56 Search results for "civil rights icon"

by Daniel Johnson Toni Morrison, arguably the most influential living Black writer and some would say the most influential writer regardless of race, has crafted a body of work that is simultaneously grounded in a Black feminist/womanist politic, unquestionably Black, and commercially successful. In America, those things usually do not come all in the same […]

By Teju Adisa-Farrar Growing up in West Oakland, having asthma did not seem abnormal to me. My brother often had asthma attacks and my parents would have to rush him to the emergency room. I was taken to the hospital several times to do breathing treatments using a nebulizer. When playing sports at Lowell Park […]

By Tez Files Baptize me. Now that reconciliation is possible, if we’re gonna heal, let it be glorious. – Beyoncé, “Sandcastles” I must have heard Beyoncé’s “Sandcastles”a dozen times. I read all types of complexity into its lyrics. After having gone through a very difficult break-up, it was healing to sit with my emotions and […]

by Andrew Keahey Awards season is never much of a shining time for creatives of color. It’s consistently a celebration of white achievement while Black excellence and other visionaries of color are routinely ignored in favor of the same tropes and story telling devices that we’re used to seeing year after year. These tropes become […]

By Terrence Sage The following is a list of comics either ongoing or releasing this year. It is focused on either Black creative teams penning the adventures of superheroes, or comics that star Black superheroes in a prominent light!

In late 2016, a marker placed at the spot where Emmett Till’s body was found was riddled with bullets. Now, several miles away, a memorial marking the store where he was falsely accused of threatening a white woman in 1955 has been defaced. 

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day! It’s a day meant to reflect on the legacy of one of the most iconic figures in civil rights and social justice the world has ever known. Millions are given the opportunity to continue his missions and recall his values – which means all of them, not just the […]

By: Angelica Bastien Sorry to disappoint you Storm fans, but the latest X-Men film has once again failed to make her the badass she deserves to be on screen. Storm is the most well-known and powerful black female superheroes, so why does she keep being sidelined?

It was only a couple of months ago that we found out that the Smithsonian was creating an African-American museum. To make the news even better, now we know who the architect is. Her name is Zena Howard, and she is a dope Black woman architect.

Social movements over the years have taught us that politeness and respectabiility rarely result in lasting social change. When 15-year-old Claudette Colvin first resisted public bus segregation in Alabama on March 2, 1955, she did so knowing that she’d be classified as unruly, dangerous, and a threat to the very fabric of American society. Nine […]

By Dominique Hazzard I am a queer black woman. By this I mean that the words to describe my sexuality exist outside the margins, between the approved boundaries, beyond the limits of most imaginations. A queer thing is a thing that existing words cannot yet adequately describe, a thing that our language and our boxes […]

  The following post is from The Root. It was written by Danielle C. Belton. By: Danielle C. Belton A recent study by the Center for American Progress released this month highlighted what some might call the “soft bigotry of low expectations” if there was a way to take a jug of Downy fabric softener and make […]