culture
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#TheRootTrip: A Grand Hotel in the Heart of Meridian, Miss.
#TheRootTrip is a series of long, two- to three-hour drives on the highway as I desperately try to get to small towns before sundown. The trip from Jackson, Miss., to Meridian, Miss., happened in the late afternoon, and I could see a thunderstorm approaching as I tried hard to reach my destination before dark. What’s…
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All Eyez on a Flop
When I saw the trailer for All Eyez on Me, the film about the life of the late Tupac Shakur, I thought it looked like a big-budget version of the movies Lifetime made about Aaliyah and Whitney Houston. That is not a compliment. In fact, Aaliyah and Nippy are probably high-fiving each other in heaven…
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#TheRootTrip: Try the Pig Ear Sandwich at the Big Apple Inn, Home of Authentic Southern Cooking in Miss.
You can’t visit Jackson, Miss., a surprisingly progressive city in a very conservative state, without checking out the Big Apple Inn Restaurant on 509 N. Farish St. A delightful hole in the wall that reeks of old, black Mississippi, the Big Apple Inn has become a darling of television shows looking for authentic, unfiltered, black…
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#TheRootTrip: In a Historic District in Jackson, Miss., a Chance at a Rebirth
It was onward to Jackson, Miss., and my first Green Book stop was at the former Shepherds Kitchenette at 604 North Farish St. During Jim Crow segregation, Farish Street was the center of the black business community, home to numerous record companies and restaurants, and it was the original home of Jackson State University. David…
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Hip-Hop, Mental Health and Telling Our Stories: Combat Jack Talks the Life and Death of Chris Lighty
“Powerful black men like Chris Lighty don’t shoot themselves. It makes no sense, but somehow there he was, lying in the casket with a bullet in his skull.” This statement, shared by Reggie Ossé, captured many of our original thoughts when learning that hip-hop mogul Chris Lighty died from an apparent suicide in 2012. Even…
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The Profound Quandary of Blackness in the Video Game ‘Detroit: Become Human’
You might not have noticed, but over the past week, the internet has been losing its collective damn mind over E3, a video game conference showcasing all of next year’s flagship games, which just wrapped up several days of pomp and circumstance. Every E3 has had some controversy, but this year, rather than another sexual…
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This Lying, Murdering Whore Called America
Today—almost a year after a man who took an oath to protect and serve sent a bullet into the skull of another human being at point-blank range who was absolutely no threat to anyone on earth—12 jurors, a judge and and the entire American justice system stood on the grave of Philando Castile, took an…
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#TheRootTrip: Don’t Expect to Be Welcome at This Old-School Pool Hall Without a Little Home Training
I know these black men. I’ve known them all of my life. That was my first thought after I’d walked down the darkened hallway, past Stamper’s barbershop in Monroe, La., and into the pool hall where a dozen black men—ranging in age from mid-30s to “he been here forever”—sat around enjoying each other’s presence. Bones…
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#TheRootTrip: Good Times and Good Vibes at Shreveport, La.’s Bon Temps Coffee Bar
Nothing against Starbucks because Lord knows that over the years, I’ve spent a mortgage payment on venti iced chai lattes, but when I saw that Shreveport, La., had a black-owned coffee bar in its Red River District, well, I just had to make a stop and visit. Welcome to Bon Temps Coffee Bar, owned by…
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#TheRootTrip: Where a La. Hotel Once Stood, People From the Past and Present Have Been Forgotten
The next spot on my 1957 Green Book list was the Will Steward Hotel. I wasn’t able to find anything about Will Steward himself, but there were a number of Will Stewards who lived in the Shreveport area in the mid-1950s, although none of them seems directly connected to the building above. Now apartments, the…