Novelist Kaitlyn Greenidge writes about her weekend in Chesapeake, Virginia for the 150th anniversary of United Order of Tents, a secret society of black women established after the end of the civil war, which has long provided much needed financial and other kinds of support to black communities.
slavery
Posted inFood, Nonfiction, Quotes
Moonshine: The Black Tradition of Distilling ‘White Whiskey’
If craft food culture looks overwhelmingly white, it’s because black influences have been routinely scrubbed from its history.
Posted inNonfiction, Uncategorized
The South Carolina Dylann Roof Knew
For GQ, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah travels through the state that taught Roof a perverted viewpoint of the antebellum period.
Posted inEditor's Pick
“We Just Feel Like We Don’t Belong Here Anymore”
Think it’s hard for the white working class in rural America? Try being a person of color.
Posted inEssays & Criticism, Nonfiction, Quotes
Not Really A Distant Aunt: My Family’s Slave
“Once, when I was sick for a long time and too weak to eat, she chewed my food for me and put the small pieces in my mouth to swallow.”
Posted inEditor's Pick
My Family’s Slave
Alex Tizon tells the story of his family’s slave, Lola. A utusan (“person who takes commands”), Lola was given as a gift from his grandfather to his mother in 1943, when Lola was 18 years old. Lola worked — unpaid — for Alex and his family for 56 years. In a turbulent childhood where his […]
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Story, Uncategorized
A History of American Protest Music: How The Hutchinson Family Singers Achieved Pop Stardom with an Anti-Slavery Anthem
“Get Off the Track!” borrowed the melody of a racist hit song and helped give a public voice to the abolitionist movement.
Posted inBooks, History, Story, Unapologetic Women
The Slave Who Outwitted George Washington
Ona Judge slipped out of the president’s house one night and didn’t come back. But unlike most runaway slaves, she was never caught.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Slavery and Freedom in New York City
The story of slavery in New York, the messy path to abolition, and a shameful history with which America has yet to come to terms.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Meet the Man Behind the First Slavery Museum in America
He was driving around the Whitney in his Ford S.U.V., making sure the museum would be ready for the public. Born and raised in New Orleans, Cummings is as rife with contrasts as the land that surrounds his plantation. He is 77 but projects the unrelenting angst of a teenager. His disposition is exceedingly proper […]