51 Search results for "ghost story"

The ghost in the wall knocked loudly above the girl’s head and she sprung from her sleep, getting her foot tangled in the clutches of her sheets before landing on her knees with a thud. A long wail escaped her throat as she winced, pushed herself up, and limped out of the room as fast […]

by Naiquan. Last summer, a friend and I realized we hadn’t seen children playing in the fire hydrant. No elder on the block with a key to unlock the “Johnny Pump”. As a child of the Brooklyn Spike Lee portrayed in “Crooklyn,” I know first-hand the feelings of protection and support from my neighbor’s grandfather, […]

I imagine that I would be a historian, a social librarian of sorts, whenever Black liberation is realized, and I imagine that my role wouldn’t look much different from the work I am already doing: Helping to keep Black histories. For as long as I’ve been aware of my Blackness as a threat to whiteness […]

By Naomi Alexis The so-called “father of modern gynecology”, James Marion Sims, trafficked in enslaved Black women, likely impregnating them through rape, in scientific experimentations for the purpose of advancing his career in medicine. When experimenting on these enslaved women, he did so without anesthesia. He developed tools through trial and error and repeatedly performed […]

by Vernon  Jordan, III She sat in the back of the joint, eyeing him. From over the shoulder of his bass, he noticed her fingers around the rim of a glass, miming the bass notes. He was the player, but so was she. Rooted, was their first glance, she minded him the way trees mind […]

by Janyce Glasper Hannah Bledsoe loved Linda Crawford. Yet Hannah desperately needed a quiet, isolated place to paint alone. One simply could not crash on a college friend’s couch forever. She found salvation in the good neighborhood— a drafty basement converted into a studio apartment. The tightly jarred windows and cracked ceilings poorly congealed together […]

We search for the body of the ghost’s sister underneath what is left of the fifteen level building. It’s mid morning and the sky is black, its marine layer covered in thick fog and ash. All around us the packed city spreads open like a gate, beckoning. The world is quiet now, with everyone huddled […]

by Dom Alexander Rummaging through a dead man’s possessions is, perhaps, the strangest thing I’ve ever done. I sit on the floor in his room. The setting, orange sun seeps through the window. I breathe in the pungent cologne, still clinging onto curtains. The carpet sinks, coinciding with the dancing footsteps of a ghost, stepping […]

Content Note: This essay contains descriptions of childhood sexual assault. When I finally cum, I fear it will be an ancestral libation, an offering to him. In death, he has only become even more persistent, and no less of a formidable task to resist. You are on top of me, fully man, but I am […]

We’ve been following the Miami Dolphins’ bullying case starring a dude whose real name is actually Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin here on the BYP, because sports–and sports stories–are never entirely about sports. I’m repeating myself and others when I say that sports is a microcosm of the culture, and this issue is no exception. […]

Although I was rather unceremoniously catapulted from it, I occasionally hear stirrings in the Ivory Tower. And sometimes those goings-on warrant a drivel-laced comment from me. Late last week, Brainstorm, one of the blogs on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, ran a response to the its own feature on some members of Northwestern University’s first class of […]

by Miranda Goosby Chicago holds memory like a drum—echoing, constant, never still. This summer, the South Side sang in every register: fireworks cracking through the night sky, children shrieking with joy, organizers building futures block by block. Since Juneteenth, every weekend has felt like a pageant of presence. Brown skin shining like mirrors to the […]