Why are Harvard’s slavery researchers quitting or being fired?, The Guardian

Harvard University launched a $100 million project to examine the school’s long ties to slavery. However, key researchers and academics involved in the project are either quitting or being fired. They are alleging that the university is getting in the way of their research.

Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ makes a Black neighborhood a testing lab for AI policing, Capital B News

Adam Mahoney and Madeline Thigpen reported on America’s most surveilled city—Atlanta—and how the city is destroying its forest to lay the foundation for an AI-fueled network of cameras.

In the parlors of Black bibliophiles: How Arturo Schomburg built a library and made history, Literary Hub

“In an era known as the “nadir” of American race relations because of escalating anti-black violence—and when few libraries or learned societies admitted Black readers—bibliophiles met the moment by turning their private parlors into public spaces,” historian Laura E. Helton writes.

It’s White House Correspondents’ Week here in DC, and the Washington Association of Black Journalists hosted a reception Wednesday honoring our members who work to cover the White House every day. Being able to host this event honoring Black journalists, during a week that traditionally is a very white affair, was amazing. The laughs, hugs, and “long-time-no-sees” made it all worth it.

The event was a reminder don’t have to wait for invites—we can create our own rooms. Thank you to and AP White House reporter Darlene Superville for delivering remarks, my WABJ executive board, the National Association of Broadcasters, Comcast, our volunteers, the caterers, bartenders, and everyone else who made the event happen. My hope is it will be even bigger next year, and we can invite more folks. And no, I will not be attending the dinner!

What’s In The News

Across America

California: The San Francisco Chronicle published an interactive examining how the city’s Black population changed, block by block, over 50 years…

Georgia: The Miss Spelman pageant has sparked debate after it announced co-campus homecoming queens, the first time it has done so...

Florida: Democrat Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick has resigned ahead of an ethics investigation into her use of campaign funds…

Illinois: Chicago may be the worst big city for Black economic mobility…

Kansas: Gov. Laura Kelly recently signed a bill prohibiting DEI and Critical Race Theory-focused courses from being required across the state’s public colleges…

Louisiana: Adam Mahoney went to New Orleans to see the Angola Prison Rodeo, where it debuted in the Superdome…

Michigan: Catherine Coleman Flowers, a former high school teacher at my alma mater, has become one of the world’s leading environmental justice scholars…

Mississippi: Aallyah Wright went to Jonestown, an all-Black town that needs more community support to build housing and youth activities…

Nebraska: The first state-approved Black-founded school is opening in North Omaha…

New Jersey: Advocates say the state must invest more in mental health to help formerly incarcerated people successfully reenter society…

New York: At the Green Haven lockup, there’s a barber class that teaches men box braids, wet sets and other women’s styles…

North Carolina: Mohagany’s Mission in Durham aims to support formerly incarcerated transgender women reenter society...

Oregon: 0.1% of developers are Black women. Anyeley Hallová is building on a lot in North Portland...

Pennsylvania: Mural Arts Philadelphia unveiled the design of a new mural that honors Philly’s legends of Black dance.…

What’s Happening

Horrific: Shamar Elkin, shot and killed 8 children and wounded two women, including his wife Shaneiqua Pugh, in a domestic violence rampage in Shreveport, Louisiana… Related: wrote about about Dr. Cerina Fairfax and Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer, both killed by men they married… , whose father killed his mother and then himself when he was a baby, wrote about what he would tell Justin Fairfax’s children…

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that monitors hate groups, has been indicted on federal fraud charges by the Justice Department. Former federal prosecutors see major legal flaws in the indictment…

Trump has been purging Black officials in independent agencies at a higher rate than anyone else, according to a new lawsuit…

An ex-cop whose family reported he wanted to harm Black people was arrested for threatening a mass shooting in New Orleans, authorities said…

Black farmers in the U.S. say they are losing their jobs to white South Africans. Watch above…

penned an essay about “unc,” and how the internet hyper-accelerates cultural appropriation…

CNN’s Stephanie Elam is the latest in growing number of Black journalists who are leaving TV news, whether by choice or through layoffs…

Leon Smith, who helps his students find their inner strength, has been named the 2026 National Teacher of the Year…

The stories of Black patriots are coming into focus as America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary...

Arionne Nettles explored how the Black Chicago accent has retained its Southern roots…

A Emory University law student has been banned from campus after sending racist emails with white supremacist language and threats…

New York City Council member Chi Ossé was arrested during an anti-eviction protest in Brooklyn…

The role of Black people in the American Revolution is receiving greater attention as the country commemorates their contributions to America’s independence…

Three doctors just donated $2 million to their alma mater, Morehouse College and Spelman College...

Tamerra Buckhanan is 82 years old and just finished up the 130th Boston Marathon, completing her Six Star Marathon…

Entertainment News

Kanye’s comeback is being championed by Larry Jackson, a music executive who is used to dealing with controversial artists…

Less than 1 percent of pro golfers are Black, and only 8 Black women have reached the Ladies Professional Golf Association. Ray Lee wants to be 1st Black woman to win an LPGA major. Watch the interview by Carita Parks above…

sat down with Southern Cultures to discuss the ‘importance of the Gothic in writing about the Black South and why writing helps her confront and understand Mississippi’s history of racism’…

Jay Bryant, the man charged in the killing of Jam Master Jay, is negotiating a plea deal…

Brennan DuBose is working to bring America’s first Black-owned film company back to life…

LeBron James is getting ready for his post-NBA media career, according to his partner…

Cultured Mag: “Keke Palmer has transcended the constraints of the child star and the comic relief with athletic agility. For her next chapter, the performer is setting the bar even higher”…

Otis Williams, the last surviving Temptation, reflected on the 1960s music industry in a new interview…

Nearly every Black comedian showed up to the 51st AFI Life Achievement Award Tribute Gala as Eddie Murphy received a lifetime achievement award…

A decade ago this week, Prince died from an accidental fentanyl overdose…

Obituaries

David Scott, a longtime Georgia politician and businessman, has died. He was 80…

Dr. Cledie Collins Taylor, a legendary Detroit artist and educator, has died. She was 100...

Kiara Brokenbrough, a woman who went viral for spending less than $50 on her wedding dress, has died. She was 32…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 37 seconds…

Colorectal cancer patients are getting younger and younger, and Black Americans are more likely to be diagnosed too late…

The ESSENCE Film Festival is now accepting applications. Deadline is April 30…

Women Who Weld is holding a reduced-priced Week-Long Intensive Welding training for Detroit-area residents and are interested in pursuing a career in welding…

Walter Johnson Is Spreading The Gospel Of ‘Tendernism’ — One City At A Time, HuffPost

I recently ate lunch with the internet’s favorite unc, Mr. Tendernism, who told me you’re never too old to pursue your dreams. “I don’t know how to pronounce old. You can still do anything that you want to as long as you put some effort behind it,” he said.

Horrific — In a stunning story that rattled the nation, former Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax shot and killed his wife and then killed himself while his children were home.

There have been plenty of posts and stories eulogizing him, but not as many about the life and legacy of Dr. Cerina Fairfax, who is being remembered as a mentor and community leader.

The 82-year-old jump rope queen of Beverly Hills, The New York Times

At 82 years old, Annie Judis currently holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest competitive rope skipper — and she plans to defend her title for as long as she can.

The Playboy interview: Nia Long

Ahead of the release of the Michael Jackson biopic, Nia Long — who plays Katherine Jackson in “Michael” — sat down with for a candid conversation about the iconic “Love Jones,” her dating life, how she prepared for the role and more.

What’s In The News

Across America

Arkansas: The director of African and African American Studies at the University of Arkansas filed a federal civil rights lawsuit after an effort to remove him…

District of Columbia: wrote about April 16, 1862, the day more than 3,100 people were freed in Washington…

Georgia: Morris Brown College’s first class of students since the school regained accreditation is preparing for graduation…

Indiana: Michael Jackson’s hometown of Gary got an exclusive early look at “Michael,” his upcoming biopic...

Louisiana: Ashley Gaignard wrote about a planned massive industrial complex that threatens to destroy the historic Black community of Modeste…

Michigan: Detroit’s economic revival is leaving its residents behind, experts say…

Missouri: Amaya Morgan, president of the Legion of Black Collegians at Mizzou, spoke out about her experience at the university amid the turmoil at the school…

Mississippi: The state is taking a very different approach to history than the Trump administration as the nation’s 250th anniversary approaches…

North Carolina: The state’s first mosque, once visited by Malcolm X, now has a historic marker in Durham…

Oklahoma: Hidden in fine print, discriminatory language from a century ago still exists today in some Tulsa property records…

Ohio: Toledo city leaders are calling for charges to be dropped against a 15-year-old girl after an officer threw her to the ground during an arrest…

South Carolina: Read about the ’s efforts to protect Hilton Head’s longtime Black residents…

Tennessee: The NAACP has sued Elon Musk’s xAI, alleging the company’s use of natural gas-burning turbines to power its data centers is polluting the air in Memphis…

Texas: Ashanti Allen, a missing pregnant woman in Texas, has been found dead. A suspect is in custody…

West Virginia: Aristotle Jones learned Appalachian Soul music porch-pickin’ with his grandfather Robert Jones, who played Black Appalachian music informed by the South, by gospel, by Delta blues…

What’s Happening

explains in how Trump is overseeing the biggest economic attack on historically Black college institutions in U.S. history…

The New Republic’s Perry Bacon talked with author Ibram Kendi about the rise of a racist theory that is poisoning politics across the world...

For NewsOne, wrote about how universities are actively choosing to eliminate Black student life…

The family of social media influencer Ashly Robinson is pushing back against claims that she killed herself after a “misunderstanding” with her fiancé while on vacation…

Massive flooding in 2023 left mold in many Chicago homes. The city’s health department offers no help…

The church where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech is receiving a $1.2 million federal grant…

Artemis II pilot Victor Glover’s historic flight has sparked an outpouring of support amid Trump’s efforts to dismantle DEI…

“As the U.S. nears its 250th anniversary, a battle for the soul of U.S. history is unfolding,” Bria Nelson writes in The Hill...

A white supremacist has pled guilty to setting a fire that destroyed an office at a historic social justice center in Tennessee…

60 years after he first enrolled, Ron Prince will soon earn a degree through Tuskegee University’s online degree program…

Dr. Denise Jones Gregory has been named the 14th president of Jackson State University…

Duke University’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions has paused its Black Student Alliance Invitational, a program that aimed to help ease Black students into the PWI…

Education and income don’t protect Black women from high rates of maternal mortality and life-threatening complications. Khiara Bridges grapples with this reality in her latest book…

Entertainment News

Arsenio Hall spoke with Esquire about fame, fatherhood and his new memoir “Arsenio.” Watch above…

For his first piece in the New York Times, wrote about Kanye and his new, endlessly forgiving core fanbase…

Zendaya’s “films rarely center on—or even acknowledge—her race, seemingly out of concern that focusing on identity might limit her characters’ emotional palettes. But why couldn’t it expand those palettes?” writes in the New Yorker…

Singer D4vd has been arrested in connection with the murder of Celeste Rivas, a teen whose remains were found in the trunk of his Tesla…

“Still We Write,” BET’s series that profiles Black poets in honor of National Poetry Month, highlights the talented Aja Monet…

Black creatives believe there’s a lot riding on the success of the rom-com, “You, Me & Tuscany”...Speaking of which, pulled together a list of twenty essential Black rom-coms for Letterboxd…

Kennedy Ryan’s hit novel “Before I Let Go” is in the works at Peacock...

Read an excerpt from “Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness,” an upcoming book about Black gatherings by Ashanté M. Reese. I just received my copy in the mail!…

met up with Juvenile to talk with the iconic rapper about the music that helped shape his life…

Baby Keem, a young rapper who doesn’t want to be known only for being the cousin of Kendrick Lamar, was profiled in the New York Times…

NPR’s Michel Martin sat down with Dave Chappelle for a wide-ranging conversation about public radio, how he feels Republicans have “weaponized” his jokes about the trans community, free speech and more…

Lawmakers have passed a bill to create a Georgia Music Office to promote and support music in the state...

For Andscape, Ken Makin wrote about the significance of Angel Reese’s trade to the Atlanta Dream and what it means for growing star power…

Alexia Jayy has won “The Voice,” the first time a Black woman has been crowned the winner in the history of the series…

The Guardian’s Andrew Lawrence wrote about Michael Jordan’s second act as NASCAR’s top owner...

Big Mama Thornton, a tall, Black, gay musician, is rarely brought up in conversations about Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin — even though she was the original voice behind songs they made famous. A new documentary aims to change that…

Obituaries

Gwendolyn “Blondy” Chisolm, co-founding member of hip-hop group The Sequence, has died. She was 66…

Janice White Sikes Rogers, a Spelman alumna who shaped how Atlanta preserves Black history, has died. She was 73…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 35 seconds!...

A new special section in the Image of the Journalist in Popular Culture is offering a first-of-its-kind analysis on how Black journalists are portrayed in pop culture...

The Baldwin for the Arts fellowship is now open for artists based in the United States. Deadline is April 18. Details here...

The ESSENCE Film Festival is now accepting applications. Deadline is April 30…

ESSENCE is also selecting students getting ready for Prom 2026 for a special feature. Details here…

Delroy Lindo will be the commencement speaker at Fisk University on May 3…

Thanks to all of you, this newsletter is in first place in the Webby People’s Voice Award, voted on by the online public. Thank you to everyone who has supported this newsletter over the years. I am truly grateful.

If you haven’t done so already, please consider taking a moment to vote for this newsletter for a Webby People’s Voice Award! You can vote using this link. Voting is open now through Thursday, April 16th, at 11:59 pm PDT.

Some Black women say the best thing they did for their health was leave America, Capital B News

For Capital B News, Jenae Barnes reported a health equity story on Black expats in Berlin, Germany, as part of the Association of Health Care Journalists’ German Work Study Group. She found that Germany’s universal health care system has provided stability for Black Americans.

Forbes senior writer Jabari Young sat down with BET President Louis Carr for an interesting chat about the business of Black Entertainment Television. Watch above.

What’s In The News

Across America

Alabama: reported on how, through collective action, Sonny Burton was saved from the death chamber…

California: Santa Monica College has officially been designated as a Black-serving Institution…

Colorado: Courtney “CW” and Nicole Mallery fear for their lives after shots were fired at their ranch over the Easter weekend...

District of Columbia: Legendary radio host Russ Parr is returning home to Majic 102.3 on weekdays from 3 pm to 7 pm, starting April 27…

Florida: Parts of Brownsville apparently aren’t included within the boundaries of the area being studied to incorporate, stalling the historically Black neighborhood’s bid for cityhood…

Georgia: Fulton County’s Reparations Task Force found about $900 billion in stolen labor in its new Harm Report...

