Black America Unwittingly Provided the Soundtrack to Its Own Displacement By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight American music may be Black music, but it has now become the music of displacement.
Odetta Holmes’ Album One Grain of Sand By Longreads Feature 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.
A History of American Protest Music: Come By Here By Tom Maxwell Feature How cultural appropriation and erasure turned an African American spiritual into a white campfire sing-along.
Land Not Theirs By Madison Davis Feature Reckoning with a religious upbringing means confronting religion’s role in oppressing women and people of color.
Hellhound on the Money Trail By Longreads Feature Standard recording contracts screwed Bluesmen out of royalties in the early 1900s, and the system was no different when Columbia released “Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings in 1990.”
Shelved: The Lady of Rage’s Eargasm By Tom Maxwell Feature Rapper Robin Allen’s hit song bypassed the hip-hop boys club that held her debut solo album back.
How One Alabama Sherriff Worked Openly to Oppress People of Color By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Here’s what voter suppression looked like in Alabama in the middle of the 20th century.
Oregon’s Racist Past By Longreads Feature Starting in the mid-19th century, and extending through the mid-20th century, Oregon was arguably the most racist place outside the southern states, possibly even of all the states.
Vacating Convictions from Crooked Chicago Cops By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A group of Chicago cops spent years framing innocent men, but thanks to one determined woman, their convictions are finally getting overturned.
Judgement and Epiphany on Pittsburgh’s Number 79 Bus By Aaron Gilbreath Feature The seven stops on the bus lead one resident to an understanding about the way he views his neighbors.
The Death Row Book Club By Aaron Gilbreath Feature When Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death for two murders he didn’t commit, he used his time to create a book club for death row inmates.
One Georgia Farmer’s Experiment in Racial Equality By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Minister Clarence Jordan founded Koinonia Farm in 1942 to be, in his words, a “demonstration plot for the kingdom of God.” Can it endure in our racially charged modern climate?
How Lead Poisoned People of Color in East Chicago and Beyond By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight How lead contaminated the soil under East Chicago’s black and Latino communities.
A House of Refuge Marred by Violence By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The house at 808 East Lewis Street has helped the upwardly mobile reach for their dreams. It’s also seen great violence.
My Secondhand Lonely By Aaron Gilbreath Feature Raised by a single, independent mother, one young woman struggles with her familial inheritance and the relationship between self-sufficiency and social isolation.
Can Portland’s River Cleanup Correct Environmental Injustice? By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight The Willamette River, a superfund site, was once Portland’s lifeblood. A massive cleanup project could restore it for the communities of color that had long relied on it for food, work, and leisure.
Keeping Black Farm Families Connected to the Land in Michigan By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight Blueberry growing is popular around tiny Covert, Michigan, but how do these farmers of color keep their kids farming the land?
Building a New Society for Black Americans, First in Mississippi By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A movement in Jackson, Mississippi is working to remake the way the city governs, feeds, and runs itself in order to serve the black community.
Everyone’s Welcome, But Some People Are More Welcome Than Others By Michelle Weber Highlight “Well, you might as well come and live with me now,” her employer said. “You gonna be mine eventually.”
The ‘Artwashing’ of East Los Angeles By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight In Boyle Heights, activists are fighting art galleries that represent the first wave of gentrification.
In the 1970s, It Was The Police That Made Made Detroit’s Streets Deadly By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight A special police unit terrorized the innocent and murdered the unarmed in the years after Detroit’s race riots.
Decolonizing Education in South Africa By Aaron Gilbreath Highlight South African students of color are working to improve the conditions of education in a country that, twenty years after apartheid, is still rigged for the white minority.
