobs it was going to create and the $31 billion it was going to invest in communities across the state.

We are at the four year crossroad, where we have an opportunity to elect a governor and a United States Senator, able to address these calamities that are upon us. There are those who want you to think that your only options are either Brady or Quinn; a Democrat or a Republican “Tweetlee Dee” or “Tweetlee Dum.”

Some experts and policymakers believe our country could do more to prevent problems before they occur.

The current debate over increasing class sizes in Chicago Public Schools is just another example of the Chicago school district and its teachers posturing and threatening, while students suffer.

Most of the crime statistics that are reported for the City of Chicago tend to focus on crimes against our young people. They usually point out that both the victims and the perpetrators of violent crime tend to be under 40 years old, many of them in their teens.

The Memorial Day break is over and it’s time for Congress to immediately fix the 21.3 percent cut in Medicare payments to physicians that took effect June 1.

Please, we have to do all we can for these animals. They are part ofthis world, and were here long before we arrived. They are defenseless and need our help, to get their homes back, and to get cleaned and fixed up.

In the life of our nation, there are few more sacred places than our national cemeteries – around the world, at Arlington and our national cemeteries across the country.

The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is turning out to be one of the worst environmental disasters on record. The leak is spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf, threatening wildlife, the fishing industry and jobs.

What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Gaston is very sad. Unfortunately, there is no foreseeable way their accident could've been prevented without the intervention of family and/or friends.

The question becomes, what will it take?

More than 300 concerned community residents attended a recent Town Hall Meeting on the West Side to discuss the proposal to deploy the Illinois National Guard in Chicago. Many described how crime and unemployment are affecting their families.

Elena Kagan has been a trailblazer throughout her career. She’s recognized as one of the brightest legal minds of her generation.

For the price of a tube of toothpaste, a life is lost.

I have been asking myself and others, “Where has the Movement gone?” Where are we as a people headed? It appears in many ways that we are running in place or even going backwards.

In the long drawn-out battle over Walmart in the city of Chicago, there have been few winners.

President Barack Obama kisses Dr. Dorothy Height during a meeting on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Jan. 18. President Obama met with a group of African American seniors and their grandchildren on the legacy of the civil rights movement.

There are some who feel that the digital divide has been breached, and everyone who wants access to the Internet can have it without problem.

In the centuries since African Americans first arrived on our shores, they have known the bitterness of slavery and oppression, the hope of progress, and the triumph of the American Dream. African American history is an essential thread of the American narrative that traces our nation's enduring struggle to perfect itself.

In an unexpected show of force and backbone, Black members of the Democratic State Central Committee have fired off a letter to Illinois State House Speaker Michael Madigan, challenging him on his proposal to eliminate the office of lieutenant governor.

Young people should know that no matter what they are doing, somebody is watching.