Archive for March 2020
Every Democratic Candidates’ ‘Black Agenda,’ Ranked
On Saturday, voters in South Carolina will sound the starting gun for the race to the Democratic nomination for president of the United States. After giving white America a head start on selecting the party’s nominee, the Democratic Party now turns to South Carolina. Black voters cast about 6 percent of the combined votes in Iowa, New…
Read MoreOn the trail of African American writers and artists in Paris
Writer James Baldwin was 24 when he arrived in Paris in 1948, with only $40 in his pocket. Entertainer and civil rights activist Josephine Baker was just 19 when she left the United States and began dazzling Parisian crowds in 1925 draped in just a pink flamingo feather. Despite their humble beginnings, these iconic figures…
Read MoreTuskegee University’s Hidden Audio Collections
Tuskegee University Archives recently released new recordings from the Tuskegee Civic Association records that feature prominent leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. These speeches, addressing the Tuskegee community, fill in historical gaps to illuminate the relationships between leaders and their constituents. The collection was digitized from reel-to-reel tape under the care of university archivist Dana…
Read MorePittsburgh Literary Anthology Centers Stories Of Black Women
“The world is not tender with Black women,” write Deesha Philyaw and Vanessa German. “And we are not always tender with ourselves, or with each other. Pittsburgh, in particular, is not known for tenderness where we are concerned.” That’s from the introduction to “tender,” a new literary anthology Philyaw and German co-edited. The collection features…
Read MoreWatch Octavia Spencer Star as Madame C.J. Walker in New Series Trailer
Octavia Spencer portrays Madame C.J. Walker, America’s first self-made female millionaire, in the new Netflix series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madame C.J. Walker. The four-part limited series hits the platform on March 20th. Read more at The Rolling Stone.
Read MoreA WORKING AGENDA FOR BLACK AMERICA
We must recognize the systemic discrimination that infects our country, and we must work actively – and deliberately – to root it out and set us on a better path. This agenda is a work in progress and will continue to be updated based on input and insight from Black activists, community leaders, organizers, policy…
Read MoreAmerican Way of School Funding Is ‘Uniquely Bad’ for Inequality
The primary school in Crellin, Md., a village of 260 people, sits on a reclaimed coal-loading site in the Appalachian Mountains. On top of reading, writing, and arithmetic, students get to look after chickens and lambs in the barn outside. They also learn about pollution by testing water from the nearby river. It’s a place…
Read MoreRebels of Black History: How ‘Joy Goddess’ A’Lelia Walker Created Revolutionary Spaces for the Artistic and the Sensual
The intersection of 136 and Lenox Ave in Harlem is a busy one: within feet of each other are a mosque, a beauty supply, a Dunkin’ Donuts, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Countee Cullen Library, named for the famed Harlem Renaissance poet. It is a quintessential mix of commercial and…
Read MoreWomen and Politics: The Uphill Battle for the Top Job
Another disappointing turn of events for women in U.S. politics is unfolding, this time in the Democratic Party primaries. Of the five top candidates, the two women—Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar—are currently at the bottom of the delegate count. Indeed, the rise to the top elected political job has not been easy for women anywhere in…
Read MoreThis underfunded female demographic is launching the most start-ups in America, far from Silicon Valley
Gail Warrior, who created one of the largest woman- and minority-owned construction companies in the U.S., remembers her first experience applying for a business loan back in 2000. She was chief executive of Dallas-based Warrior Group, a modular construction company that had just won a government contract to build a barracks at Fort Bliss, and…
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