Clik here to view.
Remembering Reginald Moore, the Activist Who Uncovered Sugar Land’s Dark Past
When I first met him in 2016, Reginald Moore was deeply frustrated. The retired longshoreman had spent much of the previous two decades trying—without much success—to bring attention to the brutal...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Look at MFAH’s ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’ Exhibit
In my mother’s house, a lonely picture used to hang over the piano. In it, a man stood alone in an unfurnished room, his arms reaching toward the heavens. Before him sat an old-school radio. He had...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Visual Artist Jammie Holmes Took George Floyd’s Last Words to the Sky
On May 30, a small plane flew over downtown Dallas, trailed by a banner bearing the words “My Neck Hurts.” These were some of the last words spoken by George Floyd, a Houston man who had been killed...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Lifelong Rock Music Aficionado On Finally Seeing Her Icons Embrace Blackness
In June 2000, when I was a high school freshman, I saw the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Foo Fighters perform at Houston’s Compaq Center. It was my first concert. I still remember the confused look on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Can the Black Lives Matter Movement Heal Paris, Texas?
Carolyn Williams, a 66-year-old great-grandmother who has lived in Paris for over forty years, was used to lonely protests. For years, she had attended demonstrations against police brutality and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“Black Austin Matters” Is an Artistic Challenge to the City
On the morning of June 16, about two dozen artists and activists wearing masks and wielding long stem paint rollers gathered in downtown Austin, just a few blocks from the Capitol on Congress Avenue....
View ArticleClik here to view.
“This Is Exactly What’s Wrong With Austin”: A White Band’s Digitally Altered...
Brian Mays, the friendly owner of Sam’s BBQ, is used to people showing up at his legendary East Austin restaurant to snap photos. Inside, the restaurant is an Austin time capsule: the walls are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Southwestern University Frat Tried to End Confederate Traditions—and Was...
In 2015, the year I enrolled at Southwestern University in Georgetown, the campus chapter of Kappa Alpha Order removed a portrait of Robert E. Lee that had hung over the fraternity house’s fireplace....
View ArticleClik here to view.
At UT and A&M, Visionary Takes on Yearbooks Celebrate the Beauty of Blackness
I have always loved my hands. In their deftness, flexibility, and deep brown color, they represent my strength and totality. My freshman year of college, though, my love for them wavered. One afternoon...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Vivian Stephens Helped Turn Romance Writing Into a Billion-Dollar Industry....
If it hadn’t been for the pandemic and the near impossibility of visiting Vivian Stephens in person, I’m not sure I would have been so attuned to her voice. It is gay and mellifluous; she always...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why ‘Black Lives Matter’ Is So Divisive for Houston’s Vietnamese American...
When fifty-year-old insurance agent Lê Hoàng Nguyên donated some of his personal savings to put up an anti-racism billboard in southwest Houston in July, he never expected that it would lead to fellow...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#BlackAtSMU Tries to Pierce the “Bubble” of Southern Methodist University
In the spring of 2018, Abena Marfo left her home in Garland and drove to the leafy campus of Southern Methodist University, a private school located in the upscale Dallas enclave of University Park....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Is Austin’s Citizen Police Academy Meant to Serve?
In the years after unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin was fatally shot by a member of a neighborhood watch group in Florida in 2012, James Nortey, an attorney, felt called to get involved in his community...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Latino Texans Are Addressing Antiblack Racism
Scroll through Tally Dilbert’s Instagram or TikTok accounts, and you’ll get a small taste of her life as an Afro-Latina blogger in Texas. Between posts highlighting her distinctive sense of fashion,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Austin Filmmaker Ya’Ke Smith’s New Short, ‘Dear Bruh,’ Honors Lives Lost to...
Ya’ke Smith’s new film, Dear Bruh, opens with a collage of videos and images that showcase Black men and boys laughing, smiling, and embracing. These patches of joy are then contrasted with the faces...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nine Texas Faith Leaders on How to Find Hope and Fight Injustice
“What might be helpful for people during all this stress and anxiety is the idea of lament. Some of the psalms are labeled ‘psalms of lament,’ and these provide a deep and ancient foundation for prayer...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In a New Virtual Series, the Dallas Opera Tackles Race and Inequality
As one of many institutions currently disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, the Dallas Opera halted all stage productions, furloughed workers, and postponed its 2020 season until March 2021. In late...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Jonathan Majors, the Star of HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country,’ Transforms His Rage...
When he was growing up, actor Jonathan Majors found solace in the countryside at his grandmother’s farm, where he spent summers. That peace was harder to find in his hometown of Cedar Hill, and he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In ‘Lovecraft Country,’ Black Characters Are Trapped in Racial Terror
Book-to-screen adaptations don’t always work out for the best. Inevitably, there are layers and details from the book that get dropped to fit into the narrative constraints of the screen version. But...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A University of Texas Report Will Find That ‘The Eyes of Texas’ Has “No...
Last summer, after nationwide protests erupted in the wake of George Floyd’s death, a group of University of Texas at Austin athletes posted an open letter on social media. They vowed not to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
“A Matter of Life and Death”: Latino Food Workers Are Terrified as COVID-19...
On the afternoon of March 2, Texas Independence Day, a small crowd gathered at Montelongo’s Mexican Restaurant in Lubbock to hear Governor Greg Abbott speak. Owner Rudy Rosales, whose grandmother,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Juanita Craft Helped Integrate the Texas State Fair—And Inspired the Next...
When Juanita Craft bought her little white bungalow on Warren Avenue between Atlanta and Myrtle streets, South Dallas was in turmoil. It was 1950, and the city was changing. The blocks around her...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A New Sports History Book Shows How Texas Athletes Have Always Fought for...
Frank Guridy wasn’t raised on Texas exceptionalism. He’s a New York City native, a Spurs fan by marriage, and a Longhorn only inasmuch as he spent more than a decade as a professor at UT. But with his...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Annette Gordon-Reed Explores the Tangled Meaning of Juneteenth
In the historic Black neighborhood where I grew up in Dallas, a parade would roll off the lot of New Mount Zion Baptist Church on June 19, or the Saturday closest to it, and wend its way through a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
For Texas’s Black Roller Skaters, Life Is Good on the Wood
The last day of June 2013 began the hardest period of Wanda “Gigi” Brown’s life. On that day, a blood clot killed her youngest daughter, Marcia, at age 34. Brown, then 54, stopped eating and lost...
View Article
