Tag: African Americans

Bernice L. McFadden ruminates on all the things her mother has endured only to find herself spending her golden years in the midst of a deadly plague and state-sanctioned racism.

While searching for photographs that depict black young women and girls living free in the second and third generations born after slavery, Saidiya Hartman finds a disturbing image.

The singular singer released her groundbreaking album in 1963, the same year as the March on Washington, and used her art and appearance as weapons in the Civil Rights struggle.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston gave Langston Hughes a lift to Tuskegee in her Nash coupe, nicknamed “Sassy Susie.” It was one of most fortuitous hangouts in literary history.

Kimberly Mack recalls the ways in which rock music bonded her with her African American mom, and how those fierce sounds helped them cope with the poverty, violence, and despair both outside and inside their Brooklyn home.

In a new memoir, novelist Bridgett M. Davis reveals that her mother was a Numbers operator in Detroit from the 1960s through the 1980s.

Thirty years ago, the entire community of Lightning was destroyed to build the Georgia Dome. This oral history, told by displaced residents, compiles memories of a long-gone neighborhood.

In Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s fantastical short story collection, the strangest fantasy of all is that people try to act morally in a corrupt world.

The poet, novelist, and playwright Ntozake Shange died Saturday, October 27.

The basketball court is a place where young black men feel comfortable mourning death, but are there crucial elements missing from their grieving practices?

The co-authors of ‘Country Music USA’ – a revised edition of the genre’s definitive history – talk about the music’s African-American tributaries, its unpredictable politics, country radio’s woman problem, and working on Ken Burns’ forthcoming doc.

Adaobi Tricia Nwaumbani reveals her Igbo great-grandfather’s history with the transatlantic slave trade.

Henry Taylor’s portraits are sacred objects that lovingly center black subjects and black interiority.

How soul singer Mary Jane Jones was forced to perform as Aretha Franklin before she took control of her life and career.

Stories of women of color dying of childbirth have dominated headlines — but little has been done to change postpartum care.

Two new books offer fresh perspective on “Otherhood,” that condition in which characters do constant, exhausting battle — for the most part — inside their own heads.

Did Dana Schutz’s painting engage with her subject, Emmett Till, ethically and responsibly?

The singer’s latest performance helps expand the possibilities of what it looks like to be a black thinking person.

Why Kanye referenced a nonexistent slave owner.

A desperate veteran, missing his disability payment, walked into a bank and took several people hostage. This is how he got there.

Lessons of race, blackness and power from a self-described nerdy Black girl.

America’s first black millionaires were born into slavery — and built wealth alongside political power.

Hill rice was supposed to be extinct, until a South Carolina chef stumbled on it — in Trinidad.

The disturbing parallels between professional football and the business of pimping

Shalon Irving was educated, insured, and well-supported by family and friends. She still became a casualty of missed opportunities and neglect by healthcare providers.

How the whiplash-like event of Trump following the nation’s first black president has “compressed time.”

The new poetry editor of the New Yorker says that to find poetry, “you have to look in your backyard.”

The space has become a vital convening point for creatives, culture workers, and audiences interested in ideas of black excellence.

Women of color who have been singled out by sexual predators deserve our collective fury too.

The modern hip-hop classic reflects growing up in Compton “one thousand percent.”