Illinois: Over 120 Black-owned businesses participated in the second annual Spend in the Black event in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood…

Louisiana: Keith Lee is waiving fees for food vendors taking part in his inaugural festival in New Orleans this spring…

Maryland: Black journalists in Baltimore are speaking out against alleged retaliation and discrimination at the local CBS station…

Michigan: The Detroit Department of Transportation has graduated its largest class of bus drivers…

Mississippi: Trey Reed’s family is still waiting for answers about his hanging, nine months after authorities ruled it a suicide…

Missouri: Mizzou stripped its historic Black student governing body of all annual designated funding starting in July…

New York: Lauren Smith says she and her child were turned away from an Ulta Beauty salon in Manhattan due to their hair texture…

Pennsylvania: Veteran journalist Barnett Wright has returned home to become managing editor of The Philadelphia Tribune…

Rhode Island: The African American Museum of Rhode Island recently held its grand opening and curator Melaine Ferdinand-King spoke with Ocean Side Media about it…

Tennessee: “To understand Justin Pearson, you must first understand his family, his values, his faith and you must understand Memphis,” Meredith McCarroll writes in the Bitter Southerner...

Virginia: Black Queer GRITS: (Girls Raised In The South) is on display at ART 180’s Atlas Gallery in Richmond until April 17…

What’s Happening

For Capital B News, Aallyah Wright is helping you find ways to support Black farmers in the wake of the federal government’s elimination of resources…

Democratic presidential prospects appeared before Black activists at Al Sharpton’s National Action Network annual convention in New York…

Emory University professor Carol Anderson explains that Jim Crow is being rebuilt in modern form as a key Supreme Court ruling looms…

San Francisco’s Fillmore district—once known as the Harlem of the West—was devastated by urban renewal. Now, new revitalization plans reopen old wounds…

Al Sharpton spoke with The New York Times about relocating the National Action Network to a new location in Harlem…

Residents of a Black Louisiana town are protesting what they call a “cover-up” by officials as toxic chemicals spread…

Here’s how the Trump administration wants to sanitize George Washington’s role in slavery at the President’s House…

From New York Times’ Robert Jimison: Some voters say Congress is too old. These Black Democrats aren’t leaving…

Christopher Ellis spent 30 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. He is now suing Nassau County, New York…

Kevin Epps, a San Francisco filmmaker and journalist, has been sentenced to six years in prison…

NBC News: Many words and phrases coined by Gen Zers have roots in African American language that date back centuries, according to linguistics experts…

An artist known as Mr. Wash is raising funds to build a $15 million community arts center in Compton…

Julienne Louis penned an op-ed for Essence about the life-changing impact of HBCUs...

Entertainment News

Kanye West has been blocked from entering Britain to headline a music festival, with the UK home secretary stating his presence would “not be conducive to the public good”...GQ columnist Frazier Tharpe went to a recent Kanye performance and he feels attendees deserved a better show…The industry is once again giving Kanye a pass, wrote for Consequence…

The American Black Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 30th anniversary edition, including Jamie Foxx, Marsai Martin, Coco Jones and more…

For Bloomberg, wrote about “The Drama,” and deracialized portrayals of Black women in today’s anti-DEI era…

Kyren Lacy, a star LSU wide receiver, was headed to the NFL. A tragic accident and its powerful ripples cost him everything…

Bassist Melvin Gibbs spoke with the New York Times about his new book, “How Black Music Took Over the World,” out next week…

A judge granted Lil Nas X entry into a mental health diversion program…

penned an essay about the history and community of Memphis following LeBron James’ comments on the city…

Tuma Basa, YouTube’s director of Black music & culture, is leaving the streaming giant after eight years…

The site of Six Flags America in Prince George’s County has been sold to an investment group that includes Kevin Durant…

Filmmaker Noel Braham has announced a nonprofit initiative to help those facing economic barriers pursue careers in film, television, and media…

Obituaries

Dee Freeman, the actress who appeared in “The Young and the Restless” and Tyler Perry’s “Sistas,” has died. She was 66…

Afrika Bambaataa, a hip-hop pioneer who was accused of sexual abuse, has died. He was 67…

Pearl Fryar, a famed topiary artist who was the subject of an award-winning 2006 documentary, has died. He was 86…

Carrie Everett, former Miss North Carolina 2024 and a student at North Carolina Central University, has died. She was 22…

Alfred Singleton, the executive chef and co-owner of a prominent New Orleans restaurant and a mentor to many, has died. He was 46...

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 2 minutes and 6 seconds…

Ms. Wollack, the English teacher that I work alongside to help Eastern High School students revive their newspaper, has launched a GoFundMe for them…

The 2nd annual HBCU Film Festival is this weekend, and Jasmine Guy is attending as a special guest. It will be held at Emory University in Atlanta on April 10…

A new short documentary spotlighting Black doulas on the front lines of a maternal health crisis is set to premiere April 11 on BET Digital…

The Baldwin for the Arts fellowship is now open for artists based in the United States. Deadline is April 18. Details here...

Aallyah Wright appeared on the Rural Narratives podcast to discuss reporting on Black rural communities…

New York Amsterdam News, one of the oldest Black newspapers in the country, is seeking interns...

The ESSENCE Film Festival is now accepting applications. Deadline is April 30...

Are you a college student interested in TV or film? The application for the Tyler Perry Studios internship is open…

In 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, major corporations and foundations pledged millions of dollars to Black-led nonprofits and organizations in an effort to confront systemic racism and police violence.

A new report, however, shows that those promises remain largely unfulfilled and, for some, never materialized.

According to the nonprofit information service Candid and the philanthropy organization ABFE, only a small group of large Black-led nonprofits — defined in the report as having annual expenses over $1 million — received major funding between 2020 and 2022.

Then funding began to decline by 2023, suggesting to researchers that the support “may have been temporary.”

“During the George Floyd period, the pandemic period, there were definitely some things that came available to our organization because there was just this tremendous response to what was happening in communities and it was more available to Black communities, Black organizations, and Black-led organizations than it has been historically. But I think that that window closed probably in 2023,” one nonprofit leader told researchers.

While the report states that more foundations did respond to the call to give to Black nonprofits, the gifts were uneven — smaller nonprofits saw very little funding, if any, in the wake of the “racial reckoning.” 76% of Black-led nonprofits with budgets under $1 million experienced no significant change in funding from 2016 to 2023, researchers found.

Susan Taylor Batten, president and CEO of ABFE, pointed out that today’s anti-DEI climate has made it extremely challenging for Black-led nonprofits to grow their organizations.

“Black-led nonprofit leaders are being asked to meet rising community needs while navigating an increasingly hostile environment toward race-explicit work, often without the flexible, sustained funding needed to build staff, strengthen infrastructure, or plan for the long term,” she explained.

“This cycle of short-lived transactional investments keeps organizations doing the crucial work in communities in constant survival mode rather than scaling the solutions our communities need.”

Read the full report here.

I have some amazing news to share: “What I’m Reading” has been recognized in the 30th Annual Webby Awards! The newsletter is now competing for the Internet's two most coveted awards: The Webby Award, selected by the Webbys Academy, and The Webby People's Voice Award, voted on by the online public. Thank you to everyone who has supported this newsletter over the years; I am extremely grateful.

Please consider taking a moment to vote for this newsletter for a Webby People’s Voice Award! You can vote using this link. Voting is open now through Thursday, April 16th, at 11:59 pm PDT.

What Happened to the Blackbuster?, Hammer & Hope

“From ‘Boomerang’ to ‘Love & Basketball,’ the golden age of Black upward-mobility cinema projected fantasies of racial representation. Then they disappeared,” Ian F. Blair writes for Hammer & Hope.

What’s In The News

Across America

Arkansas: talked with his brother, Orson Weems, for a wide-ranging conversation about Black music history, the roots of the blues, and more…

Colorado: An exhibit on the Black homesteader community will be on display at the Creede Underground Mining Museum until mid-May…

Florida: Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen was shot and killed, and her husband is in custody…

Georgia: TSA workers were reportedly asked to return $1,000 gift cards given out by Tyler Perry. Apparently, they will get to keep them after all…

Illinois: Skyway Lanes, the last Black-owned bowling alley in Chicago, is set to close after a surge of support faded…

Louisiana: The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans is facing an onslaught of catastrophic projects that could be more damaging than Katrina…

Maryland: and Terri Freeman are pushing back against a Baltimore Sun article attacking the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture…

Massachusetts: Librarian Mychal Threets is set to be the convocation speaker for Harvard’s Graduate School of Education…

Michigan: 11-year-old author George Latham IV visits classrooms across Detroit to offer something just as important as literacy: representation, Darlene White explains…

Mississippi: The Supreme Court appears likely to rule for Terry Pitchford, a Black death row inmate who says there was racial bias in the makeup of his jury…

Missouri: The National Blues Museum is closing its doors after nearly 10 years in St. Louis…

New York: Jonah Levi, who is accused of beating Messiah Nantwi to death in an upstate prison, has been convicted of manslaughter…

North Carolina: The Black Trans Short Film Festival is taking place from April 30 to May 2 in Durham...

Oklahoma: Nearly 10 years after ex-Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby shot and killed Terence Crutcher, a court ruled his family’s civil lawsuit against her can move forward…

Pennsylvania: The oldest Black church in Philadelphia continued its tradition of a procession on Palm Sunday behind a donkey or pony…

Tennessee: Fisk University is ending its historic gymnastics program after three years due to scheduling and recruiting challenges…

Texas: The University of Texas will host the conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on April 15 for a closed-door talk…

What’s Happening

Victor Glover is making history as the first Black astronaut to fly around the moon…

The Trump administration has opened investigations into how race is considered in admissions at three medical schools…

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation is being sued over college scholarships for Black students…

Over 500,000 Black men have lost their jobs in the last four months. The silence around this crisis puts these men in danger of becoming a permanent underclass, writes…

USDA dumped a $300 million Biden-era grant meant to help underserved producers with access to land, capital, and markets, Aallyah Wright reports for Capital B News…

A federal judge ruled that a lawsuit against Evanston’s reparations program may proceed…

AP News: North Carolina’s electoral future may hinge on rural Black voters who feel ignored by Democrats…

CNN reports Kamala Harris is set to swing through four Southern state Democratic Party events in April…

For EBONY, asks: Is being offline really a luxury — or just a privilege some can afford?...

Janai Norman will no longer co-anchor the weekend edition of “Good Morning America;” Natalie Korach had the news first for Status…

Rise Early Learning Center is working to help Baltimore kids by creating a space for their parents to find resources and build community…

Sparrow’s Nest, a small brick building serving various purposes at Davidson College, was once quarters for enslaved people during the 19th century…

The Guardian: From Washington to Florida, supper clubs are helping Black women slow down, connect and build lasting sisterhood…

Entertainment News

Brandy was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week. Watch the full ceremony above…

Whoa: Gucci Mane was allegedly robbed and kidnapped by rappers Pooh Shiesty and Big30 in Dallas over an alleged record label dispute, according to the Department of Justice…

Megan Thee Stallion was rushed to the hospital during a recent showing of ‘Moulin Rouge!’ on Broadway in New York City. She is recovering, a spokesperson said…

Following Clinton Yates’ ouster at ESPN, Yussuf Khan called attention to the disappearing Black national sports radio host….

Ayo Edebiri is the cover star of the latest issue of Paper Magazine…

Master P is leaving the University of New Orleans basketball program just one year after joining the school…

Druski once again showed how Black comedy shapes the conversation, writes for Andscape…

Chicago label Sooper Records will release piano virtuoso Charles Joseph Smith’s first professional album in April. As a Black man diagnosed with autism, it’s been a long time coming…

, one of the top essayists in the country, revisited Jay-Z’s debut album “Reasonable Doubt” as it turns 30 years old…

Arsenio Hall is spilling it all in his new memoir, “Arsenio,” which came out this week…

T.I. sat down with Okayplayer on comedy and his new album while remembering ‘King’ on its 20th anniversary…

Tiger Woods announced that he will seek treatment after he was charged with a DUI…For Andscape, Justin Tinsley examined the long shadow of the golf legend…

J. Janice Coleman, an English professor at Alcorn State University, honors Mississippi history, including Civil Rights icon Fannie Lou Hamer, with her quilts…

Smithsonian Mag: A new book of Toni Morrison’s university lectures, now collected for the first time, shares some of the legendary novelist’s most important lessons…

Obituaries

Bob Law, a pioneering voice in Black radio and iconic host of National Black Network’s “Night Talk,” has died. He was 86…

Barry Caldwell, the animator and director behind the cartoon series “Animaniacs” and the film “Osmosis Jones,” has died. He was 68…

Melvin Edwards, the first Black American to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York, has died. He was 88…

Ernest McMillan, a teacher and human rights activist in Dallas, has died. He was 81…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 43 seconds!...

ICYMI: Watch Reporting While Black, a live conversation from Howard University “on independent media, audience power, and the fight to tell the truth in a shifting industry”…

ASALH is partnering with the African American Museum of Dallas to offer FREE classes on African American history…

The 2nd annual HBCU Film Festival is approaching, and Jasmine Guy is attending as a special guest. It will be held at Emory University in Atlanta on April 10…

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky General Assembly approved a bill Wednesday to transition the state’s only public historically Black university into a polytechnic institution, after a House committee amended the measure to honor the campus’ legacy.

Republicans and Democrats on the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee unanimously approved a new version of Senate Bill 185, which was unveiled last week after lawmakers had privately discussed the possibility of closing Kentucky State University, particularly in light financial controversies.

The House then voted 90-1 to approve the measure. Rep. Shane Baker, R-Somerset, was the lone nay vote. Hours later, the Senate concurred with the House changes in a vote of 37-0. The bill now goes to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for further action.

After the committee adopted the substitute version of the bill Wednesday morning, KSU students and alumni who had packed the meeting room erupted in cheers. Supporters of the university had previously protested the legislation at the Capitol Annex on Friday, as they were concerned it would erode the culture of the university.

Founded in 1885, KSU began in Frankfort as a college to educate Black teachers in Kentucky. It’s one of 19 Black institutions that Congress granted land-grant status in 1890 and still operates a cooperative extension program. In the 1980s, Kentucky added liberal arts to its mission.

Rep. Joshua Waktins, the House Democratic whip from Louisville, joined the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Chris McDaniel, to present the new version to the House committee. McDaniel said the changes address “many of the concerns that we have heard since the original unveiling.” The Senate approved the bill unanimously last week.

“I fully believe and we fully believe there can be no sustained future for Kentucky State University that does not honor and elevate its historic history,” Watkins said of those who worked on the bill. He added that while the bill would “chart a new path forward” for KSU, “its proud legacy should never be, and is not now, in question.”

Waktins said the changes to the bill included that KSU would focus on “highly technical industry-based applied learning” while offering polytechnic and retaining liberal arts studies that meet Kentucky’s workforce needs. The five-year “state of financial exigency” declared in the original bill could be lifted before the end of that time if the university meets certain criteria and has approval from the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. The Senate bill also required KSU to begin offering no more than 10 academic areas of study.

The bill now also allows fraternities and sororities in good standing on campus to retain their charters. KSU has chapters representing all Divine Nine organizations, or the National Pan-Hellenic Council organizations. The Senate bill would have required all fraternities and sororities on the campus to reapply to the Board of Regents for their charters by July 1.

