By Solomon Jones | The pain of that night was still fresh in Tracy’s mind when I interviewed him in 2015, three years after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon. Tracy also remembered the good times he’d shared with his son, and he freely shared all he could recall. Tracy, a truck driver who grew up in the impoverished city of East St. Louis before moving to Miami in his early twenties, lit up when he talked about Trayvon. Read more →

By Guilaine Kinouani | Racism causes harm. Harm to the body. And harm to the mind. Yet it was only in November 2020 that the American Medical Association recognized racism as an urgent threat to public health. Thankfully, many of us did not wait for this penny to drop to tackle its impact. For about fifteen years, I have been working therapeutically with people of color, supporting almost exclusively Black people distressed by racism and experiencing racial trauma. Read more →

By Jonathan Rosenblum | It’s time for an all-labor national day of action to defend Starbucks workers. The Starbucks baristas, REI retail workers, Amazon warehouse workers, striking Warrior Met mineworkers and concrete truck drivers, along with other workers bravely organizing and fighting back, are at the forefront of resisting unbridled corporate greed in this new Gilded Age. But they won’t succeed if the fights are limited by region or industry. Read more →

By Nancy Rubin Stuart | Everyone knows Benjamin Franklin was a scientist, an inventor, and a diplomat, but did you know he also had the makings of a great romance advice columnist? The founding father was well suited to that job because of his wide experience with women. That may explain why he penned a letter in 1745 to a single man about the best way to sate his sexual impulses outside marriage. Ben’s advice? Sleep with an older woman instead of a young one. Read more →

What a difference a year makes. Book banning is back—and it’s on steroids. Is it a coincidence that it’s all the rave—more like rage—during Black History Month? The pearl-clutchers have assembled and are targeting not only books dealing with sex and gender but also books featuring Black themes and US history. It’s a predictable flex. A tired flex. Read more →

By Ricky Tucker | This was one of the first images my friend and “And the Category Is . . .” photographer Kareem Worrell developed while I was writing the book—and it became an aspirational photo. The audacity of Lee, the central figure, drove my urge to match in tone his ferocity in the first few chapters. To, like Ballroom, unapologetically hold accountable the public appropriation of this unique culture, AND to elevate to divine status the unwavering love that is its foundation. In short, this photo is the epitome of the chapter “Werk.” Read more →

A Q&A with Jeanne Theoharis | I think people assume that they know her. Even many people who know Rosa Parks wasn’t just a simple seamstress who accidentally walked into history don’t realize how much of her history—the militancy of her early activism in Montgomery, her activism in Detroit, her work in the Black Power movement—is still largely unrecognized. Read more →

By Leigh Patel | On January 24, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear two cases that have upheld the use of affirmative action in college admissions. The cases, one filed against Harvard University and one against the University of North Carolina (UNC), have been organized financially and in media by Edward Blum, a legal strategist who has worked for years to lodge attacks against affirmative action. Although not a lawyer, Blum uses strategy of media and message and is also the president of Students for Fair Admissions, the organization that filed both lawsuits that will all be heard in the highest court in this land. What is affirmative action and what is at stake? Read more →