KOLUMN Magazine - KOLUMN Magazine

Born Into Slavery, This Centenarian Learned to Read at 116, Becoming the Nation’s Oldest Student | Black Enterprise

January 13, 2020June 19, 2020African American History, Black History

Selena Hill, Black Enterprise Despite being born into slavery and enduring over a century of discrimination, Mary Hardway Walker managed to accomplish an extraordinary feat. At 116 years old, she learned to read. Walker was born in Union Springs, Alabama, in 1848 and lived in bondage until she was freed at the age of 15 following […]

1,000 pot convictions tossed as Kim Foxx expunges records of marijuana busts | Chicago Sun Times

January 10, 2020January 10, 2020Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Reform ...

Foxx went to court Wednesday to vacate and expunge records of people caught up in the drug war — her first move to wipe the books clean after the state legalized recreational marijuana. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] More than 1,000 pot convictions will soon be off the books in Cook County. In a hearing Wednesday afternoon at […]

Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi. | The Marshall Project

January 10, 2020January 10, 2020African American Economics, Debtors Prison

A few years ago, I read slave narratives to explore the lives of black agricultural workers after the end of the Civil War. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] JACKSON, Miss.—During her shifts at a Church’s Chicken, Annita Husband looked like the other employees. She wore the same blue and red polo shirt, greeted the same customers and slung […]

The blackest city in the US is facing an environmental justice nightmare | The Guardian

January 10, 2020January 10, 2020Detroit, Environmental Activism ...

Detroit’s most vulnerable residents face inequalities like toxic air, lead poisoning, and water shutoffs. Now they’re fighting back. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Growing up in southwest Detroit, Vince Martin thought it was normal for the sky to be orange. When he was three years old, his family moved from Cuba to one of the black areas of […]

Everyone And Their Mama Was In Ghana For The Holidays | Essence

January 10, 2020January 10, 2020African American Travel, Ghana

The FOMO was real this holiday season as Black excellence hit the streets of Accra, Ghana. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] If you weren’t in Ghana for the holidays, you were probably the only one. Melanin of all shades descended on the streets of Accra to close out not only the decade but the country’s ridiculously successful Year […]

Meet Melissa Harville-Lebron: The First Black Woman to Own a NASCAR Team | Black Enterprise (2018)

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020African American Athletes

Melissa Harville-Lebron never imagined that her entrepreneurial pursuits and ambitions would lead her to make history as the first African American woman to solely own a race team licensed by NASCAR. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Harville-Lebron, a 47-year-old single mother raising her three biological children as well as her siblings’ four kids, started her career in the […]

Canada’s first and only all-black battalion honoured with special stamp | Global News

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020African American Veterans

Canada Post unveiled a limited edition stamp in Cherrybrook, N.S. on Tuesday to commemorate the 100th anniversary of black men who formed a segregated unit and fought during the First World War. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] The company said the stamp is a chance to honour the contributions of black Canadians. “This stamp honours men who stepped […]

DGA Award Nominations Acknowledge Existence of Female Directors | Vulture

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020African American Cinema, African American Film

The Directors Guild of America has announced its nominees for Best Feature Film Director of 2019, and many of them are women — or at least many of them in the First-Time Feature Film Director category are women. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Atlantics’ Mati Diop, Honey Boy’s Alma Har’el, and Queen & Slim’s Melina Matsoukas all received […]

The plunder of black wealth in Chicago, captured in film | The Chicago Reporter

January 9, 2020January 9, 2020African American Economics, African American Wealth

Black families in Chicago lost an estimated $4 billion due to predatory contract buying, a Duke University’s Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity study found. Artist in residence Bruce Orenstein spoke to surviving victims. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] In just two short decades — while the post World War II housing boom created the wealth of […]

Corey Michael Hadley, Army infantryman and sharpshooter, dies at 30 | The Philadelphia Inquirer

January 8, 2020January 8, 2020African American Veterans, Mental Health

After six years and three tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Corey Michael Hadley returned home to Philadelphia in 2013. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] As an Army rifleman in a leadership role, Mr. Hadley had spent many days traveling door to door to root out armed militia members and terrorists who had sworn to kill Americans. […]