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'I Am Not Able to Rest': Samaria Rice Reflects on the Life and Legacy of Her Son Tamir Rice on His 18th Birthday
“I have to be on the front lines because I am Tamir’s mother. Tamir is in high demand. When these things [police shootings of unarmed Black people] happen, I am not able to rest. I am not able to be normal. Normalcy went out the window when my son got murdered.” —Samaria Rice text Tamir…
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Finding Black Joy in Times of Crisis
The other week, I cried. For some, shedding tears in times of chaos and terror seems quite normal. Anticipated, even. To me, it felt strange. I am a black woman. As a journalist and a ‘student of the game,’ I am keenly aware of the systems of racism that—from this country’s inception—were created to oppress…
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The Good, the Bad and the Traumatic: Reevaluating the Role of Sharing Black Death on Social Media
“I think the mainstream media is addicted to trauma porn when it concerns black people…Those horrific images that we have of the Twin Towers falling to the ground are all we remember about 9/11. In cases where we think about mass shootings that predominantly affect white communities such as Sandy Hook, we don’t have pictures…
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Reimagining Blackness: Remembering the Fullness of Malcolm X's Revolutionary Life
“Malcolm X, his legacy, is this idea that blackness is a positive, complex, richly glorious tradition to be a part of. That it was a responsibility and not a burden….Malcolm is the activist who allowed us to love ourselves. And that means black women. That means black men. That means black children. That means black…
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Big Ballerina Energy: Misty Copeland Talks 'Swans for Relief' and 80 Years of American Ballet Theatre
“Whenever we’re in times like this, of tragedy, it’s such a natural thing. We’re human beings that gravitate towards dance and music because it’s healing.” — Misty Copeland, Principal Dancer, American Ballet Theatre text Misty Copeland, who became American Ballet Theatre’s first African-American principal dancer in 2015, is still putting in work. Most recently, Copeland’s…
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More Than 3/5: Stacey Abrams' Nonprofit Wants to Make Sure Black Men Aren't Left Out of the 2020 Census
“In Georgia alone, 67,000 black men are estimated to be undercounted....That funding is not lost from the federal government—the federal government just keeps that money. That just means that money goes to another community or another state or another city or another county.” — Ed Reed, Program Director, Fair Count text When it comes to…
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They Need Us: MSNBC’s Trymaine Lee on Black Journalists and Holding America to Its Ideals
“They need us. They need us as black journalists. They need us as journalists. They need us to push and push to tell the truth, because as we know, there are powers and influences in this country that would rather the truth not be told.” —Trymaine Lee, MSNBC correspondent text Pulitzer Prize and Emmy Award-winning…
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The 'Forgotten Population': Yusef Salaam Speaks Out About COVID-19 and the Prison Industrial Complex
“There’s going to be a more serious health crisis as it relates to the prison industrial complex and a prison population. Whatever we are seeing in the world is going to be times ten—it’s going to be magnified in the prison industrial complex.” —Yusef Salaam, Ph.D. text In the state of New York alone, there…
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The 2020 Census Is Critical for Black People. Here's Why We Need to 'Make Black Count'
“People are aware of the power of the numbers and they also are aware that this country is with every tick of the clock, is becoming browner and browner. So there’s this death grip really on the status quo and the whiteness of America that is fading and disappearing with every tick up the clock.”…
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Madam C.J. Walker, the Activist: A'Lelia Bundles Shares a Little-Told Story of Her Great-Great-Grandmother
“Activism is a very little-told story of Madam Walker’s life. She [Madam C.J. Walker] knew when she created hair care products that women needed some solutions for the infections—the scalp infections—but she knew that they needed, even more, education and financial independence.”—A’Lelia Bundles text It’s fairly well known that Madam C.J. Walker was the nation’s…
