February 24, 2022

Revised Excerpt from the Epilogue of The Sexual Politics of Black Churches

Josef Sorett

The Sexual Politics of Black Churches began as an idea that grew from an event organized in response to a set of public debates over ten years ago. Surprisingly, what the book presents to readers is no less relevant today,...

February 24, 2022

Gary L. Francione on Why Veganism Matters

Most people think that animals matter morally. That is, they reject the view, popular in the West up until the nineteenth century, that animals are just things that are excluded completely from the moral and legal community. They think that...

February 21, 2022

The Innovative Mindset of Marie Van Brittan Brown

Lorraine H. Marchand

When we think of great innovators, the faces are usually the same—typically, white males, such as Edison, Tesla, Jobs, Musk. . . But history teaches us that while African Americans and women are historically underrepresented among the ranks of innovators and inventors,...

February 18, 2022

Anne Skomorowsky in Conversation with Robyn Massey about The Carriers

A tiny mutation on the X chromosome is a relatively common but still little-known genetic condition that can shape a family’s history. Passed down from a “carrier” parent to a child, fragile X syndrome is the most common inherited cause...

February 17, 2022

Lanaw Benson: An Unusual Manumission Story

Sara Cedar Miller

In James Riker’s definitive history of colonial Harlem, Lanaw Benson makes her only appearance in a footnote. In discussing a four-acre property that included a sliver of the future Central Park, Riker noted that “[David] Waldron sold it, June 6,...

February 15, 2022

Reconceptualizing Justice for the Victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

Nicole Iturriaga

On January 11, 2022, Hughes Van Ellis turned 101 years old. He is quoted in the local Tulsa news as saying, “My birthday cake is sweet, but justice is sweeter.” He, along with Viola Ford Fletcher and Lessie Benningfield Randle,...

February 14, 2022

Richard Ambron in Conversation with Robyn Massey About The Brain and Pain

For forty years, Richard Ambron directed a neuroscience lab at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University. This experience makes him uniquely qualified to explain not only how pain happens, but also how to think about and...

February 10, 2022

A Stratum of Sadness That Abides

David Hajdu

One hundred and one years ago, in February 1921, Bert Williams proposed something more radical than it should have been. Williams, a three-decade veteran of the stage at age forty-six, had risen from the woolly ranks of Barbary Coast honky-tonks...

February 9, 2022

Q&A: Scott MacDonald on William Greaves, a Pioneer of African American Filmmaking

William Greaves is one of the most significant and compelling American filmmakers of the past century. Best known for his experimental film about its own making, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One, Greaves was an influential independent documentary filmmaker who produced, directed, shot,...

February 8, 2022

Sidney Poitier and the New York Film Renaissance

By Richard Koszarski

I have been writing and researching the history of motion picture production in New York since the 1970s. Not the image of New York, but the way our local cultural and historical traditions interacted with broader industry trends to create...

February 4, 2022

Stephen Ross in Conversation with Robyn Massey on Chimpanzee Memoirs

Chimpanzees fascinate people for many reasons. The apes’ resemblance to humanity, as seen in their use of tools and their complex social lives, can awe us. But what moves someone to dedicate their lives to chimpanzees? In this conversation, Stephen...

February 2, 2022

Joseph L. Graves and Alan Goodman in Conversation with Olivia Treynor on Racism, Not Race

Joseph L. Graves and Alan Goodman’s new book, Racism, Not Race, breaks down crucial myths about race in a highly readable format. Dissecting everything from junk science on athletic ability to the real reasons different populations are more vulnerable to...