November Poetry Curator Cynthia Greenlee

I Always Wanted to Have Hair Like Ida B. Wells

Cynthia Greenlee is a historian, writer, and editor. Based in North Carolina, she writes about anything she likes (or hates—she believes a combination of research and emotion make the best stories), including the American South, reproductive justice, Black food, and mystery novels. She co-edited The Echoing Ida Collection and won a James Beard Foundation Award for food writing. Zócalo’s Poetry Curator for November, Greenlee chatted with us in the green room about The Sound of Music, her hidden talent, and why the 1880s is her favorite historical decade.

November 3, 2023

Civil Rights Historian Daphne Chamberlain

Run to Your Passion

May 12, 2023

Daphne Chamberlain is an associate professor of history and the vice president for strategic initiatives and social justice at Tougaloo College in Jackson, Mississippi. Before serving as a …

No, Ancient Egyptians Did Not Build a City in the Grand Canyon

Science Refutes Racist, Made-for-TV ‘Alternative Histories’ of Indigenous Americans

by Jennifer Raff | March 30, 2023

The histories of Indigenous peoples of the Americas are fascinating. Looking at the spectacular buildings of Machu Picchu, the walrus ivory carvings of the Canadian Arctic, and the effigy stone …

Historian Kevin Starr Was an Affectionate Connoisseur of California’s Contradictions

The Longtime State Librarian Told the Golden State's Story with a Novelist's Touch

By Scott Timberg | June 16, 2017

California has had many chroniclers—some critics, some boosters, some cheerleaders, some dour polemicists. It’s only natural that a vast state defined by its extremes—political, geological, economic, and otherwise—would rarely be …

Get More Zócalo