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Editors’ Choice

Ta-Nehisi Coates

An Ongoing Battle. Ta-Nehisi Coates’s narratives of freedom.

By Editors' Choice

History has always been a weapon in the hands of Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now, in his debut novel, the social critic and essayist sets out to recover those struggles for emancipation that have been lost to the past. By Elias Rodriques, The Nation — American history has always been a weapon in the hands of Ta-Nehisi Coates. As a blogger and columnist for The Atlantic, he wielded it to chronicle the long…

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The Apollo Theater

HBO’s The Apollo: ‘The story of how black America lifted itself through music’

By Editors' Choice

The director Roger Ross Williams on the Harlem ‘temple’ that has hosted legendary performers from James Brown to Lauryn Hill. By André Wheeler, The Guardian — The Apollo Theater is a living piece of black history. Located in the heart of Harlem on West 125th Street, the theater has operated as a refuge for black audiences and performers from its opening in 1934. Artists from James Brown and Aretha Franklin to Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill have graced…

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Kids play basketball at Wilson Park near where Interstate 81 slices through a public housing complex in Syracuse, N.Y.

In Syracuse, a road and reparations

By Editors' Choice, Reparations

By Robert Samuels, Washington Post — This city’s south side was devastated when a highway section went up. Now that there’s talk of taking it down, residents think they should be protected — and compensated. SYRACUSE, N.Y. — When Ryedell Davis heard the 1.5-mile stretch of elevated highway slicing through this city might be torn down, he had a vision about what could emerge from its dust. He could open…

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