Watkins told reporters after the meeting that “continued dialog and conversation” is the next step.

“There are still people who have concerns about what this looks like in the implementation, and I think everyday people have that concern about what we do in the General Assembly,” Waktins said. “So, moving forward, there’s going to be greater collaboration between the president and the students, the alumni, the faculty and the staff — all of those relationships need to continue to be strengthened.”

Watkins added that another important relationship will be between the General Assembly, the university and the public as the legislation unfolds over the next five years.

“There’s probably going to be some more tweaking as it goes along, but hopefully the end result is going to be something that everybody can be proud of,” Watkins said.

Toccara Bozeman, a senior at KSU studying nursing, told the Kentucky Lantern after the meeting that with the changes she heard in the committee, she is “content” but still feels like there is more work to do.

Bozeman added that she felt like the legislation was “targeted” at the institution, as other public universities in the state too have high student debts and public safety issues. She also is concerned that liberal arts programs could be jeopardized again in the future.

As reasoning for the bill, lawmakers had previously pointed to a large amount of student debt owed to KSU and incidents affecting campus safety, such as a December shooting where a student was killed and another injured on campus. That had followed a shooting from a car on the campus in August in which two people injured were not students or employees.

Bozeman said having a public historically Black college or university (HBCU) is important for Kentucky.

“There was a time when we were not able to go to school, and my school started off with three teachers and 55 students,” she said, adding that their windows were tinted to hide them from white people who might see them learning.

“That same institution is what enables everyone here today,” Bozeman said.

While voting in favor of the bill, Republican Floor Leader Steven Rudy, of Paducah, said that it is “very important to me that Kentucky State is a success.”

“I believe whole heartedly in this president, his administration, at Kentucky State University is going to turn this institution around and make it the great institution that it once was and can be again,” Rudy said, referring to KSU President Koffi C. Akakpo.

Rudy also thanked McDaniel for introducing the bill, saying that he would likely agree that “the General Assembly fully supports Kentucky State University.”

When the bill came back to the Senate Wednesday afternoon, Democratic Floor Leader Gerald Neal, an alumnus of KSU, urged passage of the bill.

“I am confident that if we invest properly, if we move in good faith, if we make sure that those words moving into a partnership are actualized, if we make good decisions to make this institution stronger and more effective into the future, then what we’re doing here today will be remembered throughout history,” Neal said.

Akakpo wrote in an email to KSU stakeholders after the bill’s passage that it was “a consequential stage in the legislative process for Kentucky State University” following discussions with students, faculty, staff. alumni and more over the past few days.

“As this process moves to the Governor, our focus remains steady,” Akakpo said. “We will continue to advocate for Kentucky State University in a manner that honors who we are, protects what matters most, and positions this institution for long-term strength and sustainability.”

Why going to an HBCU might be better for Black students’ health, The Guardian

The Guardian’s Adria Walker reported on a study that finds attending an HBCU as a young person might be better for long-term wellness for Black Americans. The study found that HBCU attendees in their 60s had better memory and cognitive function than those who attended a predominantly white institution.

The ‘In Living Color’ effect, The Atlantic

Geoff Bennett’s new book, “Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy From Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms,” was published this week. He explored how “In Living Color” shaped the Hollywood that we know today in this excerpt from The Atlantic.

Please go support Geoff’s book! He’s been on an amazing press run, from appearing on the TODAY Show to a author talk at the DC Public Library that will air on C-SPAN in a few weeks (moderated by me!).

Imagining a future for Langston Hughes’s Harlem brownstone, The New York Times

The exterior of the brownstone at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, where Langston Hughes lived the last 20 years of his life is falling apart. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working to save the historic building.

In a series of tweets, award-winning filmmaker Nina Lee urged Black audiences to show up for Halle Bailey and Regé-Jean Page’s forthcoming film, “You, Me & Tuscany.” The film will hit theaters on April 10. Watch the trailer here.

“1. Met with a studio about my already shot romcom and they won’t buy it until they see how ‘You, Me & Tuscany’ does,” Lee explained. “2. Met with an exec about a romance script I have, they won’t buy it until they see how ‘You, Me & Tuscany’ does.” Haniyah Philogene of the Grio explains why showing up for the film matters.

slammed Hollywood for gaslighting Black audiences again, explaining that there will “never be a high-enough opening weekend or a diverse enough audience or enough history-making achievements” for Hollywood executives to care about Black stories.

What’s In The News

Across America

Arizona: The Phoenix Police Dept. won’t discipline any officers for their roles in a scheme after officials invented a fake gang and then falsely charged protesters as members…

California: There’s always a ton of bad media news to go around, but I want to take a moment to spotlight something positive: the Sacramento Observer, a legacy Black-owned newspaper that is growing and expanding its coverage into Stockton, California…

District of Columbia: The Go-Go Community Health Fair and Colorectal Cancer Awareness event will be held in Anacostia on March 28…

Georgia: The state promised to pay the wrongfully convicted. 46 claims have been filed under the law so far. Only three people have been awarded compensation…

Illinois: Cahokia Heights, ​a Black community in Illinois, has E. Coli in its drinking water. Congress just cut infrastructure funding, Adam Mahoney reports…

Indiana: Black Humanities in the Midwest is a new initiative at Indiana University focused on studying Black culture, arts and history…

Kentucky: Federal prosecutors are pushing to get the charges against two officers accused of falsifying the warrant that led to Breonna Taylor’s killing dismissed…

Louisiana: Prosecutor Hugo Holland compared a Black child to a dog and withheld evidence in death row cases. Now he’s running for judge…

Maryland: Morgan State wrestling is “a lighthouse” for Black wrestlers. They hope others will follow…

Massachusetts: More than two years after resigning, ex-Harvard President Claudine Gay is returning to the university…

Michigan: Jarvis Butts, the man convicted of the murder of 13-year-old Na'Ziyah Harris, was found dead…

Mississippi: Department of Public Safety officials discovered Ku Klux Klan items while cleaning out a closet…

Nebraska: Photographer Abiola Kosoko went through 100,000 of his images over the last 15 years to share insight into Black life across Omaha…

New Jersey: A new historic marker honoring Timbuctoo, once home to some of the first free Black Americans in South Jersey, has been placed in Burlington County…

Oklahoma: Key civil rights organizations will not be allowed to file an amicus brief in support of Creek Freedmen descendants, reports…

Pennsylvania: Monumental Baptist Church in West Philadelphia recently celebrated its 200th anniversary…

Texas: Prairie View, the first all-Black trail ride, is an 80-mile, week-long trek that takes horseback riders to a Houston rodeo…

Virginia: The University of Virginia saw a 14.58 percentage-point decrease in Black students’ offer rates, according to the Cavalier Daily…

What’s Happening

Shay Taylor worked as a janitor for 10 years at Yale New Haven Hospital. Soon, she will return as a doctor. Watch the video above…

An Underground Railroad museum in upstate New York is suing the Trump administration, claiming it unlawfully terminated its federal grant on the basis of race…

The United States is one of three countries to vote against a United Nations resolution that called slavery a “crime against humanity”…

Descendants of the 19th-century enslaved artist David Drake talked with The New York Times about the battle over his legacy…

Top civil rights attorney Kristen Clarke has joined the NAACP as the organization’s new General Counsel…

Over 600 students, alumni and community leaders attended a town hall hosted by Pomona College’s Black Student Union’s town hall to address rampant anti-Black racism on campus…

Dallas officials erased multiple Black Lives Matter crosswalks in the city. Some residents say its an attempt to erase the community’s identity…

The University of Southern California canceled a gubernatorial debate after backlash over the criteria that excluded candidates of color in the crowded 2026 race…

A pregnant Georgia woman planned to have two doulas with her as she went into labor in Georgia. Police instead escorted them out, the doulas told Capital B’s Alyssa Johnson…

The Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia, led by Reverend Dr. Howard-John Wesley, made a $1 million donation to prevent evictions for families living in public housing…

Black students are more likely to succeed when they have counselors who look like them. But only 8% of school counselors were Black last year, according to the American School Counselor Association…

Howard University, the only HBCU Division I swimming program, made history by winning the women's championship for the first time…

Health inspectors found thawed seafood stored in buckets, leading to the temporary closure of Mama Tina’s Gumbo — Tina Knowles’ gumbo booth, according to Houston Health Department records…

Entertainment News

Usher told Forbes’ Jabari Young that he has nothing negative to say regarding Sean Diddy Combs, explaining his “experience was not what the world has seen and how he’s been misrepresented.” Watch the full interview above…

Freer Records just released what it called the first-ever album made by a woman behind bars. The artist, who only goes by B. Alexis out of fear of retaliation by prison officials, raps about watching her son grow up from prison, trauma and more…

Jay-Z has kept his thoughts to himself for the better part of the past decade. But he spoke with GQ’s Frazier Tharpe for a rare interview…

In case you missed it: Tank and Tyrese battled head to head for their Verzuz battle this week. Watch it in full here…

The “Real Housewives” franchise has been a gold mine for memes for two decades…

Meghan Hall chatted with Megan Thee Stallion about her Broadway debut, her support of Angel Reese, and more...

Simone Ledward Boseman, the wife of the late Chadwick Boseman, sat down with TODAY’s Craig Melvin to talk about raising awareness about colon cancer…

The work of longtime choreographer Brooke Payne is being highlighted through the tour featuring New Edition and Boyz II Men…

The New York Times reviewed “Everybody’s Fly,” a new memoir from Fab 5 Freddy that explores his life and impact on the culture…

VIBE’s Preezy Brown remembered the heyday of the iconic — and sometimes notorious — Bronx roller rink Skate Key…

Jill Scott spoke with NPR’s Tonya Mosley about the release of her first full-length album in more than a decade…

Musical stars from Doja Cat to David Byrne are all championing Alice Coltrane’s experimental sound…

Jonathan Abrams talked with 2 Chainz about his next act — a memoir…

A civil jury found that Bill Cosby was liable for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 1972 and awarded her nearly $60 million…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 25 seconds…

I made a TikTok about cherry blossoms in Washington, DC…

Hazel’s Best Day, a children’s book about disability pride, accessibility, and community, is out! The author is Adiba Nelson and the book was illustrated by DeAnn Wiley…

ASALH is partnering with the African American Museum of Dallas to offer FREE classes on African American history…

The 2nd annual HBCU Film Festival is approaching, and Jasmine Guy is attending as a special guest. It will be held at Emory University in Atlanta on April 10…

I’m sure you already know this by now, but Michael B. Jordan won the Oscar for Best Actor for playing twins in Ryan Coogler’s hit film “Sinners.” I wanted to share stories with you about the Oscars written by Black journalists.

For Refinery29, wrote about how the film doesn’t need the Oscars to prove its cultural and artistic significance…

For Playboy, wrote about Michael B. Jordan’s long game of a career…

For TIME, Taylor Crumpton explored how Hollywood still struggles to recognize the full power of Black storytelling…

was at the Oscars, and asked director Paul Thomas Anderson about the criticism over how “One Battle After Another” portrays Black women — and he finally gave an answer.

Alabama almost executed Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton. His daughter tells her story, The Marshall Project

Carolyn Amanda Shavers, the daughter of Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton, penned an essay about how the day Alabama’s governor spared her father’s life was the happiest day of her life, and how she is still pushing for his release.

The AI Myth of Solomon Fairfax, the “Grim Reaper” of Charleston, Scalawag Magazine

A video about a formerly enslaved man named Solomon Fairfax has gone viral on parts of the internet. He apparently spent years killing slaveholders, earning him the nickname the “Grim Reaper” of Charleston. There’s just one problem: Solomon Fairfax doesn’t exist.

Act Black: posters of Black Americans on stage and screen – in pictures, The Guardian

The Guardian’s Briana Ellis-Gibbs curated a list of posters from a new exhibit at New York’s Poster House celebrating the work of Black performers on stage and screen from the 1880s to the 1940s. Many of the films displayed no longer exist.

What’s In The News

Across America

Alabama: Ruling in the case of the Black pastor who was arrested while watering his neighbor’s flowers, the state Supreme Court said police can demand to see ID during a stop if they don’t like a person’s verbal answers…

California: profiled artist Lauren Halsey and her new sculpture park in Los Angeles…

District of Columbia: A farmers market at Anacostia High School is addressing the lack of fresh food and grocery options east of the river…

Georgia: It was going to be Magic City night for an Atlanta Hawks game. Then the NBA stepped in to cancel it…

Illinois: “Two Black women ran in Illinois’ Senate primary — and Juliana Stratton’s victory shows the growing power of Black women in American politics,” Higher Heights for America President writes in an op-ed for Word In Black…

Louisiana: The New York Times reported on Super Sunday, the colorful celebration of Black Masking Indians in New Orleans…

Maryland: The residents of East Towson in Baltimore County, founded in the 1850s by formerly enslaved people, are fighting off new development pressures…

Massachusetts: The life expectancy gap between Black residents and other Bostonians has doubled over the past decade…

Mississippi: The state leads the nation in gun deaths among pregnant and postpartum women…

North Carolina: Elizabeth City State University received a transformational $42 million donation from MacKenzie Scott…

What’s Happening

Growing up, I went on many field trips to Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. It is a special place, and near and dear to many Detroiters. I had a lot of fun writing about the museum and how the 60-year-old institution is reaching a new audience through its social media series…However, the financial climate has been challenging for The Wright, which is seeking $11 million in city government funding…

The Senate began debate on the SAVE America Act this week. Capital B’s Brandon Tensley wrote about how civil rights leaders are sounding the alarm…

For the Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia University professor shared his thoughts on how we should respond to the erasure of Black Studies…

Kenneth Windley, who spent 19 years in prison for a $550 robbery he didn’t commit, was exonerated and freed…

Howard University student Paris Holsey wrote a story about one woman’s breast cancer fight and navigating the healthcare system in Albany, Georgia…

A judge ruled that Uncle Nearest founder Fawn Weaver was not authorized to file for bankruptcy as the whiskey company is under the control of a receiver…

The Museum of African American History is fighting to preserve Boston’s Black history amid the Trump administration’s executive orders...

Black women are disproportionately impacted by paid sick day preemption laws, according to a new report…

A judge has temporarily blocked an order from the Trump administration “insisting that colleges across the country prove they don’t consider race in their admissions process”...

The Morehouse School of Medicine has received nearly $1 million in federal funding for a new research building…

Top Black leaders in higher education gathered virtually for a summit focusing on the “health and well-being” of HBCUs...

Entertainment News

Jay Z and Erykah Badu are headliners for the Roots Picnic on May 30, the festival announced…

Paramount is acquiring Tyler Perry’s minority ownership stake in BET, and BET is shutting down BET+...

