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Citing “substantial obstacles to equal educational opportunity” in the country’s educational system nearly 60 years after the Supreme Court ruled separate public schools for Blacks and whites unconstitutional, President Barack Obama signed an executive order creating the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans.

More than $7 billion of federal funds are sitting around in 18 states and the District of Columbia, waiting to be given to homeowners who have fallen behind in their mortgage payments. The funds are available under the relatively new TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Hardest Hit initiative to help keep the unemployed from losing their homes, but some states are having a tough time putting the money to work.

African-American hair product manufacturing will continue to enjoy growth, thanks to a rebounding economy and an expanding Black population with rising disposable income, according to an industry report from IBISWorld, a leading publisher of U.S. industry research

According to The Washington Post, “a complex portrait” of Black women emerged from a recent nationwide survey the paper conducted with the Kaiser Family Foundation. Researchers polled 808 Black women on a range of issues by telephone between Oct. 6 and Nov. 2 last year.

After setting on a dreadful 2011, the sun came up in January with signs of better days, at least outside debt-burdened Europe. The United States is finally adding jobs and the housing market is improving but the fiscal deficit is worse off. Signs of moderate growth mean the U.S. Federal Reserve will be less likely to print more money, which could spur global growth.

 With the United States topping the world’s obesity charts — the most current figures of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development show 30.6 percent of the U.S. population is “obese” — U.S. Bancorp Community Development Corp. says it will allocate some of its New Markets Tax Credit investments to projects that increase the availability of healthy, affordable food in high-need urban and rural communities. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, more than 23 million people currently live in low-income communities that do not have access to a supermarket or a large grocery store within one mile of their home.

Half (49 percent) of African-American New Yorkers age 50 years and older will delay retirement if the economy doesn’t improve...