''The Root'' is an African American-oriented

online magazine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer ma ...

. It was launched on January 28, 2008, by

Henry Louis Gates Jr. Henry Louis "Skip" Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950) is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker, who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African Amer ...

and

Donald E. Graham Donald Edward Graham (born April 22, 1945) is the majority owner and chairman of Graham Holdings Company. He was formerly the publisher of ''The Washington Post'' (1979–2000) and later was the lead independent director of Facebook's board of di ...

History

It was owned by

Graham Holdings Company Graham Holdings Company (formerly The Washington Post Company) is a diversified American conglomerate holding company. Headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia, and incorporated in Delaware, it was formerly the owner of ''The Washington Post ...

through its online subsidiary, The Slate Group. In 2015, Graham Holdings sold ''The Root'' to

Univision Communications TelevisaUnivision (formerly known as Univision Communications) is a Mexican-American media company headquartered in New York and Mexico City, which owns the American Spanish language broadcast network Univision. 45% of the company is held by th ...

. The site was subsequently re-launched under the Kinja platform used by other Gizmodo Media Group (formerly

Gawker Media Gawker Media LLC (formerly Blogwire, Inc. and Gawker Media, Inc.) was an American online media company and blog network. It was founded by Nick Denton in October 2003 as Blogwire, and was based in New York City. Incorporated in the Cayman Isla ...

) websites. GMG was later succeeded by

G/O Media G/O Media Inc. is an American media holding company that runs ''Gizmodo'', ''Kotaku'', ''Jalopnik'', '' Deadspin'', ''Lifehacker'', '' Jezebel'', '' The Root'', '' The A.V. Club'', ''The Takeout'', '' The Onion'', and ''The Inventory''. Hist ...

as owner of ''The Root''. In July 2017, the blog ''Very Smart Brothas'', co-founded by

Damon Young Damon Young (born 1975 in Melbourne, Victoria) is an Australian philosopher, writer and commentator, and author of the books ''Distraction'', ''Philosophy in the Garden'' and ''How to Think About Exercise''. He is an Honorary Fellow in Phil ...

and Panama Jackson, became a vertical of ''The Root''. Danielle Belton was editor-in-chief at ''The Root'' between 2017 and 2021, when she was appointed editor of

HuffPost ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

. On April 14, 2021, it was announced that Vanessa De Luca had been appointed editor-in-chief. Since April 2021 ''The Root'' has seen substantial staff turnover with 15 out of the 16 full-time staffers resigning following internal tensions, with former staff member Michael Harriot describing the situation with "as a staff, we came to the conclusion that, basically, The Root is over.”

The Root 100

The Root 100 is the magazine's annual "list of the 100 most important black influencers between the ages of 25 and 45." This list has been published since 2011. Readers of ''The Root'' are allowed to nominate those who they feel are deserving of being on this list. The list has had a wide variety of people from celebrities such as

Donald Glover Donald McKinley Glover Jr. (; born September 25, 1983), also known by his stage name Childish Gambino (), is an American entertainer, writer, director, and producer. After working in Derrick Comedy while studying at New York University, Glov ...

, writers like Roxane Gay, and athletes. Other influential people in the black community who are not as well known, such as activists, are encouraged to be added to the list as well.

References

External links

*
C-SPAN ''Q&A'' interview with ''The Root'' Managing Editor Lynette Clemetson
October 12, 2008 African-American magazines Online magazines published in the United States American political websites Magazines established in 2008 Fusion Media Group Former Univision Communications subsidiaries {{webzine-stub