It’s Lit
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'Black People Are America's True Founding Fathers': The Root Presents: It's Lit! Launches With 1619 Project Creator Nikole Hannah-Jones
“I just want people to know the date 1619,” is what New York Times investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones told her editor when pitching the journalistic opus we now know as The 1619 Project. Launched in August 2019, the landmark issue compiled some of the greatest writers and thought leaders of our time to commemorate the…
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Read, Write, Revolt: The Root Launches the It's Lit! Podcast With Inaugural Guest Nikole Hannah-Jones
Autumn has only just begun, but 2020 has already been a study in contrasts: Some of us have taken to the streets, but even more of us spent an unprecedented amount of our time at home this year. Our discourse has unimaginably become even more divided, but we are holding our loved ones and ideals…
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Mariah Carey Opens Up About Tommy Mottola in New Memoir: 'He Tried to Wash the ‘Urban’ Off of Me'
We’re about to learn the “meaning” of Mariah Carey. At the time of this blog’s posting, the diva’s new memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey (co-written by Michaela Angela Davis) is set for wide release and will soon be in the hands of fans and curious onlookers alike. In a recent book review from Rich…
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Black Authors Will Be the Standouts at This Year’s (Virtual) National Book Festival
In 2001, when the Library of Congress’ inaugural National Book Festival kicked off in Washington, D.C., some 50 award-winning authors, illustrators and storytellers peopled the pop-up tents on the East Lawn of the U.S. Capitol to read excerpts of their work, sign their books and interact with fans. That was September 9. Two days later,…
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Sunny Hostin Says ABC Censored Her New Memoir, Which Details Discrimination Allegations
Did ABC execs insist on removing segments of The View co-host Sunny Hostin’s new memoir, I Am These Truths? As Hostin told Ronan Farrow in a candid conversation about her new book, which debuted today, September 22, yes, they did. The memoir, named in reference to the Constitution, apparently shares revealing insights about Hostin’s Afro-Latinx…
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Cole Brown's Greyboy Illuminates the Intersection of Being Young, Wealthy and Black
Cole Brown has lived his entire 24 years of life at the intersection of privilege and Blackness. The son of a Fortune 100 exec and the grandson of the first female senator in Ethiopia, he was born into the Jack and Jill, exclusive private school, summering in Martha’s Vineyard African American elite. That might be…
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Artist Denys Cowan Talks Static Shock and the Return of Milestone Media
Denys Cowan is a true legend of the comic book game. He was one of the original founders of Milestone Media, the legendary ‘90s comic imprint that birthed heroes like Hardware, Icon and Static, and it was announced earlier this year that Cowan, along with writer and 72nd Annual Emmy Awards director Reginald Hudlin would…
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A Promised Land: The First of Barack Obama's Two-Volume Presidential Memoirs to Be Published in November
If you’ve never stopped longing for the simpler, kinder, more rational time and place that was Barack Obama’s presidency, you are far from alone—and can soon take a deeper dive into the beloved president’s remarkable rise from civic-minded civilian to the highest office in the land. On Thursday, Penguin Random House announced that Obama’s highly…
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Turning a New Page, the Schomburg Literary Festival Is Going Virtual—and Global—for 2020
OK, so let’s articulate the obvious: There will be no tents or stages at the Schomburg Literary Festival this year. There will be no road-tripping or traveling to New York City’s beloved Harlem or electric anticipation in the line for in-person author signings. There will be no flipping through the fresh, crisp pages of a…
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Christian Cooper Releases It's a Bird Comic Book Inspired by Viral 'Central Park Karen' Incident
Y’all remember Christian Cooper, the Central Park bird watcher who gave us the Watergate of viral Karen stories? (Karengate? Beckygate? Hey-Blacky-get-the-hell-away-from-my-gate? I’m sure we’ll settle on a name eventually.) Well, he’s back with a new comic book partially inspired by his encounter with Amy “Central Park Karen” Cooper, the woman who lost her job, dog…