• Gullah-Geechee Community: Hear Us On Climate Change

    Gullah-Geechee Community: Hear Us On Climate Change

    ST. HELENA ISLAND, S.C.–Ed Atkins Jr., 68, is proud of his family tradition. He’s a third-generation fisherman and owner of Atkins Live Baits and Local Oysters, which was started by his mother and father. But Atkins is worried that the effect of climate change on the waters are hurting not only his business, but also…

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  • Funding Is Top Issue for Trump’s Newly Appointed Board of Advisors on HBCUs

    President Donald Trump recently announced 13 new appointees to the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Bennett College President Phyllis Dawkins is among them. Dawkins, at the helm of a school established to educate freedmen and train teachers in Greensboro, N.C., in 1873, has strong views on what such institutions and…

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  • Malcolm X Tells His Story in New Documentary Featuring Rarely and Never-Before-Seen Footage

    In front of a rapt audience at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Malcolm X’s third daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz, talked about witnessing the assassination of her father at Harlem’s Audubon Theatre and Ballroom on Feb. 21, 1965. “I’m told my mother placed her entire body over my sisters and me that…

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  • Jenifer Lewis Is the Mother of Black Hollywood and She Has the Receipts to Back It Up

    It seems as if you can hear her laugh from miles away. Her smile is so bright it lights up the darkest theater, cabaret, movie or television screen. Jenifer Lewis—of Black-ish; Broadway’s Eubie!; the films Beaches, Poetic Justice and What’s Love Got to Do With It, among scores of others—is fearless. That’s a good thing…

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  • The Smithsonian Is Creating a Dope Hip-Hop Anthology

    When MC Lyte broke into the hip-hop world as a pioneering solo female rapper, she wasn’t thinking about making history. Like most aspiring artists, she wanted to be on the radio. “I was a lover of hip-hop. I went to the hip-hop clubs. I started rapping in elementary school 
 at 12, I started keeping…

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  • Women’s March: Massive Crowds Take Over DC and Cities Around the Country

    Singer-actress Janelle MonĂĄe said a prayer with her fellow performers before taking the stage to raucous cheers at Saturday’s Women’s March, which drew a gargantuan crowd that packed the National Mall from the streets east of the U.S. Capitol all the way west past 17th Street. “I want to remind you that it was woman…

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  • Here’s What the Vibe Was Like at President Trump’s Inauguration

    Yvette Cormier’s brows furrowed when she was asked what she thought about being on the National Mall to see President Donald Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. She was here for both of President Barack Obama’s inaugurations and thinks that today wasn’t the same at all. “The energy of the crowd is completely different, and there’s no diversity,”…

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  • Meet Gloria Allen, Trans Icon Who Led Charm School for Transgender Youths of Color

    Gloria Allen, 71, is a transgender African-American woman who is seen as an icon by many in her community. She volunteered for years teaching a charm-school class at Chicago’s Center on Halsted, trying to teach transgender and gender nonconforming youths how to survive and to believe in themselves. “If we were all the same way…

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