“But the numbers will never tell the true story of the Negro Leagues. They just won’t. For me, it is about context. I don’t want the legend of these athletes to ever die.”
black
Posted inEditor's Pick
A Black Physicist Is Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past
“I am forced to live in a parallel world to the one I wanted to live in, where I could have been a physicist without also constantly being asked to speak on or attempt to compensate for the persistent racism of institutions.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The True Story of Jess Krug, the White Professor Who Posed as Black for Years—Until It All Blew Up Last Fall
“She fabricated harrowing personal backstories, peddled gross caricatures, and spoke from perspectives she had no right to claim. And nobody stopped her.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
Being a Shark
“In the shadow of their disbelief, I became intensely aware of the tremendous privilege and cultural capital often associated with accessing ‘nature.’”
Posted inEditor's Pick
The New Reconstruction
“There has never been an anti-racist majority in American history; there may be one today in the racially and socioeconomically diverse coalition of voters radicalized by the abrupt transition from the hope of the Obama era to the cruelty of the Trump age. All political coalitions are eventually torn apart by their contradictions, but America […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Sent Home to Die
In New Orleans, hospitals sent infected COVID patients into hospice facilities or back home to die — to family members untrained and unprepared to care for them — and in some cases discontinuing treatment against the family’s wishes.
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Family Saw a Police Car Hit a Kid on Halloween. Then I Learned How NYPD Impunity Works.
“I spoke to four witnesses, including my wife. All of them said they saw the same thing. When I called Baker back, he told me that my wife and the three others were mistaken. The car hadn’t hit the kid. The kid had hit the car.” After his family saw an NYPD car hit a […]
Posted inNonfiction
What Didn’t Kill Her
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.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Feature, Nonfiction, Story
To Love and Protect Each Other — From Bigotry
After Jay Deitcher sits silent as his wife is verbally assaulted by his father’s racist friend, he grapples with the ways his family has been muted by trauma.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Sold Back Into Slavery, She Sued for Restitution — and Won
Morgan Jerkins tells the story of Henrietta Wood — a woman sold back into slavery after being freed — who in 1878 was awarded $2,500, the largest known sum of restitution for enslavement by a United States court.