Afroman won a defamation lawsuit filed by police officers who sued him over the videos in which he used home security footage to mock their failed raid of his home…

Boxing world champion Thomas ‘The Hitman’ Hearns is currently in a guardianship court battle…

, author of “Kin,” is the first guest in the new video series, The Reader’s Digest Escalator Interview…

LaTanya Richardson Jackson spoke with ESSENCE about showing up as her authentic self, Spelman, her career and much more…

Philadelphia Inquirer’s Elizabeth Wellington went to the New Edition Way Tour, where she says the iconic group finally struck magic with help from Boyz II Men…

Mystikal pleaded guilty to raping a woman at his Louisiana home, according to court records…

“Tamron Hall” has been renewed for another season as her competitors in televison thin…

Teyana Taylor is set to serve as the chief curator for the 2026 ESSENCE Fest…

Tank and Tyrese will participate in a Verzuz battle on March 26…

Learn about the biggest convention for Black nerds from the perspective of Capital B’s Rayonna Burton-Jernigan and Janae Barnes of the Washingtonian…

Quincy Jones’ estate has sold his “select music and non-music assets” to investment firm HarbourView…

As the number 3 pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, Chris Washburn was supposed to be a star. In a new memoir, he opens up about ‘addiction, homelessness and redemption in his new memoir that revisits basketball’s cocaine era’…

The New Yorker took a look back at the 90s to examine how Arsenio Hall shook up late night television…

Beverly Buchanan’s unique art form, representational sculptures of “shacks”, had never received a solo exhibition in Athens, Georgia, until recently. You can see one featured at the Georgia Museum of Art through June 28…

Obituaries

John Perkins, a pioneering pastor and civil rights leader who forgave the police officers who brutalized him, has died. He was 95…

Judy Pace, a trailblazing actress who showed America that Black women could play more than one-dimensional characters on the screen, has died. She was 83…

Lord Sear, a veteran radio personality and key member of the “Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show,” has died. He was 53…

Alvin M. Greene, an unemployed Army vet who stunned Democrats by winning the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 without even making a speech, has died. He was 48…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 43 seconds!...

The Williams-Franklin Foundation is offering twenty $5,000 scholarships to undergraduate students at HBCUs. Learn more here…

Scholars Nala K. Williams and will be exploring the archives and scholarship of Black feminist anthropologists Zora Neale Hurston and Eslanda Goode Robeson on March 23. Sign up for the virtual event here…

The Washington Association of Black Journalists is partnering with the DC Public Library for a book talk with Geoff Bennett and Darryl M. Bell on March 25…

The 2nd annual HBCU Film Festival is approaching, and Jasmine Guy is attending as a special guest. It will be held at Emory University in Atlanta on April 10…

Kiki Shepard, best known as the co-host of the classic music variety series “Showtime at the Apollo,” has died. She was 74.

A representative for Shepard told TMZ that the host died unexpectedly of a heart attack on Monday. Variety also confirmed the news.

​”Kiki was more than a cultural icon and the soul of Showtime at the Apollo; she was my sister in spirit. Our bond was forged over four decades, anchored by our shared Texas roots and a friendship that remained unbreakable through every season of life,” hairstylist and friend Elgin Charles said in a social media post.

Born Chiquita Renee Shepard in Tyler, Texas, Shepard began her career as a professional dancer in 1971. While studying at Howard University, she joined the D.C. Repertory Dance Company.

She was best known as the longtime co-host of the legendary “Showtime at the Apollo,” on which she appeared alongside Steve Harvey, Mark Curry, Sinbad, Mo’Nique, and others for years.

Shepard credited the late Percy Sutton, executive producer of the series and attorney for Malcolm X, with believing she was the right fit for the hosting gig.

“People were calling every day asking to audition, but Percy Sutton said, ‘No, as long as KiKi Shepard wants this job, she will keep it because she shows other little black girls all around the country what they can be.’ And he appreciated the fact that I did it in a very classy manner,” she told WJBF NewsChannel 6 in April.

She also has a host of television appearances, including on “Everybody Hates Chris,” “A Different World,” “Baywatch,” “NYPD Blue,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and more.

Shepard also devoted her life to improving the lives of those living with sickle cell disease. In 2006, she founded The KIS Foundation to raise awareness and educate the public about the disease.

You may have seen headlines that the nationwide Target boycott organized by faith leaders like Jamal Bryant has come to an end. Bryant, in a Wednesday press conference, said the boycott was “officially concluding.”

“We are effectively today closing this chapter because we have other fights that we have got to see and other things that we’ve got to tackle,” Bryant said, claiming the retailer has completed 97 percent of its $2 billion pledge to invest in Black-owned businesses, among other demands. Still, Target has not made changes to its DEI policy.

However, Minneapolis organizers Dr. Nekima Levy Armstrong, Monique Cullars-Doty and Jaylani Hussein disagree with Bryant’s statement, declaring the Target boycott is still on.

“We speak for us, and we will never sell out our community for crumbs or a seat at Target’s corrupt table. So we are asking people to continue to double down and hold Target accountable. The boycott continues,” lawyer and activist Levy Armstrong said in a press conference. Target’s headquarters is based in Minnesota, where the boycott is said to have started.

61 years after Bloody Sunday, we are entering a new era of voter suppression, The Nation

, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, wrote a piece for The Nation explaining how a seemingly innocuous change to Postal Service procedure and the so-called SAVE Act could threaten to “erode the promise secured by the foot soldiers of Selma.”

Last year, Black women experienced unprecedented layoffs. Here’s what happened next, Harper’s BAZAAR

For Harper’s Bazaar, interviewed Black women about their experiences being among the 600,000 Black women who were pushed out of the workforce in 2025.

“Black women are not just impacted by these moments, we are navigating, rebuilding, and redefining our careers in real time,” author Minda Harts said.

Related: Maia Niguel Hoskin, a mental health therapist specializing in trauma, wrote about the exhaustion of the “strong Black woman” for Forbes…

Insurance crisis leaves Black homeowners one disaster away from homelessness, Capital B News

Adam Mahoney talked with Black families from across the country who are victims of “disaster capitalism.” Black households lose wealth after disasters and receive smaller payouts via the federal government and private home insurers, studies show.

What’s In The News

Across America

Alabama: Gov. Kay Ivey has commuted the death sentence of Charles Burton to life imprisonment. Burton was not present in the store when victim Doug Battle was killed…

District of Columbia: The Go-Go Community Health Fair and Colorectal Cancer Awareness event will be held in Anacostia on March 28…

Illinois: The “Glory! Glory!” exhibit at the Zhou B Art Center is showcasing the history of America’s flag from the perspective of Black artists…

Michigan: Antonio Wiley’s mother vanished in Detroit when he was 14. It took three decades and an extraordinary effort by a missing persons detective to find her…

Mississippi: Rep. Bennie Thompson won the Democratic nomination for Mississippi’s 2nd Congressional District, defeating 34-year-old Evan Turnage in the primary…

North Carolina: Rep. Valerie Foushee narrowly won her race for a third term in Congress. Here’s what she said in an interview following the campaign…

South Carolina: Rep. James Clyburn announced he will seek reelection, ending speculation that he may retire after more than 30 years in Congress…

Tennessee: Megan Piphus, the first female Black puppeteer on “Sesame Street,” is providing the voice for Gabrielle, the puppet star of a new 30-second spot celebrating natural hair…

Virginia: Shiloh Baptist Church, a historically Black church in Alexandria, was awarded $360,000…

Washington: The Black Student Union at Gonzaga University is criticizing the school’s response to reports of racism directed toward its members…

What’s Happening

Nathan Martin, a substitute teacher and distance runner from Michigan, overtook Kenya’s Michael Kamau in a stunning victory that became the Los Angeles Marathon’s closest finish ever…

A fight for Black voters is breaking out in the Democratic primary race for Senate in Illinois…

For-profit colleges are deliberately targeting Black students and leaving them in debt, according to a troubling report…

An artifact from one of the first sunken slave ships ever recovered will soon be returned to its home museum in South Africa…

Ebony JJ Curry spoke with three Detroit-area women about the many ways religion shapes their homes, identities and community during Ramadan…

What are believed to be the earliest known photographs of enslaved Americans will remain at the International African American Museum in South Carolina following a long fight with Harvard over ownership…

Jenae Barnes wrote about the Black and Missing Foundation, which works with media and law enforcement to help find the missing or uncover what happened to them. ICYMI: My organization worked with the Black and Missing Foundation last year to create a media guide for missing persons…

New York Magazine’s spoke with historian and author Ibram X. Kendi about the fame and criticism he’s experienced since writing “How to Be an Antiracist,” and why his new book should be judged on its own terms…

The latest from : Rocky Myers, a Black man, was sentenced to death after being represented by a court-appointed attorney long affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan…

The Kansas City Defender has hired two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Jeter as the outlet’s first International Correspondent. Read his latest work here…

Rob Sneed is the new anchor/reporter at FOX13 News in Memphis, and of course, residents are giving him a warm welcome by completely roasting him…

Scalawag Magazine profiled William Hampton, the founder and curator of the Huntsville Revisited Museum…

Blavity Media Group is now the exclusive sales and activation partner for Black-owned social club The Gathering Spot, CEO announced…

Historian Rhae Lynn Barnes traces the origin of minstrel shows in her new book “Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment”...

Entertainment News

Ahead of the Oscars this weekend, and teamed up to explain why the Academy needs “Sinners” more than the film needs a win. Read the full piece in Vulture…

NPR Music’s Rodney Carmichael talked with Raphael Saadiq about “I Lied To You,” his Academy Award nomination for “Sinners”…

“Sinners” star Jayme Lawson went on “Higher Learning with and Rachel Lindsay” to discuss the hit film, award season and representation in Hollywood…

For the Guardian, wrote about the familiar debate that tends to surface when Black women play morally ambiguous characters on screen…

The New Yorker is facing backlash for how it illustrated “Sinners” star Wunmi Mosaku…

Despite his Super Bowl halftime success, Jay-Z’s empire has become a mirror for collective cynicism about power and ascent, writes for Andscape…

Rashida Jones, the former president of MSNBC, will serve as CEO of Piers Morgan’s new media company Uncensored…

Angela Bassett and Solange Knowles are just some of the honorees at the upcoming Centennial Gala Celebration for the Schomburg Center on April 30…

T.I., Travis Scott, Killer Mike, and other rappers filed a brief with the Supreme Court, pushing back against using rap lyrics as evidence in James Broadnax’s death penalty case…

Houston composer Kaylen Prince is working to break down long-standing barriers in classical music while creating access for the next generation of young musicians…

Byron Allen has bought a significant stake in Starz from former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin…

Kerry Washington opened up about aging gracefully and her latest project, “Imperfect Women,” in a new Guardian interview…

The NBA has canceled the Atlanta Hawks’ Magic City promotion following backlash…

A FAMU middle distance runner went viral for his look towards fans while he was passing up a white runner in a race. Kirk Dawkins is clearing the air about that video…

Dash Lewis spent a few days in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to learn about the city that made J. Cole…

Jill Scott’s 2026 world tour will kick off June 4th with a two-night stand in Nashville…

Obituaries

Thaddeus Mosley, an internationally known sculptor who worked from a studio in Pittsburgh, has died. He was 99…

Lonise Bias, the mother of the late basketball star Len Bias, who turned her grief into support for the community, has died. She was 77…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 15 seconds…

The Williams-Franklin Foundation is offering twenty $5,000 scholarships to undergraduate students at HBCUs. Learn more here…

Mark your calendar: Howard University is set to host Morehouse College for their 2026 homecoming on Saturday, October 17th…

Janine Jackson interviewed American Prospect’s John Lewis writing fellow, Naomi Bethune, about anti-Black history…

Thank you to WayMaker Media for naming me to its top 50 list…

The Louis Carr Foundation provides up to 12 paid communications internships for undergraduate students of color during the summer immediately following their freshman, sophomore, or junior year of college. Apply here…

This story was originally published on Contraband Camp.

If you see the staff running through the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, don’t ask any questions: Just start running, too.

That was the idea at the heart of the museum’s most viral video in its new social media series, which spoofs what it is like to work at the historic Detroit institution—also known simply as The Wright—from a distinctly Black perspective.

Captioned “POV: You’re running and don’t know why,” the video shows museum employees running simply because they saw Lance Wheeler, the museum’s vice president for learning and engagement, running. Shot as a mockumentary, the hilarious videos have introduced the 60-year-old institution to an entirely new audience, desperate for authentic Black storytelling.

“Black people are looking for something to make them feel good in a time where there’s a lot happening in our country and also internationally. Videos like the running video ground us back into our culture,” explained Wheeler, who hails from New Jersey but has fallen in love with Detroit. “And there’s no faking it when it comes to an African American museum right now.”

When Charles H. Wright, a Detroit obstetrician and civil rights activist, visited Copenhagen in 1964, he came across a memorial for Danish World War II heroes. Encouraged by what he saw, he decided Black Americans needed a place to celebrate and learn about our history.

“I’d bring healthy babies into the world, and I’d see them later, and they’d be psychologically scarred,” he told the Detroit Free Press in a 1997 interview. “I saw we had to do something about society—and the museum was an effort to do that.”

Initially launched as the International Afro-American Museum in a house owned by Wright on West Grand Boulevard in 1966, the Wright Museum has grown to one of the largest museums dedicated to African American history in the United States.

With more than 35,000 artifacts and archival materials within its 125,000-square-foot building, The Wright was the largest in the world prior to the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. (Note: The author’s grandfather was a docent at the museum’s previous location at 301 Frederick Street in Detroit.)

But the museum has faced obstacles in its 60-year history—from mounting financial pressures to the challenge of remaining relevant in a city that has undergone significant change since the 1960s.

Kyle Sammy, the creator of the video series and digital strategy specialist at The Wright, recognized that the museum needed a new voice. When he was first hired, he quickly grew weary of creating flyers as the primary means of promoting The Wright and its initiatives.

“A lot of people don’t really understand marketing,” he explained. “They think that if you just post something online, then all of a sudden, the event should be sold out. That was the mentality I saw across the board at the museum. And that’s not really how marketing works.”

Shot in a mockumentary style, the social media series has drawn comparisons to familiar hit series like The Office and Abbott Elementary. Sammy named the Quinta Brunson-led sitcom as a key inspiration.

“When I was a part of learning and engagement, we would have a lot of funny conversations at work, and I would think we can make a show out of this,” said Sammy, who once worked for a large YouTube channel. “And then Abbott Elementary got really popular, and we were just like, yo, we could be Abbott Elementary!”

Sammy is a one-man band: He comes up with the ideas, writes the scripts, creates the schedule, and films the videos. “I’m literally pulling people from their desks to be in these shoots. The people you see in the videos are actually working.”

There is no production budget for these videos, but Sammy hopes that will change soon.

“Currently, it is a $0 budget,” he said with a laugh. “I am working with what I have to make ends meet, if you will.”

Sammy understands the video series isn’t solely meant to keep audiences entertained; it’s reinvigorating the decades-old institution by marketing the museum’s educational and community events within the videos. When Wright Museum staff subtly promoted their talk with National Book Award winner Imani Perry in a February video, several people left comments noting they’d make the Wright a key stop on their next visit to Detroit.

“We’ve seen an uptick,” Wheeler said when asked if the viral response has brought people to the museum. “Locally, we’re up by 10% of people coming into the building from different parts of the city of Detroit and other parts of Michigan.”

