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The scrapbook of African-American history that Toni Morrison calls “a requirement for our national health” is still as beautiful and maddening as ever.
35th Anniversary of The Black Book, Edited by Toni Morrison -
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson and historian Annette Gordon-Reed win Pulitzer prizes for their work. Robinson won for the columns he wrote during the 2008 presidential campaign and Gordon-Reed was awarded for her book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. Playwright Lynn Nottage won the prize for Drama for her play Ruined, about life in the wartime Congo
2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners -
As a labor of love, a society of two keeps Marian Anderson's voice alive.
Marian Anderson, Concert on the Mall -
Black intellectuals remember the late John Hope Franklin, the courtly gentleman scholar who connected generations of black thought.
The Living Link That Expired -
He railed against the often segregated academic field of ‘black studies,’ deriding it as intellectual Jim Crow. But there would be no black studies without him, and for that, I am eternally thankful.
John Hope, the Prince Who Refused the Kingdom -
A week after President Obama’s inauguration, I’m still experiencing a joy—and painful exhaustion—that I’ve never felt before. How do we cope with this lingering post-inauguration meltdown?
Post-Inaugural Meltdown -
It's an almost unimaginable moment, filled with disbelief wrapped in amazement wrapped in euphoria.
Obama Closes the Deal, Finally -
This is a day for reflection and wallowing in history, not mundane political prognostication.
Obama Wins, Pigs Fly -
Call it a belated bailout of the Freedmen's Savings Bank, but now may be the perfect time, perhaps the only time, that African Americans, descendants of the slaves who toiled to build the United States of America, might be in a position to achieve the elusive goal of reparations.
Reparations as Bailout -
For many performers, a hit like "Say It Loud" would be a career peak; for James Brown, it was just another day at the office. Brown had dozens of hits and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of his significance. On the anniversary of his death, taking stock of the most influential man in pop music history.
R.I.P James Brown
