Fifty years ago, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module and became the first humans to walk on the moon. ...
During the Civil War, in a town called Parkersburg on the western edge of the newly declared state of West Virginia, a group of black men gathered one evening in a barbershop. As Robert Simmons, the owner, finished cutting the last man’s hair, the group discussed starting a school.
Simmons and a man named Robert Thomas led the conversation, which became somewhat contentious. All of the men in attendance agreed that their children ought to receive a formal education similar to that given to the wealthy white boys and girls across town. Their only disagreement was over how to provide proper instruction to black children when it was against the law to do so.
Some months later, seven of these men formed the Colored School Board of Parkersburg. ...
I grew up in the section of Seoul known as Gangnam, long before Psy’s “Gangnam Style” became a worldwide K-pop hit by touting the neighborhood, its affluence, and the rise of Korea’s pop culture. Yet the seeds of Gangnam’s eventual cultural influence were present even then, and I was there to witness the transformation.
My family lived in a modest, if not crammed, apartment unit tucked away in a far corner of the neighborhood. We moved there in 1987—the same year South Korea had its first democratic elections—and just in time to catch the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul on television in our new living room.
By 1996, Gangnam had already become known as the home base of the nouveau riche. Although I went to middle school with the kids who were among the first in the entire country to adapt the latest fashion trends otherwise only seen ...
Possumtown Neighborhood, Piscataway, NJ, one mile
from the Middlesex ...