Jonathan Jones, manager of youth and family programs at The Wright and one of the actors in the series, has seen the videos’ massive impact on the museum. He joined The Wright in 2013.

“I have seen an increase in engagement with the activities that we are doing, an increase in people who want tours, an increase in people who are registering for our events since these videos have gone out,” said Jones, who has years of acting experience.

“Getting the chance to showcase other aspects of our history and culture that are not trauma-based or trauma-filled, that are joyful, that are silly, that are informative, while still keeping our integrity is just a beautiful thing to watch unfold in real time,” he said.

For many viewers, the videos could not have come at a better time. As the Trump administration continues efforts to scrub Black history at national parks and federal sites, the work of independent Black history museums like The Wright is more important than ever.

Hundreds of commenters who found the content relatable are begging for more. Some have called the series “their favorite show” and are anticipating new episodes.

“This series has been the best usage of the internet in a very long time,” one person said in the comment section of the museum’s social media pages. The videos have even attracted the attention of figures like influencer Nimay Ndolo and Detroit native Jemele Hill. “This is so good, I’m actually jealous,” said rapper Trinidad James. “Great work.” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will appear in an upcoming video.

Other museums and institutions dedicated to Black history have noticed how audiences engage with The Wright — and hope to replicate its viral success.

“The Blacksonian reached out to me, saying, ‘Hey, this is dynamic. How are y’all doing this?’ I had colleagues in California saying, ‘Yo, this is amazing,” said Wheeler. “The Association of African American Museums, which Dr. Wright co-founded with Dr. [Margaret] Burroughs, said our writers are on some cutting edge.”

But leadership at The Wright isn’t satisfied with just seeing their videos go viral. They’re already working on ways to protect their content.

“We are in the process from a leadership standpoint on figuring out how to get [the video series] copyrighted,” Wheeler said. “We’re expediting that very quickly to answer that question.”

Alongside the likes and shares, Wheeler hopes the videos will encourage people outside Detroit’s city limits to support The Wright’s mission to celebrate Black history and culture.

“I want people to know we are only as strong as our membership base. If you say you support Black institutions, support them not just locally, but outside of your region as well,” he explained. “There are people who support the Blacksonian who do not live in the DMV area. If you want to support The Wright, become a member. Send us emails telling us what you want to see.”

“If you physically can’t come to us, we can physically come to you with our videos via the phone or your computer to engage with you and remind you that there are museums and institutions that are still doing the work.”

Jones, who has starred in most of the videos so far, said people have stopped him while he was out and about to ask about the next videos.

“I was at the gym and people in the class were like, ‘When’s the next video? When’s the next video though? I need it now.’ And I was like, well, you can’t have it now,” he said with a laugh. “So back off and hit that kettlebell.”

But he called the pressure to create more videos “good problems,” a reference to a phrase used in the hit HBO series The Wire.

“[The series] is causing people to want to engage with everything that we’re doing,” he explained. “They want to come to our programs. They want to come to the African World Festival. They want to send their kids to our summer camp. We had to do a retraining at our front desk on memberships because people are coming in droves.”

“These are good problems. So I’m good with that.”

The Trump administration can’t kill Black History Month, The Atlantic

For The Atlantic, Clint Smith explores the downstream effects of the Trump administration’s attack on Black history and how it has affected the ways schools, libraries, and corporations celebrate the February holiday. But “we don’t have to wait on the government to give us permission to learn a history we can reach for ourselves,” he writes.

Improbably famous, then perpetually forgotten. Now, the renaissance of Edmonia Lewis, The New York Times

You may or may not have heard of Edmonia Lewis, a 19th-century sculptor of Black and Indigenous ancestry whose marble sculptures achieved international acclaim. She was extremely popular in the 1860s and 1870s, friends with figures like Frederick Douglass, and was then largely overlooked. Today, scholars and artists are working to keep her story alive.

Related: Lewis’s work and life are now the subject of a new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Massachusetts…

There are only 3 Black NFL head coaches. Does that matter to players?, Andscape

Reporting from the NFL draft combine in Indiana, asked Black football players for their thoughts on the men they entrust with their careers. There was no consensus.

Thank you to Essence Magazine for the shoutout!

What’s In The News

Across America

California: Black pedestrians are disproportionately killed on Sacramento streets. For one family, unanswered questions after a fatal crash only deepened the loss, reports…

District of Columbia: The Howard University Department of Athletics has reportedly set new pregame rules requiring student-athletes to stand during the national anthem…

Florida: A group chat for Florida right-wing students was filled with over 400 instances of the N-word and writings of “dozens of ways of violently killing Black people”...

Georgia: Pinky Cole, the founder of the Slutty Vegan restaurant, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy…

Illinois: Chicagoans are expected to die earlier in West Garfield Park than in any other neighborhood in the city. A network of community gardens aims to close that gap…

Massachusetts: The digital library JSTOR examined how a dramatic 1836 courtroom escape led by primarily Black women “challenged slave hunters—and Boston’s elite”…

Michigan: State Rep. Karen Whitsett isn’t running for reelection, citing her commitment to Jesus Christ…

Mississippi: Author W. Ralph Eubanks talked with Capital B’s Aallyah Wright about his new book, and the inequality and history that shaped the Mississippi Delta…

New York: The Associated Press has a six-part audio series, “This City Was Black,” which explores what it means to be a Black New Yorker in 2026…

South Carolina: In a win for the Gullah Geechee people on St. Helena Island, access to a long-used cemetery has finally been restored…

Tennessee: 8Ball, one of the pioneers of Memphis hip-hop, was recognized by the state’s Black Caucus for his cultural impact…

Texas: Jasmine Crockett conceded the Texas Senate primary to James Talarico…Crockett’s pastor, Frederick Haynes III, has won the primary election for the seat she currently occupies…

Virginia: A century after segregation-era policies stripped Hampton University of its land grant status, a bill in the Virginia legislature aims help the school get it back…

What’s Happening

CBS News’ news: Gayle King will stay with “CBS Mornings” for the foreseeable future after signing a new deal…The show’s top producer, Shawna Thomas, will reportedly leave CBS News at the end of this month: “Frankly, I’m tired y’all”...

A leaked government database revealed the enormity of the Trump administration’s ​effort to scrub Black history and more at hundreds of national park sites…

Families have no choice but to turn to states for civil rights support as Trump dismantles the Education Department…ProPublica has sued the Education Department, accusing it of withholding public records about how it’s enforcing civil rights protections…

“More than half of all Black Americans live within 3 miles of a hazardous chemical plant,” Adam Mahoney reports…"

Trump has no justification to ban DEI, diversity experts say. But that doesn’t mean his administration won’t do its best to continue eliminating it…

Boston has recognized March 5th as Crispus Attucks Day, honoring the first person killed in the Boston Massacre 256 years ago...

On February 8, incarcerated folks in Alabama Dept of Corrections facilities initiated a work strike. For Scalawag Magazine, Incarcerated writer Michael Kimble outlines why the strike is essential…

Dorothy Butler Gilliam, the first Black woman reporter hired at The Washington Post, donated $10,000 to recently laid-off staff…

An effort to create a landmark to honor the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Mansfield school desegregation crisis is underway in Texas…

Pharmaceutical giant Novartis settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that claimed the company unjustly profited from her cells to make major medical advancements…

The kids are alright: North Carolina A&T State University students walked more than 30 minutes to a polling site after learning there was no early voting site on campus…

Capital B News is exploring how the county committee system played a key role in diminishing Black political power and resources for Black farmers…

Benedict College interim president Teresa Hardee talked with The Assembly about how the South Carolina-based HBCU is navigating financial uncertainty…

Enslaved 19th-century potter David Drake left messages for his descendants inscribed into the clay pots he crafted...

Stacy M. Brown, correspondent for Black Press Media, wrote about how pressure from right-wing news outlets led to the ousting of a Black dean at Harvard…

wrote about the time she uncovered the racist text messages Ryan Millsap wrote in 2023. He’s now running for an open U.S. House seat in Georgia…

A Texas student has been expelled after posting an edited video of a basketball player’s face over the “Roots” character Kunta Kinte…

A Michigan-based bridge club of 90-year-olds gathers weekly to play cards, building community and strengthening mental acuity…

Entertainment News

The legendary De La Soul performed at the NPR Tiny Desk concert series this week. Watch above…

Awards season continues: Michael B. Jordan won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the Actor Awards…Ryan Coogler is the first director to helm two best ensemble winners in the history of the award show…Ryan Coogler and Delroy Lindo received a standing ovation at the NAACP Image Awards…

Related: Billboard’s Kyle Denis spoke with Ryan and Zinzi Coogler, Ludwig Goransson and Sev Ohanian about the future of Proximity Media’s music branch…Franklin Leonard sat down with Coogler for an interview on how “Sinners” became his most personal film yet…

penned an essay on the tragic state of hip-hop media archives and the fight for preserving hip-hop’s past...

Fashion brand Hanifa is pausing production indefinitely after nearly 15 years in business…

Antoine Fuqua’s long-awaited Netflix-backed biopic of Hannibal with Denzel Washington is set to start production in June…

Wild story: A tipster alleged that an assistant men’s basketball coach at California State University, Bakersfield was also “working as a pimp across four states”...

The trailer for “Scary Movie 6” is out, and people have a lot of thoughts…

Black horror writer Tananarive Due shared the art of crafting horror stories about real-life traumas…

“Abbott Elementary” has been renewed for a sixth season on ABC…

Netflix shared a new behind-the-scenes collage from the set of the upcoming “A Different World” series...

Obituaries

Christine Johnson McPhail, former president of St. Augustine’s University and a fighter for equity in higher education, has died. She was 80…

Joe Randall, who was widely acknowledged as the “dean of Southern Cooking,” has died. He was 79…

Bernard LaFayette, whose key work in Selma culminated in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, has died. He was 85…

Sidney Dorsey, who was convicted of setting up the assassination of his political rival in 2000, has died. He was 86…

For Andscape, Jesse Washington wrote about how the late James Bernard and “The Source” defined 1990s hip-hop…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 20 seconds…

Netflix’s Strong Black Lead is seeking entertainment super fans to host its new social series…

Sequoia Holmes’ podcast network is hiring a part-time producer for her podcast, “Black People Love Paramore”...

I’m excited to be moderating the DC Alphas’ mayoral forum at Kramer Middle School in Washington on March 11th…

The Washington Post has compiled a database of nearly 1,000 colleges and universities that offer free tuition programs…

There has never been an official, comprehensive record of Black-owned bookstores across the United States — until now.

The National Association of Black Bookstores (NAB2), a new organization that aims to empower Black-owned bookstores and booksellers, released its inaugural State of the Black Bookstore report.

NAB2 unveiled the report at the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Pittsburgh last month. The organization also launched its National Black-Owned Bookstore Directory, an index of the Black-operated brick-and-mortar stores, mobile shops and online sellers across the country.

The report states that there are 306 Black-owned bookstores nationwide, approaching the estimated peak of 325 in the 1990s. The ‘90s were considered the golden age of Black bookselling, fueled by literary figures like Terry McMillan, Eric Jerome Dickey, E. Lynn Harris and Bebe Moore Campbell, and by the debut of Oprah Winfrey’s highly influential book club.

With the launch of Amazon.com and the rise of major chains like Barnes & Noble, many Black-owned bookstores closed during the late ‘90s and into the 2000s. Char Adams, author of “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore,” estimates that only 54 Black-owned bookstores were operating nationwide by 2014.

In 2020, the number of Black-owned bookstores saw a jump due to renewed interest in Black authors and books as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests around George Floyd’s murder. Even now, as the Trump administration attempts to erase Black history, Black-owned bookstores are continuing a comeback.

Kevin Johnson, who founded NAB2 in 2025, sees that growth as worth celebrating.

“The growth of Black-owned bookstores across the country reflects the strength and relevance of these institutions today,” said Johnson, a former NBA player and owner of Underground Books in Sacramento, where he served two terms as mayor. “This report establishes a clear national record of where Black bookstores are operating and how they function. By bringing this information together, we are creating a foundation that supports their continued presence and informs how the industry engages with them.”

Despite the growth, Black-owned bookstores still face significant challenges. According to the report, 90% of the bookstores report annual revenue under $250,000, and 36% have no permanent brick-and-mortar location.

“Black bookstores have always done more with less,” said Yvonne Blake, owner of Hakim’s Bookstore, the oldest Black-owned bookstore in Philadelphia.

“We have survived by serving our people, protecting our stories, and holding space when few others would. This report tells the truth plainly,” said Blake, who took over the bookstore from her late father. “It honors the work that came before us while making clear what must change if these bookstores are going to be here for the next generation.”

Trump’s threats to free speech aren’t new to Black journalists, The Nation

In my capacity as president of the Washington Association of Black Journalists, I spoke with student journalist Atarah Israel about how Black journalists are grappling with Trump’s latest threats to free speech.

Related: I was also featured in ’s Essence Magazine story about Black journalism amid the arrests of Georgia Fort and Don Lemon.

Mississippi’s Black voters brace for elections ruling that could gut Supreme Court clout, The Marshall Project

An important story to follow: The Supreme Court will soon rule on a case that could gut key parts of the Voting Rights Act and radically change the country’s voting maps. Mississippi's Black voters are bracing for "devastation."

Tourette’s activist John Davidson shouted the N-word while Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage at the BAFTA Film Awards, causing an uproar online. Delroy Lindo told Vanity Fair that he and Michael B. Jordan “did what we had to do” while presenting, but that he also wished “someone from BAFTA spoke to us afterward.”

Warner Bros. executives immediately contacted BAFTA after the N-word was shouted in an effort to have it removed from the BBC’s time-delayed broadcast, according to a report. But it didn’t happen.

Davidson said he has reached out to the actors to apologize. BAFTA and BBC have apologized and ordered a comprehensive review. In an op-ed for The Guardian, explains that all the anger and frustration should be aimed at the BBC. My colleague Jillian Wilson spoke with experts and advocates about Tourette syndrome and sought answers to the many questions people had following the outburst.

What’s In The News

Across America

California: California’s Medi-Cal has covered doula care since 2023, but the state is still working to increase access and awareness of this benefit…

Connecticut: Students are reactivating the Yale chapter of the NAACP after years of dormancy…

Florida: Lawmakers left the Florida Museum of Black History out of their budget priorities, casting uncertainty over its funding and future…

Georgia: Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens is defending California Governor Gavin Newsom after comments he made in Atlanta are being called racist…

Idaho: The Post Falls City Council voted to remove Juneteenth as a city holiday while adding Columbus Day…

Louisiana: Reconstruction on the Nottoway Plantation house, which was consumed by a massive fire last year, has begun…

Maryland: Four years after shooting her husband for sexually abusing children at her daycare, Shanteari Young now wants to advocate for children who’ve experienced sexual abuse…

Massachusetts: The future of a historic refuge for Black artists in Boston is in doubt…

Michigan: A collective of Black women dentists is expanding public health across Metro Detroit…

New Mexico: The University of New Mexico has opened the Afro Hair Shop for students…

New York: A Hunter College professor is under investigation by her employer for racist remarks made during a public school meeting. She has been placed on leave…

North Carolina: Black-owned barbecue restaurants have anchored their communities across the state. But there aren’t many left…

Oklahoma: Over a century after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, a multi-year project to preserve Greenwood’s Vernon AME Church basement and turn it into a museum and cultural center has launched…

Oregon: The Department of Education opened an investigation into Portland Public Schools’ Center for Black Student Excellence…

Tennessee: Nashville-based Amanda Ewing has made history as the first recorded Black woman violin maker in the United States…

Texas: A viral Snapchat video showed a Black boy allegedly bullied into drinking urine. A jury just awarded $3.2M to one of the teens accused of making him drink it…

What’s Happening

Rep. Al Green held a sign during the State of the Union address that called out a racist social media post Trump recently shared of Barack and Michelle Obama…Capital B’s Brandon Tensley did a deep dive on the speech…

For the Atlantic, writes, “Black History Month is sometimes treated as little more than an opportunity for corporate branding and, maybe, school assemblies.” But “observing it this February feels radical”...

