By Janelle Harris — Surya Bonaly was art to watch. My mama, home on a rare half-day from work, was flipping through our local TV channels and, seeing a new black ice skater, hurried to record her on a VHS tape she reserved exclusively for classic movies and occasional Oprah Winfrey shows. After I got in from school, she slid it into the VCR. “Watch this little black girl,” she…
How much has really improved for black people in the U.S. since 1968? By Sharon Austin — On Apr. 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, while assisting striking sanitation workers. That was almost 50 years ago. Back then, the wholesale racial integration required by the 1964 Civil Rights Act was just beginning to chip away at discrimination in education, jobs and public facilities. Black voters had only obtained legal protections two years earlier, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act was about to become law. African-Americans were only beginning to move into neighborhoods, colleges and careers once reserved for whites only.
History class should be the last place where we stop talking about race. By Donald Earl Collins — It’s happened ever since I began teaching as a graduate student in 1991. Most semesters in which I have taught a course related to U.S. history, the complaint appears at least once on my students’ course evaluations: “too much time on race.”Whether at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, Duquesne, George Washington…
“The Black Lives Matter at School movement is about dismantling the school-to-prison-pipeline and creating a school-to-justice-pipeline.” By Jesse Hagopian — Educators in America know all too well that the school-to-prison…
February 5th Fund Drive Edition of Vantage Point Topic Award Winning Writing/Author Edwidge Danticat and International Acclaimed Guitarist Alix Pascal Discuss the Legacy of Legendary Haitian Folk Singer Manno Charlemagne…
By Keisha N. Blain, the Conversation — Black History Month is an opportunity to reflect on the historical contributions of black people in the United States. Too often, however, this history focuses on black men, sidelining black women and diminishing their contributions. This is true in mainstream narratives of black nationalist movements in the United States. These narratives almost always highlight the experiences of a handful of black nationalist men, including…
This week would’ve marked her 105th birthday — it’s time to move beyond the quiet seamstress narrative. By Urana McCauley as told to Liz Dwyer, Shondaland — This is how…
By Chris Lebron — As a black philosopher, I am constantly navigating a path through the traditions and categories that define my profession. Most often, that navigation takes place between the canonical Western philosophy stretching back to Ancient Greece and the more recent intellectual output and contributions of previously excluded groups, including women, L.G.B.T people and African-American thinkers. This last tradition — the history of black thought — is a…
By Natalie Hopkinson — I awoke each morning dead tired, and often parched. I was going to the restroom constantly. My doctor did some blood work and delivered the dreaded news: My A1C levels were in the danger zone. Like 1 in 3 Americans, up to 90 percent of whom don’t know it, I was what she called “prediabetic.” My body was struggling to process sugar. I had to eat less…
Afro-Colombian women. Photo by Aime Saldarriaga, Reuters. By Adolfo G. Cuevas — Public health research has documented racial disparities in health and health care for decades. When looking at the 10…
By Natasha S. Alford, theGrio — Patrisse Khan-Cullors says she co-founded the “Black Lives Matter” movement out of love. But in a country plagued by longtime tension between law enforcement officers…
White supremacists have stepped up recruitment efforts on campuses across the nation. By Kali Holloway, AlterNet — In early 2017, Donald Trump took to his medium of choice to simultaneously…
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