This week, we’re sharing stories from Ibram X. Kendi, Wesley Morris, James Baldwin, Betsy Morais and Alexandria Neason, and Josina Guess.
James Baldwin
James Baldwin and the Lost Giovanni’s Room Screenplay
In 1978, James Baldwin began working on a screenplay for Giovanni’s Room, his most beloved work. For the past forty years, though, the script has been shelved in a London flat.
Reading with Kiese Laymon’s “Heavy”
“Heavy” confronts generations of Black art.
Filmmaker Barry Jenkins’ Adaptation of James Baldwin’s “If Beale Street Could Talk”
“I think when I found film,” he said, “I found a way — I still hide a bit — but a way to not hide as much. I felt like I could put these things into the work because it’s the movie. It’s not me.”
To Post, or Not to Post?
Eloghosa Osunde contemplates the role of marginalized artists in online activism.
To Post, or Not to Post?
Eloghosa Osunde contemplates the role of marginalized artists in online activism.
Ta-Nehisi Coates Takes on the Trump Presidency
In an excerpt from his upcoming book on the Obama administration, Coates constructs an incisive look at Donald Trump’s political ascent.
The Mastery and Magic of Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah
With her profiles of Toni Morrison, Dave Chapelle, James Baldwin, and more, Ghansah is an unparalleled chronicler of black excellence.
James Baldwin’s ‘The Fire Next Time,’ Published On This Day in 1963
The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless. -From James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, published January 31, 1963.
Looter to Who? James Baldwin on Racism in America
In 1968, essayist, novelist and activist James Baldwin spoke with Esquire about racism in America, Dr. Martin Luther King, poverty and police brutality. In our current era of high profile police violence in communities like Ferguson, Missouri, and protests in Baltimore, Maryland, Baldwin’s words sound as prescient and, unfortunately, fresh as they did forty-seven years […]