Originals
Shireen Lewis was working on her dissertation for her doctorate and feeling very isolated and alone. She recalls thinking, “There must be other women of color going through the same thing I am.” Lewis put out a call and four women showed up at the first gathering of a support group for women working on […]
Khadeeja was driving to work one day when a friend called to say she had spotted Khadeeja’s daughter, Azariah, on the streets. “I turned the car around and made a detour and I see her walking toward me,” Khadeeja recalled. “I had to park the car and run after her. I got her but I […]
A Los Angeles-based porn star says he regrets hiding his test positive test results for syphilis from a producer. An STD scare recently shut down the porn industry temporarily so that the actors could be tested. You may not have plans to star in a professional, amateur, for that matter, porn film, but knowing your […]
They used to be Jabarr and Gigi Dowell. That was back when they were microbiologists. Now they are known as DNA (“Destroying Negative Attitudes”) and Gi-Twice. He spits his poetry while she sings hers and provides melodic riffs to his spoken word. They both play guitars. They are a dynamic duo of brains and music […]
St. Adalbert Church is known as the first and only African-American Catholic parish in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2009, St. Adalbert was among the 50 churches that were ordered to close due to a shortage of priests, funding and church members. Because of the parish’s rules on removing and selling artifacts, the valuable pieces inside St. […]
It was 2007 when Charisma Cannon lost her marketing job in Atlanta, which had the ripple effect of eventually causing her to lose her house. While she was trying to untangle her financial affairs, she was also struck by a mysterious illness doctors couldn’t seem to diagnose. The least amount of activity exhausted her. She […]
As a child, life looked bleak to Toni Blackman. She was taunted for being overweight, her father was a drug addict and later as a teen she was depressed and suicidal. Then she discovered her voice, the mic and that black people can have what she calls “white boy arrogance.” These were the first steps […]
Dani Simien was in his car, driving home from his girlfriend’s prom. It was a foggy Saturday night, April 29, 2007. The next thing he remembers is waking up in a hospital room. “I tried to move my legs and arms and I couldn’t. I saw all kinds of machines, feeding tubes, a trachea in […]
It is impossible to tell K. D. Hardy’s story without talking about his mother. In addition to giving birth to him, you could say also that Patricia Hardy helped re-birth her son. And she did it with a big dose of tough love. The family lived in Birmingham, where she worked as a medical secretary […]
Before Jamal Tate decided to be a college student, he took a diversion. He went to jail once. Then again. And finally, a third time. “We had everybody praying—my coworkers, family members, friends, even people at the jail,” said his mother Erica Swinney, who raised Tate as a single parent. “Maybe a month after he […]
84-year-old Nathaniel “Magnificent” Montague is a “chaser” of black history artifacts. Montague, a pioneer radio DJ, has collected 50 years of rare and one-of-a-kind documents, footage, recordings and papers in a private collection – 8,000 pieces in all. His collection is valued as being worth millions of dollars. His impressive collection started in 1956 with […]
On April 26th at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, a black collector of antiques named David Pilgrim will open the first Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Pilgrim, a sociology Professor at Ferris, has spent decades collecting racist memorabilia and will now present thousands of pieces of historical artifacts in one museum. Visitors […]
