Body of Color

Naima Lowe’s Installation ‘Ropes, Pinks’ Uncoils Trauma in Pursuit of Black Freedom

Consisting of three lengths of cotton and hemp rope of varying thicknesses—200 feet in all—dyed in shades of pink, “Ropes, Pinks” is an installation work by artist Naima Lowe. This “body” changes each time it is installed, adapting to and challenging the space where it finds itself attempting to be at home. In so doing, it twines itself around and among questions of racist horror, gender, intimacy, vulnerability, history, and love.

Lowe has exhibited videos, performances, and installations throughout the United States and created the independent art and design imprint Trial …

Interview by Minal Hajratwala | January 14, 2021

A Letter From South Phoenix, Where Two Pandemics ‘Have Turned American Life Feral’

Raising a Black and Brown Family Here Was Complicated, Even Before COVID Struck

by Rashaad Thomas | October 22, 2020

Thank God for the sun. Its excessive heat has forced the ants, flies, and cockroaches to retreat under the electric boxes planted around the neighborhood jungle gym I call “Dope …

A New Wave of Anti-Asian Violence Demands New Answers

Fighting COVID-Inspired Racism Requires Solidarity, Legislation, and Protest

by Jackie Mansky | October 8, 2020

From smashed windows and racist graffiti to outright physical violence, approximately 2,700 incidents of hate have been documented against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the World Health Organization declared …

A Micro-Loan at a Time, an Atlanta University Is Bridging the Racial Achievement Gap

How Georgia State Challenged a Broken Educational Model and Skyrocketed Its Graduation Rates

by Andrew Gumbel | August 26, 2020

Students like Tyler Mulvenna drop out of college all the time, for all the wrong reasons.

Mulvenna was bright and resourceful and full of promise when he enrolled at Georgia State …

Eduardo Porter and Cynthia Greenlee | Zócalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

How Has Racism Shaped the American Economy?

Eduardo Porter and Cynthia Greenlee Discuss Institutional Failures and a National Lack of Empathy

by Sara Suárez | July 21, 2020

What is the relationship between American economics and American racism, and can it be severed? How will systemic racism, past and present, slow our emergence from the current downturn? New …

Historian William Sturkey Wins the 10th Annual Zócalo Book Prize

Hattiesburg, an Intimate Look at a Segregated Southern City, Delivers a ‘Finely Woven Microcosm of American Society’

Interview by Sarah Rothbard | April 16, 2020

Since 2011, the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize has honored the author of the U.S. nonfiction book published in the previous year that best enhances our understanding of community and …

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