Remembering James Byrd Jr, Trump hires Gunna's attorney, Sha’Carri's big win
Friday, August 25, 2023
What I’m Reading
Novelist Jonathan Lethem wrote about his childhood living in Brooklyn’s Boerum Hill during its early years of gentrification, where his parents bought brownstones. In the article, Lethem reflects on The New Yorker staff writer Jervis Anderson’s 1977 story about the neighborhood.
“Boerum Hill was thought up in my lifetime, by people I knew. Anderson’s account of them is prescient. It reveals a white middle-class population not only dislodging a poor and diverse one but defining them out of the picture,” Lethem writes. “Yet few seemed aware that they were doing anything wrong.”
The Invention of a Neighborhood, The New Yorker
Twenty-five years ago, James Byrd Jr. was lynched by three white men in an East Texas town. It made national headlines, and federal and state hate crimes legislation was named after him. Today, Byrd is not mentioned in the school district’s Texas history textbooks, and he’s absent from the local historical museum. Byrd’s family believes the town wanted to forget it ever happened.
A Black man’s brutal murder has faded from a Texas town’s memory, The Washington Post
Even at the “birth” of hip-hop on August 11, 1973, women have always been vital to the art form. But as hip-hop enters its sixth decade, “the impact of women as both creators and consumers remains easily minimized, their relevance speculated on and treated as disposable,” Shamira Ibrahim writes for The Cut.
What About the Women in Hip-Hop?, The Cut
What’s In The News
Across America
Alabama: A flooding emergency in rural Alabama has unearthed another crisis for Black communities: a 2-foot-wide methane gas pipeline. “If the house sinks into that line, everything is gonna blow”...
Arizona: Authorities are investigating after a Black family found racist slurs graffitied on their backyard wall. “I am not going to be intimidated; we are not moving,” Morris Whitner said…
Arkansas: Several surviving members of the Little Rock Nine are denouncing the Arkansas Department of Education’s restrictions on an AP African American Studies course. Meanwhile, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders suggests the course spreads hate…
District of Columbia: The legendary Ben’s Chili Bowl is celebrating 65 years on U Street. I took a couple of photos while there…
Florida: The Tampa Bay History Center has opened a permanent 100-artifact installation exploring 500 years of Black history in Tampa Bay…
Georgia: A federal judge has ruled that food and water can be handed out to voters waiting in line at polls in Georgia…
Johnny Hollman, a 62-year-old father and deacon, was killed while in police custody. Now, his family is calling for answers...
Maryland: A set of Baltimore triplets born severely premature are now getting ready to start college together at Spelman and Morehouse…
Michigan: A Grand Rapids man allegedly told police he shot his wife multiple times the day after she served him divorce papers…
Missouri: Four months after he was shot in the head after ringing the doorbell at the wrong house to pick up his brothers, Ralph Yarl has started his senior year in high school…
Mississippi: A police officer who took part in the arrest and jailing of a 10-year-old child who urinated in a parking lot is “no longer employed,” the city’s police chief said…
Prosecutors in Rankin County declined to press charges against officers in the case of Damien Cameron. New evidence suggests the case should have been ruled a homicide…
New York: Betty Tyson, a woman who spent 25 years in prison for a 1973 murder until being exonerated on the basis of new evidence, has died. She was 75…
North Carolina: A self-proclaimed conspiracy theorist says there is a secret ruling class of reptiles and calls Beyoncé "satanic." He's a top candidate for governor…
Oklahoma: Oklahoma State Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters, known for his far-right views, is attempting to gain control of the Tulsa Public School district. Read more about what’s happening here…
Texas: At least 41 people have died in stifling, uncooled prisons of either heart-related or unknown causes during Texas’ record-breaking heatwave this summer…
Features
Huey P. Newton has been mythologized and maligned since his murder 34 years ago. Smithsonian Magazine talked with his family and friends for an intimate look inside his life and mind…
Break dancing was created in the Bronx by Black and Puerto Rican youth during the 1980s and has since expanded to the world. But some pioneers are concerned about erasure…
To honor the legacy of the Black freedom fighters who founded Black August, join the fight to close Rikers, urges Sade Green...
