In the Crisis of COVID, a Moment of Awakening for Women

The Pandemic Has Pulled Back the Curtain on Gender Inequity in the U.S.—In Politics and Beyond

The image of California state Assemblymember Buffy Wicks holding her 4-week-old baby on the legislative floor earlier this month after her request to vote by proxy was denied loomed over last night’s discussion on women and power in America. It was the second event in a three-part virtual series, When Women Vote, presented by Zócalo and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and streamed on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter.

While women make up 51 percent of the U.S. population, they remain underrepresented across the board when it comes to …

by Jackie Mansky | September 17, 2020

The Incredible Legacy of Newark’s Black Women Activists

Harlem Renaissance Writer Brenda Ray Moryck and a New Jersey Community’s Untold Century of Intellectualism and Artistry

by Noelle Lorraine Williams | September 14, 2020

In 1927, Brenda Ray Moryck, a 32-year-old Black American woman from Newark, New Jersey, published a manifesto in Ebony and Topaz, a prominent Harlem Renaissance anthology of prose and poetry.

In …

How the Yellow House Helped Make Washington, D.C., a Slavery Capital

The Notorious Jail Lent Institutional Support to Slavery Throughout the South

by Jeff Forret | July 15, 2020

Washington, D.C., was a capital not just of the United States, but of slavery, serving as a major depot in the domestic slave trade. In the District, enslaved men, women, …

‘America’s Black Dreyfus Affair,’ and the Long Battle to Right Teddy Roosevelt’s Wrong

167 Black Soldiers Were Dishonorably Discharged from the Army in 1906. Two Angelenos Corrected the Historical Record in the 1970s

by Julia Bricklin | July 13, 2020

As a youngster, John Downing Weaver paid little attention to his mother when she told him stories of her and his father’s trip to Brownsville, Texas, in 1909. It wasn’t …

Why Americans Still Eat Barbecue on July Fourth

More Than Two Centuries Ago, Roasted Meat Met Independence Day and Hasn’t Left the National Consciousness Since

by Adrian Miller | June 29, 2020

Dearly beloved, we are gathered in this moment to celebrate the culinary union of barbecue (a.k.a. barbeque, bar-b-que, bar-b-q, and BBQ) and Independence Day (a.k.a. July 4 or “the Fourth …

A Poem That Would Not Let Me Go

When I Found Multiple Truths in the Work of 18th-Century Poet Phillis Wheatley, She Became Some Kind of Kin

by Drea Brown | May 31, 2020

I do not remember how old I was when my grandmother showed me Phillis Wheatley’s poetry. Ten, maybe 11? Young enough that my hands were open to everything she put …

African American history