Writer and scholar Alexis Pauline Gumbs makes greens almost every day: chard, kale and — this time of the year — heaping pots of vegan collard greens. Gumbs, author of the recent Audre Lorde biography Survival is a Promise and a thinker who delights in the natural world, finds something meditative about “the process of […]
History
Posted inAgriculture, History
The Push to Rename Black-Eyed Peas and Reclaim African Heritage
Bonnetta Adeeb sighs heavily when she hears the term “cowpea.” Seconds pass while she decides how to respond. Will it be the modulated, kind but firm response of the former teacher of 37 years she is? Or will she show some of her vexation at “that word,” which she avoids as if it leaves an […]
Posted inHistory
The Renewed Urgency of Preserving Black History
Black Voters and the Fight for Democracy is a multipart series that explores the stakes of the 2024 election for our communities. This project was produced as part of the Advancing Democracy Fellowship. Bold. Assertive. Unafraid of questioning people or circumstances. That’s how 82-year-old Rosita Stevens-Holsey describes her “Aunt Pauli.” “Even if she was talking […]
Posted inEducation, HBCUs, Higher Education, History, Partner Content
What Research on ‘Sundown Towns’ Can Teach Us About Racism
Originally published by Open Campus. When sociologist James Loewen took his first academic position at Tougaloo College, he couldn’t have known the profound impact his work on sundown towns would have on the understanding of systemic racism. Decades later, his research continues to shed light on these racially exclusive communities, and his legacy endures at […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
5 Black Presidential Candidates Who Paved the Way for Kamala Harris
In 1848, Frederick Douglass was the very first Black candidate to receive a nominating bid for the American presidency. He received one vote. Over the next 100 years, Black presidential hopefuls — particularly those with connections to the two major parties — would eke out symbolic victories and break barriers. Their efforts paved the way […]
Posted inHistory, News
Possibly the Final Insult in a Yearslong Reparations Fight
“If we want to be on the right side of history, then America — the city of Tulsa — needs to make it right,” Tiffany Crutcher, a native of the Oklahoma city that was the site of a deadly race massacre more than a century ago, recently told Capital B. But things won’t be made […]
Posted inHistory
Inside the Battle to Preserve the Legacy of Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’
It’s time — past time — that Tulsa’s historic Greenwood neighborhood be granted national monument status, said Tiffany Crutcher, a native of the Oklahoma city that more than a century ago was the site of a white supremacist massacre. Her hope is that the district, known as “Black Wall Street,” will soon secure that history-honoring […]
Posted inEducation, History, Politics & Policy
Revisiting Brown v. Board of Education’s Legacy in a New Era of Massive Resistance
Exactly 70 years after some of the greatest Black legal minds in the U.S. challenged racial segregation in public schools, the assault on diversity in the classroom and beyond is gaining fresh momentum. Black students have long been subtly pushed out of schools thanks to disciplinary policies with roots in widespread resistance to desegregation efforts. […]
Posted inHistory, Policing, Politics & Policy
Gaza, Student Protest, and the Legacy of the Civil Rights Movement
Looking at the images might make you feel as if you’ve stepped back in time. Late on Tuesday, New York City police clad in riot gear entered Columbia University and removed dozens of peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators, leading them away with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. Over the past week, hundreds of college students calling […]
Posted inHistory, Politics & Policy
Black Residents Battle Against Tennessee GOP’s Effort to Ban Reparations
The Rev. Earle J. Fisher, an activist and longtime resident of Memphis, Tennessee, is battling against yet another assault on Black economic and political progress by state Republicans. Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, these efforts have ramped up, particularly in majority-Black Shelby County, the largest county in the state. Just last month, […]