As one of the few Black students in the room, Ethan Greene’s teachers had a lack of resources and low expectations. So he left…
Brandon Tensley of Capital B wrote a guide for Black Americans detailing what they need to know about the 2024 GOP presidential candidates…
Clover Hope profiled Zendaya for ELLE Magazine’s September issue, and discussed the actor’s role in “Challengers,” getting risky, and all things Law Roach…
If “Living Single” feels like “a love letter” to Black women, that’s because it is, creator Yvette Lee Bowser says…
What’s Happening
The water crisis, which made headlines last year, is still very much a crisis in Jackson, Mississippi. Residents say the tap water smells like “rotten eggs,” despite officials saying Jackson’s water is safe to drink…
The booking photos people have been waiting on are here: Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. In what sounds like an episode from “The Boondocks,” Trump has hired the attorney who represented rapper Gunna in the YSL RICO case…
Burger King gave Kevin Ford a coffee cup, a movie ticket, and some candy for never using a sick day in 20 years of work as a cook and cashier for the fast food restaurant. But people on the internet felt he deserved more and raised $400,000 for him…
A Black FedEx delivery driver who says two white men shot at and chased him in Mississippi has now been fired from his job, he and his attorney said…
White House director of African-American media, Erica P. Loewe, is elevating to a new role within the Biden-Harris administration…
Pay attention: The right-wing activist behind the Supreme Court’s nixing of affirmative action is suing two corporate law firms over fellowships aimed at bolstering diversity…
The Daily Beast: Van Jones, who received a $100 million charitable blank check from Jeff Bezos, has been pushed out of his own nonprofit…
Baby fever: Serena Williams has given birth to her second child: Adira River Ohanian. And Rihanna has welcomed her second child as well…
Marc Lamont Hill, a prominent professor who held an endowed chair at Temple University, is leaving for a new post at the City University of New York…
In last week’s edition, I shared a story about Elizabeth Francis, the oldest person in Texas who recently celebrated her 114th birthday. The Washington Post published a longer piece on her that’s worth reading…
The death of Tafari Campbell, Barack Obama’s personal chef, in Martha’s Vineyard was ruled an accident by the Massachusetts chief medical examiner, officials said…
Entertainment
Sha’Carri is back: The sprinter won the 100-meter world championship title, asserting herself as a Paris 2024 medal contender. See a slowed angle of her victory here…
Lauryn Hill has announced a 25th anniversary tour for her iconic debut solo album, 1998’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”...
R. Kelly and his longtime publisher Universal Music Group will have to pay over $500,000 in music royalties to his victims…
Ron Cephas Jones, the Emmy-winning actor best known for playing William Hill on “This Is Us,” has died. He was 66…
Shannon Sharpe has found a new home for his popular podcast, “Club Shay Shay”...
Black Thought broke down the albums — by OutKast, Kanye, Tierra Whack, and more — that soundtracked his life across the last half-century, five years at a time…
A New York City drug dealer was sentenced to 10 years in prison for providing “The Wire” actor Michael K. Williams with fentanyl-laced heroin, causing his death…
Hawaii-born Laulauga Tausaga-Collins took gold in the women’s discus at the 2023 World Athletic Championships, the first-ever win for the United States in women’s discus…
Shaq, also known as “dubstep dad,” talked with Rolling Stone’s Andre Gee about his new electronic album and his passion for DJing…
Lizzo plans to countersue her three former dancers who have accused the Grammy winner of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct…
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 1 minute, 3 seconds…
Civil rights leaders are returning to the nation’s capital for the 60th anniversary of the historic March on Washington on August 26th…
Janelle Monae is hiring Black women and non-binary videographers and photographers for her “The Age Of Pleasure” tour. Apply here…
Support! Author Caitlin Gooch, aka The Black Cowgirl, has penned a coloring book to teach children about the underrepresented Black equestrians in history…
The new documentary “Wayne Shorter: Zero Gravity“ about the famed jazz saxophonist, directed by Dorsay Alavi, is now streaming on Prime Video…
Kenan and Kel have reunited 25 years later for “Good Burger 2,” which is coming to Paramount+ this fall. Watch the teaser trailer…
Save the date: On September 8, photographer Cyrus Tetteh is hosting his first solo photography exhibition, "Only in Detroit,” illuminating some of the city’s most authentic people and moments since 2017…
The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced the exhibit “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism,” which will open February 25th and include a trove of paintings from HBCUs around the country…