The mother of Da’Quain Johnson is speaking out after her son was shot and killed by Grand Rapids, Michigan, police…

The family of a man who was reported missing out of Atlanta said he was found dead in a Cobb Countypark. Authorities said “no foul play” has been discovered…

31 colleges have agreed to end their partnership with the PhD Project, which aimed to support underrepresented students pursuing doctoral degrees in business…Related: New York University has canceled affinity graduations, citing the “current political climate”...

A new poll focused on Black voters found that “their relative absence from the protests wasn’t related to a secret vein of support for Trump or a lack of opposition to his anger. It was rooted in fear of political violence or economic backlash”...

10-year-old Honey Cooper is making local history in California as a dual-enrollment student at San Bernardino Valley College…

Metro Atlanta’s largest Black-owned swim school is “designed to foster a strong connection between the community and the water”...

A new bill would create a state commission to investigate the hundreds of Black boys who died under state custody at a segregated juvenile facility in Maryland...

AJ Addae, a UCLA student, was frustrated with sunscreens that left a white cast. She reinvented her own sunscreen to protect darker skin tones…

St. Augustine University in Raleigh, North Carolina, honored its long-serving former president, Prezell Robinson…

The first Black homeowner in Piedmont, California, was forced out of his home in the 1920s. Now, his family is suing…

Clarice Phelps is now credited as the first Black woman to help discover a periodic element…

Inez Phillips Durham and daughter Jennifer Durham are the first parent-child duo to earn doctorate degrees from Rutgers’ School of Psychology…

Eunice Bodie, who recently celebrated her 92nd birthday, was the first Black hairstylist at a Memphis salon more than 70 years ago. And she’s still going...

Entertainment News

The legendary actor Bill Duke received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this week. Watch above…

Wrigley Field is gearing up to host the first-ever Chicago HBCU Baseball Classic this spring…

Florida A&M University honored the legacy of Michael Jackson with the Marching 100’s performance of “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough”...

For Harper’s Bazaar, covered “Natchez,” a new documentary about a Mississippi town grappling with its history of enslavement…

Jonathan Majors is set to star in a new action film for right-wing media outlet The Daily Wire…

Megan Thee Stallion will make her Broadway debut next month in the Tony-winning “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”…

For BBC, takes us inside Atlanta’s soul food revolution…

Atlanta-based rock band The Paradox became the first all-Black band to top Billboard’s Alternative chart…

LA intersection Crenshaw and Slauson is set to be renamed this weekend in honor of the late rapper Nipsey Hussle…

Mara Brock Akil is set to make her debut as a novelist with “The Revelation of Dionne Daphne,” to be published June 30…

Sarah Bond, the first Black woman to serve as president of Xbox, is stepping down from her executive role…

Ryan Coogler‘s reboot of “The X-Files” is officially moving forward with a pilot order at Hulu…

A new analysis reveals Nicki Minaj’s push for “conservative causes has been amplified by an army of bots and coordinated activity”….

Obituaries

Joanne Bland, one of the youngest people to march on “Bloody Sunday,” has died. She was 72…NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe visited her back in 2022…

Dorothy Prevost, whose daughter Tessie made history as one of four girls who integrated schools in New Orleans, has died. She was 94…

Kara Braxton, a former WNBA All-Star and Detroit Shock who played 10 years in the league, has died. She was 43…

Ulysses Jenkins, a trailblazing figure in Black experimental video, has died. He was 80...

Avel Gordly, who made history as the first Black woman elected to Oregon’s state senate, has died. She was 79…

Oliver “Power” Grant, co-founder of the Wu Tang Clan and executive producer of the group’s early recordings, has died. He was 52…

Robert Cosby Jr, the son of “The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Mary Cosby, has died. He was 23…

Rondale Moore, a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings, has died. He was 25…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 9 seconds…

“Sinners” stars Buddy Guy and Miles Canton’s NPR Tiny Desk concert will premiere today…

Michael Harriot spoke with Geoff Bennett about his best-selling book, “Black AF History,” and what we can learn from Black history today…

If you’re an HBCU journalism student curious about data, apply for the Du Bois Data Lab in Washington. It’s a free program; no prior experience required…

This article was first published by The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.

Mississippi’s Black voters recently won a victory that puts them on the brink of having greater sway over who sits on the state’s Supreme Court.

But that win may be short-lived.

In the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on a case that could weaken or overturn key parts of the Voting Rights Act — a Civil Rights-era law that protects the power of racial minorities to elect candidates of their choice.

If the law is upended, it could radically alter the country’s voting maps, a shift that would be felt heavily in Mississippi and unwind decades of progress for Black voters across the U.S.

Last year, a federal judge found that the current voting map used to elect Mississippi Supreme Court justices illegally diminishes Black voting power in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

U.S. District Court Judge Sharion Aycock then ordered Mississippi lawmakers to redraw one of the three districts that are used to elect the state’s nine Supreme Court justices. In their ongoing legislative session, lawmakers have taken preliminary steps to comply.

Mississippi has the highest Black population share of any state, at about 37%, but just one of the nine justices is Black. There have only ever been four Black justices on the Mississippi Supreme Court in the state’s history, and none of them have ever served at the same time.

That electoral history is “bleak,” according to Aycock, who heard arguments over the matter in a non-jury trial last year in northern Mississippi. A George W. Bush appointee, Ayock concluded in her decision that “Black candidates who desire to run for the Mississippi Supreme Court face a grim likelihood of success.”

The Voting Rights Act requires otherwise, Aycock ruled. The act, first passed in 1965, has been a bedrock legal guarantee of political equality and full democratic inclusion for Black Americans and other racial minorities.

The pending U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken or even eliminate Section 2, a key part of the Voting Rights Act. This section is critical to lawsuits that challenge racial discrimination in election maps and that Aycock relied on to support her ruling. The case, brought by a group of self-identified “non-African American” voters against Louisiana’s congressional map, could put into doubt legal rulings across the country that have required districts that favor racial minorities.

Lawmakers are responding to Aycock’s order, but slowly.

Powerful committee heads overseeing the process say they want to see if a decision in the Callais case comes before legislators adjourn for the year in early April. A decision could come at any point before the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June, and many legal observers said after the oral arguments in October that they expect the court to severely limit the Voting Rights Act.

That leaves Mississippi’s Black voters in a legal quagmire, holding out hope for the prospect of greater influence over the state’s high court while fearing a national unwinding of Black political power and representation.

“It’s unsettling for people of color here in the state of Mississippi to be waiting for them to push their pencil to draw lines,” said Rep. Kabir Karriem, a Democrat who chairs the Legislative Black Caucus in the Mississippi House of Representatives. “It’s long overdue, but with the [U.S.] Supreme Court holding us in the balance, we don’t know what to expect.”

Mississippi’s voting districts under scrutiny

The Mississippi Supreme Court, like all state-level high courts, potentially wields significant power. In Mississippi, that power has risen and fallen throughout the decades, as has the court’s commitment to upholding the Constitutional promise of racial equality.

In recent years, the state Supreme Court has struck down the process to put citizen-led initiatives on the ballot and made it harder for death row prisoners to appeal their cases. It has also pushed modest reforms of the state’s beleaguered public defense system and imposed requirements intended to make money bail less burdensome.

Mississippi is among only six states to elect Supreme Court justices from district-level elections rather than statewide elections or gubernatorial appointments.

That’s an arrangement that, at least on paper, could improve the standing of Black voters in Supreme Court elections. While Black voters make up a sizable bloc, they aren’t a majority of the state, and voting patterns remain highly polarized by race in the state. No Black candidate has won a statewide election since Reconstruction.

Even so, the districts used in Supreme Court elections weaken the influence of Black voters, according to a 2022 lawsuit filed by a coalition of Black voters.

The current districts were drawn in 1987, an unusually long time compared to the other states that use judicial voting districts for state supreme court seats. There are three districts, each of which sends three justices to the court. Black voters currently make up just shy of a majority in one of the three districts, with the Black-majority Delta region split between two different districts.

When the lawsuit was filed, there were two justices on the court who had won elections with Black support.

But by the time Aycock ruled last August, there was only one. A White justice who had historically been elected with the support of Black voters — and who often dissented from the court’s conservative majority — was defeated in 2024 by a White Republican state senator.

That left Leslie King as the lone justice on the court with a history of Black electoral support. King is only the fourth Black justice to sit on the court since the 1985 appointment of Reuben Anderson by the governor. To stress the hardship Black candidates face in judicial elections, plaintiffs in the suit emphasized that all four Black justices in the state’s history first reached the high court through gubernatorial appointments, not by winning elections.

“A Black candidate has never won without possessing the incumbency advantage,” Aycock noted, describing that fact as “critical” to her ruling.

Aycock not only ordered the Mississippi Legislature to give Black voters greater power in one of the three Supreme Court voting districts. She also indicated that she’s likely to order special elections for at least some of the court’s seats, though she delayed that decision until she reviews a new map.

That would follow court-ordered special elections last year that boosted Black representation in both chambers of the Legislature, following a different voting rights lawsuit.

The Voting Rights Act’s fate

At the heart of the Callais challenge to the current legal landscape is a claim that states cannot intentionally draw voting districts to achieve a certain racial composition — such as a district that favors Black voters — even when done to remedy a disadvantage faced by minority voters in electing their favored candidates.

If the Supreme Court sides with plaintiffs, it could unravel many wins for Black representation, both old and new. Republicans in Mississippi could eventually redraw the state’s congressional map and eliminate its majority-Black district, currently held by Bennie Thompson, a Democrat, and at least one leading Republican considering a run for governor has floated that possibility.

But the fallout from a Callais decision that guts the Voting Rights Act would reach far beyond Congress, said Kareem Crayton, a lawyer and scholar who helps lead efforts around voting law and race for the Brennan Center for Justice, a policy think tank and advocacy center.

“Most of the claims that are brought are not congressional,” said Kareem Crayton. “A lion’s share of Section 2 litigation that has succeeded has been at the local and state levels.”

That means disruptions to current redistricting law would be deeply felt at the levels of government many people interact with the most, at a time when there’s already great strain on many of the country’s political institutions.

“This matters to real people,” Crayton said. “If all of those settled understandings about who is responsible to you, who is accountable to you, are thrown into doubt, that’s not good for our democratic system.”

Legislative, legal wrangling ahead

Since state legislators gaveled into session in January, the state House and Senate have each passed placeholder bills, but these bills don’t yet contain revised voting lines.

Despite Aycock’s order, Mississippi lawmakers may choose not to enact a new map at all if the U.S. Supreme Court revises the legal landscape around redistricting, said Rep. Kevin Horan, a Republican, who chairs one of the committees that initiated a possible redistricting bill.

However, Horan told The Marshall Project - Jackson and Bolts that as of now, he intends to comply with Aycock’s order and plans to advance a new Supreme Court map, “if the Senate will agree.”

State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, similarly advised senators recently that redistricting may be necessary if the nation’s high court doesn’t rule soon.

Horan said legislative staffers are working on maps, but declined to discuss the details.

If no decision comes from the high court within the next few weeks and legislators do adopt new maps, then the Callais ruling, when it comes, is certain to prompt a volley of legal filings and arguments.

An appeal of Aycock’s order is already pending before the U.S. 5th Circuit of Appeals, which put the appeal on hold until the Callais decision is handed down. The 5th Circuit might take the appeal up again or it could send the case back down to the district court for Aycock to reconsider her ruling.

Depending on the details of the Callais opinion, civil rights attorneys favoring redistricting might find themselves arguing to salvage Aycock’s opinion on new legal grounds, to preserve a newly adopted map, to petition a court to draw its own map or to push forward special elections.

For Karriem, who leads a Black caucus with 58 members, the stakes aren’t primarily procedural or technical. They aren’t even about grand theories of law and interpretation.

For him, this is a dire moment.

Black communities are bracing, Karriem said, for “devastation.”

Read WBEZ Chicago reporter Natalie Moore’s obituary of Jackson, whom she called a symbol of Black politics and Black America.

For The TRiiBE, wrote about how Rev. Jackson’s legacy paved the way for Kamala Harris’s historic Democratic nomination, and the 19th’s Editor-at-Large explored the ways he opened doors for Black women in politics. Matt Brown wrote about how Jackson inspired generations for the Associated Press.

wrote about the time Rev. Jesse Jackson “smacked her on her forehead,” and explained how Jackson was shaped by Southern segregation and went on to reshape American political life.

For the New York Times, Robin Givhan explored Jackson’s fashion and why he chose the clothes he wore. The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer implores us to ignore the caricature his critics created.

Figures in the United Kingdom were also affected by Jesse Jackson’s life, with writers reflecting on the late civil rights leader in The Guardian.

For details on his celebration of life services in Chicago, please visit this website.

, a documentary filmmaker and photographer, filmed “The Last Cowboys in New York City,” a short doc about the Federation of Black Cowboys and their stables in Jamaica, Queens. Check out his work on Instagram.

No cocktail history is complete without Tom Bullock, Wine Enthusiast

Aubourg is shedding light on the hidden story of Tom Bullock, who, in the 1900s, self-published one of America’s first acclaimed cocktail recipe books.

A West Side mailman went viral for singing to a widowed grandmother. It changed his life, Block Club Chicago

Lavonte Harvey was caught on camera singing on his mail route, and a woman shared the video with her granddaughter. The viral video inspired neighbors to help Harvey purchase a car.

What’s In The News

Across America

Arizona: The state’s Black population has grown 24% over the past decade, according to new data analysis…

District of Columbia: For The 51st, Nayion Perkins asks, is D.C. still Chocolate City?...

