Jewel Wicker

Saundra Bishop has many memories inside the idyllic pink, craftsman-styled Alpha Kappa Alpha house in Los Angeles. The space wasn’t just a place where her mother and other members of the Alpha Gamma Omega graduate chapter of the historically Black sorority met, it was also a community hub. “In fact, I had my sweet 16 […]

In the crowded field of marketing, the Washington, D.C.-based Creative Theory Agency stands out for a few reasons, including the fact that the firm is Black-owned and focuses specifically on achieving cultural diversity and equity through its campaigns. So, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund was looking for […]

When Oklahoma City residents were asked how to revive two buildings that once served Black residents, they weren’t short on ideas. They asked if the former home of a Black entrepreneur became a performance and studio space for Black artists. Could the former meeting site for an organization dedicated to helping the local community become […]

Few people know that a Black inventor named Lewis Latimer worked with Thomas Edison and played a role in improving the light bulb. Latimer co-created “a method of manufacturing carbon filaments for light bulbs that made it easier to mass produce them,” according to The New York Times. “Safer than gas lamps, and less harsh […]

A plane flew over the memorial service of singer Florence Mills in 1927, dropping rose petals as she was laid to rest at New York’s Woodlawn Cemetery. Thirty years later, 150,000 people lined the sidewalks of Harlem in 1958 to see musician W.C. Handy’s processional as his remains traveled there. Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Cicely […]

When Tom Donatelli was a kid in the 1960s, the golf and country club less than a mile away from his home in Scotch Plains, New Jersey, was known as Scotch Hills Country Club.  Donatelli, now 68, can recall a time when he’d go golfing and sledding with friends on the property. Still, despite its […]

When Curtis Doucette decided to purchase and restore the historic Dew Drop Inn in New Orleans, the developer was just as invested in the future of the space as he was in commemorating its past.   “Our goal is to continue the legacy of the Dew Drop Inn,” Doucette says. “The question that we ask ourselves […]

July 25 marked what would have been Emmett Till’s 84th birthday. It is also now the anniversary of President Joe Biden’s establishment of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. To mark the occasion, the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund held a “Monuments & Justice” webinar that touched on the efforts to create […]

Towanda Mullins spent the morning of May 29 praying rainy weather would subside in time for the unveiling of a plaza and statue in honor of activist Sojourner Truth. Mullins, chairperson of the Sojourner Truth Project-Akron, had been working on the project for more than five years. As an Akron, Ohio, native however, she’s been […]