The Root is an African American–oriented online magazine. It was launched on January 28, 2008, by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Donald E. Graham.[1]
The Root was launched on January 28, 2008 by The Washington Post Company (now Graham Holdings).[2][3] When its online subsidiary, The Slate Group, was created that June, The Root was placed under this new subsidiary. In 2015, Graham Holdings sold The Root to Univision Communications.[4] The site was subsequently re-launched under the Kinja platform used by other websites under Gizmodo Media Group (the former Gawker Media websites).[5]
In July 2017, the blog Very Smart Brothas, co-founded by Damon Young and Panama Jackson, became a vertical of The Root.[6]
In April 2019, The Root became part of the newly-created G/O Media, following the purchase of Gizmodo Media Group from Univision by Great Hill Partners.
Danielle Belton was editor-in-chief at The Root between 2017 and 2021, when she was appointed editor of HuffPost.[7] On April 14, 2021, it was announced that Belton was succeeded by Vanessa De Luca as editor-in-chief.[8] De Luca in turn was succeeded by Tatsha Robertson on June 22, 2023.[9]
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 saying that, "as a staff, we came to the conclusion that, basically, The Root is over."[10] These departures were part of a wider conflict between G/O Media and its other outlets that saw staff also resigning across these outlets.
With the sale of Kotaku in July 2025, The Root currently stands as the last remaining outlet in the G/O Media portfolio, the company having individually sold all of its outlets since 2023.[11]
The Root 100 is the magazine's annual "list of the 100 most important black influencers between the ages of 25 and 45."[12] This list has been published since 2011, when it began ranking honorees using an influence score that resulted from a mathematical formula developed by scholar Omar Wasow.[13] 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, 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.[14]
| Corporate directors |
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| U.S. television networks |
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| Mexican television networks |
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| International networks |
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| Uforia Audio Network |
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| Univision Television Group |
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| Studios | |||||
| Univision Online | |||||
| Other holdings | |||||
| Former assets | |||||
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