Florida: Florida A&M University has drawn criticism for restructuring its African American Studies and Studio Fine Arts programs…

Georgia: Dr. Linda Davis, a K-8 teacher in Savannah, Georgia, was killed in a car crash by a man fleeing ICE…

Illinois: The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center is celebrating its 65th anniversary as the nation’s first and oldest museum of Black history and culture…

Louisiana: A civil rights lawsuit on behalf of residents in Louisiana’s “Cancer Alley” can proceed, a federal court ruled…

Maryland: Five Black surgical residents have made history at Johns Hopkins Hospital as the first all-Black team of residents to lead the trauma center…

Michigan: Black-owned legacy media giants are still teaching important lessons from the past…

New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that New Rochelle will receive $16 million for a historically Black neighborhood…

North Carolina: There’s a new exhibit at N.C. Central University showcasing the Black men and women who built and designed some of the state’s iconic buildings…

Ohio: Cleveland Heights showed out for Laila Edwards, who became the first Black woman to win an Olympic hockey title…

Pennsylvania: Black enrollment has shifted sharply at Philadelphia-area colleges since the end of affirmative action, according to a new report…

South Carolina: Reel South covered a Gullah Geechee family that gathered in the Lowcountry to reflect on their Civil War–era heirs’ property…

What’s Happening

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibit that the National Park Service removed in Philadelphia, and workers were spotted restoring it…

The NAACP and other civil rights organizations have sued to protect voter information that was seized by the FBI…

Alex Pretti and Philando Castile were both lawful gun owners killed by law enforcement. But pro-gun groups were largely silent on the latter’s killing, Abené Clayton reports…

“The same chemicals found in pipes, pesticides and floor tiles are also present in some wigs, braiding hair and hair extensions,” a new study found. Related: Jeorgi Golden, a former hairstylist and nail tech, was diagnosed with lung cancer after decades of chemical exposure…

Capital B’s Adam Mahoney traveled to Louisiana to report on the Black Masking Indians of New Orleans…Related: Riders who were allegedly dangling Black dolls by the neck using beads have been terminated from the Krewe of Tucks…

Over 1,200 swimmers from nearly 40 states came to the nation’s capital to participate in the Black History Invitational Swim Meet…

Forty Acres Fresh Market, a Black woman-owned grocery store, “is tackling food inequity and reshaping economic access in one of Chicago’s long-overlooked neighborhoods”...

Level: America’s most overlooked civil rights tragedy recently marked its 58th anniversary. Only one state mentions it in its official K-12 curriculum…

Washington Post staffers say their newspaper gave up on diverse coverage well before the recently catastrophic layoffs…

The University of Texas at Austin will fold its African and African Diaspora Studies department into a newly created academic unit, amid pressure from the right…

Entertainment News

WATCH: Jill Scott’s long-awaited NPR Tiny Desk concert has premiered…

Baltimore is in the midst of a Black arts renaissance, Abdu Ali writes…

Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell announces plans to run for Congress…

Do you know Sylvia Moy? She’s the songwriter who saved Stevie Wonder’s career…

A stunning 1942 photo of a Black couple inspired Jasmine Vaughn-Hall’s search for a Baltimore love story…

Viola Davis is making her literary debut in March with her new courtroom drama novel, ‘Judge Stone’...

For Andscape, wrote about Tony Clark’s resignation as executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association as a setback for Black Americans in baseball…

Did you watch the “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” docuseries? Read ’s latest: Tyra Banks needs to be held accountable. She’s also the perfect scapegoat…

Nick Cave’s “Mammoth” is the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s largest ever single-artist commission. Their decision to showcase a queer Black artist isn’t lost on him...

: “Toni Morrison quietly mapped the fraught interior lives of Black men, revealing survival strategies shaped by society, silence, and the longing to be whole”...

Unpaid convention and vendor costs for last year’s Essence Fest are raising questions about transparency…

You know about Spike Lee’s legendary film career, but what about his documentaries?...

A biopic about the legendary jazz and blues vocalist Dinah Washington is reportedly in the works…

Obituaries

Norman C. Francis, the New Orleans civil rights, business and education leader who led Xavier University for nearly half a century, has died. He was 94 years old…

Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler, a longtime Washington, D.C. pastor, theologian and fearless advocate for social justice, has died. He was 71…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 54 seconds…

If you’re in Atlanta on February 25th, RICE is hosting an exclusive screening of Andrew Young: The Dirty Work…

created “A Comprehensive Guide to Heart Health for Black Americans” to focus on what we can do within our power to improve our health and well-being…

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a towering civil rights leader and two-time presidential candidate, has died. He was 84.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr.,” his family said in a statement. “He died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family.”

Jackson was hospitalized in November, where he was under observation for a rare brain disease known as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).

Jackson was born in segregated Greenville, South Carolina, where he would later stage a sit-in at a local library that refused to allow him to check out a book. He attended the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he pledged Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc, before transferring to North Carolina Agricultural & Technical College. He played football and became student body president at the HBCU.

He was drawn to the civil rights work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Following King’s assassination, Jackson founded the Chicago-based civil rights organization Operation PUSH.

Jackson’s two presidential campaigns in 1984 and 1988 upended the notion that a Black political candidate couldn’t make a serious run for president.

“Because Jesse Jackson, through his 1984 bid for president and 1988 candidacy for president, he literally changed the Democratic Party and changed the way Democrats elect their presidents,” CNN’s Jeff Zeleny said of Jackson.

He was the first presidential candidate whose campaign platform supported for LGBTQ+ rights, called for defunding militarism, and ending apartheid.

Tributes honoring the life of the late Baptist minister poured in.

“Today, I lost the man who first called me into purpose when I was just twelve years old. And our nation lost one of its greatest moral voices. The Reverend Dr. Jesse Louis Jackson was not simply a civil rights leader; he was a movement unto himself,” The Rev. Al Sharpton said in a social media post.

Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, wrote that her “family shares a long and meaningful history” with Jackson.

“Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. devoted his life to lifting people in poverty, the marginalized, and those pushed to society’s edges,” she wrote on Facebook. “Through Operation PUSH, he pushed barriers and opened doors so Black people and other excluded communities could step into opportunity and dignity.”

This story will be updated.

As America turns 250, the fight over Black history intensifies, Axios

Axios’ explored how America’s 250th anniversary is colliding with an ongoing battle over Black history during the 100th anniversary of Black History Month. Trump’s administration is “actively shrinking institutions that preserve and teach that history,” he writes.

Related: A white historian claimed that Black people ‘had no history.’ Carter G. Woodson dedicated his life to proving otherwise…

More: Black History Month celebrations continue in higher education despite the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Obama meme on Trump’s Truth Social was exactly what it looked like, The Atlantic

“The ‘joke’ that Trump’s account spread is plainly sinister. The idea that Black people sit somewhere between white people and apes has long been used to justify cruelty,” writes in The Atlantic.

Related: AP’s Matt Brown spoke with the congressional Black caucus chair, Rep. Yvette Clarke, about the racist meme. He also published a roundup of what Republicans, who rarely criticize Trump, had to say.

In Capital B News, Chauncey Alcorn found that the racist meme was not a dealbreaker for some Black Georgia Republicans.

A dresser inside a museum in New York City has been discovered as a secret stop on the Underground Railroad — the first of its kind discovered in Manhattan in over 100 years.

When I posted this video online, I (not surprisingly) received many comments saying that New York was a free state, so it was impossible for an Underground Railroad stop to exist there. But actually, there were stops on the Underground Railroad in places like New York!

What’s In The News

Across America

California: San Francisco has been sued over its reparations plan as a right-wing group claims the plan unconstitutionally discriminates based on race and ancestry…

Colorado: A new law requires K-12 public schools to integrate Black history and cultural studies into their curriculum by 2028…

Connecticut: A Black Solidarity Conference held at Yale University included panels and networking events for students from across the country.…

District of Columbia: J. Cole made a stop at Howard University to promote his latest album…

Florida: A Florida A&M University law student says the school told her to remove the word ‘Black’ from a Black History Month event flyer. Now FAMU says it was a mistake…

Georgia: In a major victory, Gullah Geechee people fought off developers with a historic referendum…

Illinois: According to columnist Alden Loury, it’s time to “build on vacant land in Black neighborhoods to stop the exodus of Chicagoans”…

Kentucky: Fawn Weaver’s whiskey company, Uncle Nearest, “will remain in the hands of a receiver for at least another month”…

Louisiana: Black residents have won a key ruling in the ‘cancer alley’ environmental racism case…

Massachusetts: The Black population in Boston has continued to shrink since the COVID-19 pandemic, census survey estimates show…

Missouri: Five Black women were promoted to fire captain at the St. Louis Fire Department...

New York: A Black woman who gave birth to a premature baby in a Syracuse jail was awarded $100,000 after Onondaga County agreed to settle her lawsuit…

Oregon: The Skanner — one of the few Black-owned newspapers in the Pacific Northwest — is shutting down…

Pennsylvania: The statue of Joe Frazier will move from the stadium district to the Philadelphia Museum of Art this spring…

South Carolina: A man who spent 15 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit has filed a lawsuit against Clarendon County and several state officials…

Texas: The racial wealth gap in the U.S. isn’t shrinking — it’s growing. Here’s how the Lone Star state ranks…

Virginia: The Richmond Free Press, a Black newspaper, is closing its doors after over three decades…

What’s Happening

The White House is set to host a Black History Month reception next Wednesday, February 18th, an official told Brianna Tucker…

“A notable number of Black residents are leaving Brooklyn — no longer able to afford it. I might be one of them,” Naomi Jackson writes in Curbed…

The latest story from my colleague : Black Women’s HIV stories have long been undertold. This magazine hopes to change that…

Frederick Haynes III is running to fill Jasmine Crockett’s House seat. He’s also her pastor…

“Just Mercy” author Bryan Stevenson sat down with theGrio’s in Montgomery, Alabama, to discuss telling truth that America can’t ignore….

Nike is facing a federal investigation for allegedly discriminating against white employees…

A historic Michigan home where Malcolm X once lived remains closed to the public nearly a year after the promised opening date…

100 years after the first Black homeowners in Piedmont, California, were forced out by their white neighbors and city officials, their great-granddaughter is suing for compensation and a formal apology…

A reparations committee in Evanston, Illinois, announced it will issue payments to 44 descendants this summer…

Axios: Atlanta’s Prince Hall Masonic Temple and Lodge is now part of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park…

“As the U.S. accelerates its green transition to curb climate change, the South, as the birthplace of the environmental justice movement, remains the nation’s front line,” Augustina Boateng writes in Scalawag Magazine…

Author provided LitHub with an excerpt from his latest book about the experiences of Black Vietnam veterans—and the current efforts to erase that history…

Phillis Wheatley wrote poetry while enslaved. Now, she is immortalized on a postage stamp…

penned an op-ed about the revolutionary civil rights leader James Forman…

Entertainment News

Author Veronica Chambers published a list of Toni Morrison’s best books in the New York Times…

created a comprehensive Black-owned beauty guide for Black History Month…

Simone Ledward Boseman talked with The Guardian about the shock of losing Chadwick, and how a revival of one of his plays helped her heal…

For Apartment Therapy, writes about growing up in a Black home, where the books on display meant more than decor…

Meet the Arlington, Virginia, hairstylists that Michelle Obama relies on…

A new video shows an HGTV star using the N-word on camera — and immediately begging for it to be deleted. Her show was also canceled…

The Grio’s wrote about Charm La’Donna, the Black choreographer behind Bad Bunny, Kendrick Lamar & Beyoncé’s halftime shows…

Amy Sherald’s show set a visitor record at Baltimore Museum of Art, following her decision to withdraw her exhibition from the Smithsonian over censorship concerns…

Jennifer Hudson has signed on as a producer of the Broadway revival for “Dreamgirls”...

“After singing on the world’s top opera stages for more than 40 years, Denyce Graves took a final bow and is pivoting to teaching the next generation”…

Charlie Woods, Tiger Woods's son, has verbally committed to play golf at Florida State…

Halle Berry is featured on The Cut’s February 2026 cover and talked about next steps in her menopause-awareness mission…

Laila Edwards just became the first Black woman to score a goal during an Olympic hockey game…

ChatGPT caricatures are taking over social media—but at what cost?...

“Sinners” is now a part of the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Hollywood with props, costumes and set pieces displayed in a new exhibit…

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has launched a 20-city U.S. tour under its new artistic director, Alicia Graf Mack…

With fewer daytime talk shows on air, Black women hosts are being left to navigate what comes next in a rapidly changing media industry, Kimberly Wilson writes for Essence...

Obituaries

Nathan Smith, the son of Lil Jon and musician known as DJ Young Slade, has died. He was 27…

Betty DeRamus, a prize-winning columnist for The Detroit News and author of two books about the Underground Railroad, has died. She was 84…

William Newman Jr., who served as Arlington’s first Black County Board member, chief judge of the county’s circuit court and later, an actor, has died…

Thelma Vernell Anderson Gibson, a pioneering nurse, civil rights advocate and longtime community leader in Miami, has died. She was 99…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 34 seconds…

Verso Books is offering 40% off a collection of both new and classic titles on Black History and Black Liberation…

Liberation Ventures wants to fund narrative change work in mass culture engagement, mass media development, and curated experiences. Details…

Black Ink is hosting a Black artist-centered open house on Feb. 14 in Hyattsville, Maryland…

On Feb. 19, the WABJ is teaming up with the Conservation Fund for a talk about the urgent threats facing historic Black sites at the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service & Heritage…

Los Angeles: The Nipsey Hussle Square sign dedication ceremony will be held February 28th at the southwest corner of Crenshaw & Slauson…

Two events in Baltimore you should check out: The Baltimore Association of Black Journalists is hosting a community town hall on the future of local journalism on Feb. 19…Learn about the legacy of the Baltimore Black Sox, one of Baltimore’s historic Negro League baseball teams, on Feb. 21…

NPR Code Switch explored the history of Black History Month on its 100th anniversary…

The latest episode of “Lost Credits” podcast examines the rise of 1990s Black family sitcoms that centered Black girlhood and the impact of their decline…

The National Association of Black Journalists held a town hall this week to discuss the fight for press freedom and next steps in the wake of the arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort.

Hosted by NABJ President Errin Haines and Vice President of Digital Roland Martin, we heard from top journalism leaders and press freedom advocates who described the challenges journalists are facing today. Watch it in full above. Don’t miss Georgia Fort’s op-ed in the New York Times about the ordeal.

I also listened in on an emergency call hosted by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who wanted to hear from Black media members after the arrest. Officials on the call discussed how further legislation on the local and federal levels may be necessary to prevent the assault on the First Amendment.

Related: The arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort reflect an American legacy of targeting the Black press, Naomi Bethune writes in the American Prospect.

Lemon’s arrest is not only a clear violation of the First Amendment but also a blatant throwback to the Constitution’s long-discarded Fugitive Slave Clause, writes in The Nation.

asks in Newsone: Can NABJ protect Black journalists — or just mourn us after?

Gerren Keith Gaynor of The Grio spoke with legal experts about why the charges against Don Lemon and Georgia Fort are so concerning. Read the full indictment here.

Black British public figures have rallied behind Don Lemon and Georgia Fort following their arrest, reports from the United Kingdom…

One century of honoring Black history, Campaign Zero

BHM100 is a national initiative marking a century of honoring Black history while imagining the next 100 years. As February 2026 commemorates 100 years since the first national observance of Black history, BHM100 brings together educators, artists, organizers, and communities to honor the past, celebrate Black culture, and carry the legacy forward.

