Aretha Franklin, the legendary Queen of Soul, is dead at 76 | Vox
Aretha Franklin, the legendary Queen of Soul, died on Thursday at her home in Detroit, the AP reports. While the details of her death have not yet been reported, Franklin…
How a historian turned artist discovered it’s never too late to start over | The Lily
After a distinguished career as a historian and Princeton professor, Nell Painter had earned the right to a restful retirement. Instead, at 64, she started over, chronicling that adventure in…
How a black, firefighting union president plans to take on Scott Walker | Vox
When voters in Wisconsin go to the polls for the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary on August 14, Mahlon Mitchell, a career firefighter and union president, hopes to pull out a…
Photos trace the broad history of Japanese photography from the 1880s to the 21st century
By Grace Aldridge Foster “Simmon: A Private Landscape (#1),” by Hosoe Eikoh, Japan, 1971. Gelatin silver print. Renowned filmmakers Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck began collecting Japanese photography in the…
The Massacre of Black Sharecroppers That Led the Supreme Court to Curb the Racial Disparities of the Justice System | Smithsonian.com
The sharecroppers who gathered at a small church in Elaine, Arkansas, in the late hours of September 30, 1919, knew the risk they were taking. Upset about unfair low wages,…
Philadelphia Printworks: Activism Never Looked so Good | Shoppe Black
Philadelphia Printworks is a conscious clothing company that creates T-shirts, sweatshirts and other apparel with designs inspired by social issues and the legacies of revolutionary leaders. Even if you’re the…
The Common App Will Stop Asking About Students’ Criminal Histories | The Atlantic
The nonprofit organization behind the Common Application, a single form that students can fill out to apply to any college that uses it, announced this week that, starting next year,…
From Birth of a Nation to BlacKkKlansman: Hollywood’s complex relationship with the KKK | The Guardian
The movies have never quite been sure how seriously to take the Ku Klux Klan. Is it a terrorist organisation, or a glorified frat society for resentful losers who like…
Armenian Wedding Ceremony | Smithsonian Insider
At the 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Armenian participants Mariam Hovhannisyan and Stepan Toroyan—who were recently married—recreated a traditional ceremony on the National Mall, with contributions from their compatriots. Tags: Armenia,…
It’s a Celebration As Voters Oust Prosecutor Who Freed Michael Brown’s Killer | Colorlines
On November 24, 2014, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch announced that there would be no criminal charges brought against Darren Wilson, the White former police officer who shot…