On the very day his friends and comrades were celebrating the birthday of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz), Elombe Brath was joining his fellow revolutionary on the other side of our struggle.
Herb Boyd is an American journalist, educator, author, and activist. His articles appear regularly in the New York Amsterdam News. He teaches black studies at the City College of New York and the College of New Rochelle.
On the very day his friends and comrades were celebrating the birthday of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz), Elombe Brath was joining his fellow revolutionary on the other side of our struggle.
I was still reeling from the news that one of Detroit’s most remarkable freedom fighters, General Baker had joined the ancestors when in rapid succession like a machine gun of sorrow word came that the author Sam Greenlee had expired…
Amiri Baraka, like his name, was a blessed prince, and he loomed like a colossus over the Black arts movement, excelling in practically every literary expression—as a poet, playwright, novelist, historian, journalist, and essayist.
At the close of his autobiography, Yusef A. Lateef, the renowned musician, composer, and Grammy-winning recording artist wrote, “My life has been a series of ‘warm receptions,’…
By Herb Boyd
Special to IBW
Bird watchers, not those ornithologists armed with binoculars looking for the latest rare specimen on wing, but jazz lovers eagerly awaiting the arrival of Stanley Crouch’s study of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, the wingless immortal, can now exhale.
By Herb Boyd
Special to IBW
There is a lot of merit to the rumor and rave that “12 Years a Slave” is the best film ever made on the long, dark night of bondage, but as Les McCann once sang “Compared to What?”
Like many Americans my sleep was troubled last night, troubled by the ghosts of past injustices, a feeling given fresh currency by a late-hour not guilty verdict from Sanford, Florida that freed George Zimmerman in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin.
“Farther On Up the Road” is classic Bobby Blue Bland, but this song was initially recorded before his tenor voice gave way to that distinctive growl or “squall,” as…
Spending a morning with Congressman Charles Rangel is to be in touch with a diversity of the Harlem community from a breakfast at Sylvia’s where he was one of several…
At the close of the introduction to his breathtaking study Black Athena, Martin Bernal stated that “the political purpose of Black Athena is, of course, to lessen European cultural arrogance.”
In a recent issue of The Nation, Editor and Publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel was effusive in her praise of Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s plan to combat income inequality.
The “Old Gray Lady,” The New York Times, appears to be miffed that it was not the recipient of the leaks from whistleblower Edward Snowden, now on the run in Hong Kong and promising to fight extradition.