WRIIT - KOLUMN Magazine

Telling The Story Of The Apollo Theater | Essence

November 7, 2019November 11, 2019African American Entertainment, African American History

Director Roger Ross Williams spoke to ESSENCE about bringing the story of The Apollo—the “nucleus” of Black culture, music and art—to life.

Ernest J. Gaines, Author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Dead at 86 | The Root

November 7, 2019November 7, 2019African American Author, African American History

Ernest J. Gaines, a MacArthur fellow best known for the book The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, died at his home in Oscar, La., Tuesday. He was 86. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] In an obituary on their website, the Ernest J. Gaines Center at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, described the author as leaving behind a […]

Stacey Abrams Says She Is Willing To Serve As Running Mate For Democratic Presidential Nominee | Black Enterprise

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019African American Politics, African American Vote

Although former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams emphatically stated that she would not run for president in 2020, she told a crowd gathered at The University of Iowa yesterday that she was open to joining the race as the eventual Democratic nominee’s running mate. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] As reported by The Iowa Press-Citizen, Abrams told the […]

Will America’s Universities Point The Way Towards Reparations For Slavery? | Forbes

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019African American History, Reparations

Georgetown University recently announced that it plans to raise around $400,000 a year to pay for reparations. They would go to the descendants of enslaved people who were exploited by Jesuit plantations and who were eventually sold to bring revenue to the university. A number of other universities, including Princeton Theological Seminary, have also announced […]

Why the Democrats Will Debate at Atlanta’s Tyler Perry Studios This Month | New York Magazine, Intelligencer

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019African American Politics, Black Vote

arly speculation about the location of the November 20 Democratic presidential candidate debate had focused on some site in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, the newly competitive area where the Democrats picked up one U.S. House seat in 2018 and nearly nabbed another. There is, in fact, a spanking new 1,070-seat event venue called City […]

The Color Fetish | The New Yorker

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019African American Literature, Colorism ...

Of constant fascination for me are the ways in which literature employs skin color to reveal character or drive narrative—especially if the fictional main character is white (which is almost always the case). Whether it is the horror of one drop of the mystical “black” blood, or signs of innate white superiority, or of deranged […]

Huntsville native named Estée Lauder’s top lawyer | AL.com

November 6, 2019November 6, 2019African American Professionals

At a young age, it was apparent to her family that Deirdre Stanley would make something of herself. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] “Deirdre was always a hard worker, dedicated to whatever task she set out to accomplish,” her mother, Mary Stanley said. “She would stay up late at night, after all family members were long in bed, […]

Kweisi Mfume to seek congressional seat vacated by death of Elijah Cummings | The Washington Post

November 5, 2019November 5, 2019African American Politics, African American Vote ...

Former NAACP chief and congressman Kweisi Mfume said Monday that he will run for the U.S. House seat most recently held by his friend Elijah E. Cummings, who died last month. [mc4wp_form id=”6042″] Considered an elder statesman in Baltimore politics, Mfume, 71, occupied Maryland’s 7th District seat from 1987 to 1996, when he stepped aside […]

Is ‘Diversity’ Destroying The HBCUs? | Forbes

November 5, 2019HBCU, Historically Black Colleges and Universities

A new research brief from the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers University asserts, “It can be argued that historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are experiencing a renaissance in terms of their enrollment of black students.” I found this startling, since for years HBCU enrollments have trended downward. Moreover, overall enrollments are in […]

‘Seeing doers doing’: A reflection on reshaping black philanthropy | IUPUI

November 5, 2019January 27, 2020African American Philanthropy

Where are African American philanthropists giving their resources, and why are they donating to specific causes? What will the future of giving in the African American community look like? Bachelor’s degree student David Johnson reflects on a Mays Family Institute on Diverse Philanthropy panel event featuring six African American panelists working in various ways to […]