In one simple sentence in 1914, Columbus Bragg, an African American writer, helped codify the Blues genre, though he’s largest forgotten.
African Americans
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Why the “Black Grateful Dead” Thrives Outside of Top 40 Radio
For the Undefeated, music writer and essayist Bruce Britt offers a compelling history of soul band Maze.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books, Writing
The 1923 Novel That Helps Us Understand Today’s Racial Climate
‘Cane’Â is a series of vignettes about life in rural Georgia told from the point of view of an ambivalently black teacher from the north.
Posted inNonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes
Talking with Multi-Genre Writer Walter Mosley
The author talks with The Paris Review about writing, crime fiction, and his depiction of Black American life.
Posted inCurrent Events, Profiles & Interviews, Story
An Unforgiving Legal System Welcomes Black Immigrants to America
The Black Alliance for Just Immigration helps those affected by racial profiling and harsh immigration laws.
Posted inArts & Culture, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Nina Simone’s Three Years of Freedom
At Guernica, Katherina Grace Thomas turns a lens on the years Nina Simone spent in Liberia in the mid-1970s.
Posted inCurrent Events
Zadie Smith Takes on Black Pain With a Light Touch
At Harper’s, Smith doesn’t really feel like she is engaging in her subject matter with much care or heart.
Posted inHistory
The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee
For talented black spellers in the 1960s, the segregated local spelling bee was the beginning and the end of the long road to Washington, D.C.
Posted inHistory, Story
The Word Is ‘Nemesis’: The Fight to Integrate the National Spelling Bee
For talented black spellers in the 1960s, the segregated local spelling bee was the beginning and the end of the long road to Washington, D.C.
Posted inNonfiction
Young African Artists Lead Nuanced Conversation about Race in America
Taiye Selasi, Yaa Gyasi, and Toyin Ojin Odutola expand notions of blackness with layered, nuanced artwork.