Related: Audible has set up a section to honor Black authors and creators for Black History Month.

and have published stories about films you need to watch during Black History Month. Read Maya and Robert’s work.

Should any programs help minority groups? In lawsuits, conservatives say no, The New York Times

Conservative groups have brought on a host of lawsuits against corporations, law firms, health care companies, art groups and nonprofits. And they are mostly winning.

“I would call it a multipronged assault on diversity, equity and inclusion,” one expert told the Times. “It’s a legal, political and cultural war that they’re waging.”

How hair braiding connects Black mothers and children, Parents

“Black hairstyles reflect Black culture, traditions passed down out of necessity, and a chance to nurture and spend valued time with our children,” Ambreia Meadows-Fernandez writes.

What’s In The News

Across America

Alabama: Charles “Sonny” Burton killed no one. The state plans to suffocate him anyway, reports…

California: Black men in California are five times more likely to die from prostate cancer. Earlier access to care and regular screening can prevent it…

Colorado: After years of facing discrimination and harassment, the Mallerys are pushing forward and fighting for change…

District of Columbia: Howard University is facing financial pressure after years of soaring applicants and class sizes…

Georgia: Outside Atlanta, the Godfreys are caught in a cycle of job loss and eviction. That stress has taken a toll on the kids…

Minnesota: The shooting deaths of white protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Good by federal officers in Minneapolis followed a playbook that is painfully familiar to Black Americans… Ken Makin explains how Minneapolis protests fit into the larger struggle for civil rights…

Mississippi: A reform bill that would set up an oversight committee to review each prison death comes after journalists revealed dozens of deaths…

Missouri: Kansas City cops told Diahna Carroll that her husband of 36 years died in a car crash. But “they never told her — and they still deny — that he was killed as an innocent bystander to a high-speed police chase”…

New York: New York City police officers have pulled over tens of thousands of Black and Latino drivers and searched their vehicles without probable cause, according to a new lawsuit…

Pennsylvania: The Interior Department removed placards and videos about George Washington’s history of slavery. A new court ruling blocks further changes, for now…Philadelphia attorney Michael Coard was granted access to the secret location where the federal gov’t stashed the slavery exhibit…

South Carolina: As a rare winter storm approached, local officials in a rural county quietly pushed through a massive $2.4 billion data center project without most residents knowing…

Texas: Democrat Christian Menefee won a Texas U.S. House seat in a special election, narrowing Republicans’ already-slim majority…

What’s Happening

The Washington Post laid off hundreds of staffers this week, many of whom were members of the Washington Association of Black Journalists, which makes me fearful for the future of how Black D.C. will be covered by the paper in the future. As the president of the WABJ, it was important to me that we showed solidarity with every employee who was impacted. I also attended the “Save the Post” rally the next day.

Trump posted a video to his social media platform that contained a racist clip showing Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. It’s still up…Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black Republican in the Senate, had this to say: “Praying it was fake because it’s the most racist thing I’ve seen out of this White House. The President should remove it.” (It’s not fake).

The National Park Service has returned the visitor brochures it removed from Medgar Evers’ museum after a report it planned to remove references that call his white supremacist murderer a “racist”...

Attorneys for Keith Porter are asking the California attorney general to take over the case, alleging the LAPD chief is biased toward Trump…

Capital B News: “The rural Alabama town that once ousted its first Black leader has now appointed its second Black mayor and first woman to hold the office”…

Harry Dunn, an ex-Capitol Police officer who emerged as a national figure after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, announced a run for Congress in Maryland…

will be joining The Guardian as a new regular columnist covering the intersection of politics, culture and identity…

In a tribute to Black History Month, New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division presented a historical reenactment of the landmark Amistad legal proceedings…

James Talarico released a statement regarding a claim that he called former Rep. Colin Allred a “mediocre Black man”...

spent an afternoon with Reshona Landfair — the then-14-year-old at the center of the infamous R. Kelly tape — in her first-ever interview to talk about her new poignant memoir…Also in WBEZ Chicago…

Entertainment News

ICYMI: The John P. Kee Tiny Desk concert is available now. Watch above…Miguel hosted his NPR Tiny Desk this week, his first appearance on the series since 2012…Related: You have one week left to submit your entry for NPR’s Tiny Desk contest…

You need to watch the Grammys’ tribute to D’Angelo and Roberta Flack…

Shaboozey said he wanted to "acknowledge the conversation" following his Grammy’s acceptance speech, where he said immigrants "built this country, literally.” In a statement on social media, he said, “To be clear, I know and believe that we – Black people, have also built this country.”

Benjy Taylor, the men’s basketball coach at Tuskegee University, was escorted off the court in handcuffs following a scuffle…

“Sherri,” the daytime talk show hosted by Sherri Shepherd, has been canceled after four seasons...

Wynton Marsalis, an iconic musician and the first artistic director of Jazz at the Lincoln Center, will be stepping down after nearly 40 years…

Mural Arts Philadelphia announced it’s looking for an artist or team of artists to design a mural for Boyz II Men…

For Newsweek, Mark Braboy explores just who is the real Kanye Omari West?...

A new trailer for “Michael,” starring Jaafar Jackson and directed by Antoine Fuqua, is out…

George Clinton and company performed as part of “Symphonic PFunk: Celebrating The Music of Parliament Funkadelic” at Detroit Opera…

, the man who created “House Party” and ran BET for a moment, talked about his illustrious career with The Guardian…

Families of basketball legends Chuck Cooper, Nat ‘Sweetwater’ Clifton and Earl Lloyd were on hand for the inaugural game to start Black History Month…

Obituaries

Demond Wilson, best known for his role alongside Redd Foxx as Lamont Sanford on ‘Sanford and Son,’ has died. He was 79…

Michael “5000” Watts, the producer who founded Swishahouse and helped propel Houston’s “chopped and screwed” sound to international heights, has died. He was 52…

Henry Stewart III, one of Baton Rouge’s first Black TV reporters, has died. He was 90…

Woodie King Jr, a driving force in Black theater who lent a stage to Denzel Washington and Phylicia Rashad, has died. He was 88…

Pastor Lawrence Blake, who served on the pastoral staff of West Angeles Church of God in Christ, has died. He was 54…

LaMonte McLemore, founding member of vocal group The 5th Dimension, has died. He was 90…

Bill Bass Nelson, the musician who Nelson co-founded the Parliaments with George Clinton and was responsible for the name “Funkadelic,” has died. He was 75...

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 32 seconds…

A Different World is looking for background actors to play students, parents and faculty. The show is filming in Atlanta…

Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia will offer tours, trips through its museum and programming during America’s 250th anniversary…

The Southern Poverty Law Center is seeking a Copy Editor who is passionate about social justice…

Support a Black business for Black History Month: Teylor Parks created affirmation cards to help you get through the day…

A screening of “Something For The People,” a DC-made documentary on a people-powered protest movement using Go-Go music, will be held on Feb. 27…

Megan Thee Stallion is promoting a grant to help support accomplished and driven public school teachers and college students…

Independent journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort were arrested by federal agents following a protest that disrupted a church service in Minnesota. Lemon and Fort were both covering the protest at the Cities Church in St. Paul.

“Don has been a journalist for 30 years, and his constitutionally protected work in Minneapolis was no different than what he has always done. The First Amendment exists to protect journalists whose role it is to shine light on the truth and hold those in power accountable. There is no more important time for people like Don to be doing this work,” Lemon’s attorney said in a statement.

CNN reports that Lemon is expected to make a court appearance today. I’m still waiting to hear back from Fort’s publicist on a statement, but I was sent this video of agents at her door:

“The last living descendants of a once-thriving Black neighborhood in Athens, Georgia, came together to fight to preserve the memory of Linnentown and to seek redress for their family homes razed in a 1960s urban renewal program.” Watch the full film above.

How the National Park Service is deleting American History, The New York Times

You have probably seen the viral videos of workers removing slavery exhibits from a memorial park in Philadelphia. The city has sued the Trump administration because of it.

That’s just one example of how Park Service workers have begun taking down plaques, films and other materials that Trump believes “disparage Americans” or promote “corrosive ideology.”

What America lost when it lost Mother Fletcher, The Atlantic

For the Atlantic, wrote about Mother Viola Fletcher’s death and how this country celebrates “survivors of the harm the country allowed, not compensating for the misfortune it has caused.”

What’s In The News

Across America

California: What is the future of Black representation for Los Angeles City Council District 9?...

District of Columbia: Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term delegate for the District of Columbia in Congress, announces her retirement…

Illinois: New SNAP work requirements could leave up to 340,000 residents without enough food…

Maryland: The state’s attorney general has cleared cops of wrongdoing in 95% of police-involved death cases his office is responsible for investigating…

Michigan: Aaron Foley wrote a definitive piece on Black Detroiters and their century-long love affair with fur…

Minnesota: Black-owned businesses across Minnesota participated in a strike to protest ICE operations…

Mississippi: João Victor wrote about how his church, Mount Zion Baptist, became a key place to organize against Jackson’s water crisis...

North Carolina: A group of students sued Republican state officials to restore early-voting sites on three college campuses across the state, including the country’s largest HBCU…

South Carolina: The state’s measles outbreak is the largest in the United States since measles was declared eliminated…

Tennessee: From Nashville Public Radio and the Tennessee Lookout, The Debt traces Tennessee State University’s decades-long fight for fair funding…

Texas: A San Antonio mural honoring people who were killed by local law enforcement was vandalized with black spray paint on Martin Luther King Jr. Day…

Virginia: Members of the Virginia General Assembly announced the launch of the Virginia Historically Black Colleges and Universities Caucus…

What’s Happening

Ex-Illinois deputy Sean Grayson has been sentenced to 20 years for shooting and killing Sonya Massey, who called 911 for help…

“As a Black man, I know firsthand how often state violence is used to perpetuate white supremacy in this country,” Robert Willis writes about ICE’s terror campaign in The Nation…A number of prominent sports stars have condemned the killing of a registered nurse, Alex Pretti, by federal agents in Minneapolis....Rep. Ilhan Omar was sprayed with apple cider vinegar when a man attacked her at a town hall in Minneapolis…

As temperatures plunge, rural Black towns face days without power. Some are still rebuilding from the last catastrophe, Adam Mahoney reports for Capital B News…

Benjamin F. Chavis, president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association that represents the Black newspapers of the country, says they have “lost advertising revenue 80 percent over the last 12 months”...

The Joint Center analyzed unemployment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2025 to show how Black Americans have been disproportionately impacted...

Martin Luther King Jr’s work with gang members in Chicago shows how much he valued the part played by young people in the Black freedom struggle…

Many Black women describe how they “have to become their own doctor” and navigate medical settings strategically just to survive…

Word in Black: A new report warns that the “chaos” of White House domestic policies is surging across Black America, and inequality is deepening…

The Supreme Court declined to stop a lawsuit against police from the family of Amir Locke, who was shot and killed by Minneapolis police in 2022…

A new study offers insight as to why Black Americans continue to die earlier than their white counterparts, noting unequal exposure to stressors tied to discrimination and socioeconomic conditions plays a key role…

A policy meant to fight school segregation in Los Angeles was challenged in federal court by a conservative group that says it discriminates against white students…

“Black women started 2025 with an unemployment rate of 5.4%. By the end of the year, it had risen to 7.3% — a level comparable to white women’s unemployment during the worst moments of the Great Recession”…

Nearly 70 years after Tommy Lee Walker was executed, officials declared that he was innocent in the killing of a white woman in Dallas…

As Black men flood the podcast space, criticism has followed. But the backlash may say more about listening than about speech, writes…

Entertainment News

Trailers I found interesting this week: The trailer for Boots Riley’s “I Love Boosters,” starring Keke Palmer, Taylour Paige, Demi Moore and LaKeith Stanfield…The trailer for “Billy Preston: That’s the Way God Planned It,” a music doc about the life and legacy of the legendary keyboardist who played with all of the greats…The trailer for “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model,” a docuseries about the controversial reality competition series…

“In 2019, the spaces for Black folk to rest and roost on the internet were plentiful. By 2025, those places blinked out like starlight.” Read an excerpt from ’s book, “Forever for the Culture: Notes from the New Black Digital Arts Renaissance”...

“Sinners” is still supporting Clarksdale, Mississippi, the community that inspired the film, Aallyah Wright reports in Capital B News…

Ye, fka Kanye West, took out a full-page in the Wall Street Journal to apologize to the Black community, and for antisemitism…

On Sunday, Lauryn Hill will lead a Grammy tribute to Roberta Flack and D’Angelo…At 85, Candi Staton is one of the oldest nominees at the Grammy Awards…

Nicki Minaj said she is Trump’s number one fan, “and that’s not going to change”...

Pharrell Williams is facing a new lawsuit from his ex-Neptunes partner Chad Hugo…

Quinton Aaron, the actor best known for portraying Michael Oher in the film “The Blind Side,” has been hospitalized after a fall…

Tennis star Coco Gauff donated $150,000 to the United Negro College Fund to support scholarships for student-athletes at HBCUs…

50 Cent’s G-Unit Audio is teaming up with Narratively for a podcast series about the rise of DMX…

J. Cole’s long-awaited album, “The Fall-Off,” is set to be released on Feb. 6. For Andscape, David Dennis Jr. describes his hopes for the rapper’s ambitious project...

Filmmaker spoke with about the pillar of Black cinema that is “House Party”…

Here’s the story behind William Greaves’ unreleased opus “Once Upon A Time In Harlem,” which finally debuted after 5 decades under wraps…

Pat McGrath Labs is filing for bankruptcy…

Barbie announced that Opal Lee, the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” is getting a doll made in her image…

WIRED: “From Black vampires gobbling up Oscar nominations to gay pro hockey players dominating the culture, diverse stories broke through in an environment that’s increasingly hostile to them,” writes …

Obituaries

In case you missed it, I attended Richard Smallwood’s Celebration of Life service and spoke with those who knew him about his legacy. I made a TikTok about the service as well…

Shirley Raines, founder of Beauty 2 The Streetz and known for her volunteer work serving homeless communities in Los Angeles and Nevada, has died. She was 58…HuffPost profiled her important work in 2020…

Gloria Wade-Gayles, a trailblazing scholar of African American literature and women’s studies, has died. She was 88…

Kirk Pressley, a ballroom icon known as Boom Balenciaga, has died. He was 36…

Pierpont Mobley, a White House appointee, veteran activist and champion of small businesses in Washington, has died. He was 88…

James Bernard, a founding editor and star writer of the seminal hip-hop magazine The Source, has died. He was 58…

Don’t Miss

Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 54 seconds!…

Applications are now open for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Summer 2026 internships. Details here…

A documentary on the untold story of Black librarians will be held at the Whitney Library Theater in Las Vegas on February 4 at 4:15 pm...

Applications are open for the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship at Harvard University…

NPR Code Switch explored what the quarter-zip sweater has to do with respectability politics and Blackness…

2 Chainz will hold an author talk for his new memoir, “The Voice in My Head Is God,” at the Tara Theatre in Atlanta on March 9th...