Login to BlackFacts.com using your favorite Social Media Login. Click the appropriate button below and you will be redirected to your Social Media Website for confirmation and then back to Blackfacts.com once successful.
Enter the email address and password you used to join BlackFacts.com. If you cannot remember your login information, click the “Forgot Password” link to reset your password.
Did you know that Joyce Carol Thomas, author of over 30 books pledged Sigma Gamma Rho? Thomas is a proud member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. Award-winning author of more than 30 books and several plays, including the acclaimed musical “Abyssinia”, internationally renowned and best-selling African-American writer Joyce Carol Thomas was born in Ponca […]
The post Award-Winning Children's Book Author Joyce Carol Thomas Was a Member of Sigma Gamma Rho appeared first on Watch The Yard.
Nationwide protests have taken place since October 7 despite the disbanding of the controversial Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) police unit.
The demonstrators have been accused of attacking police stations and personnel.
The rallies which are mostly attended by young people have become avenues to vent against corruption and unemployment.
Rights groups say at least 15 people have been killed the demonstrations began in early October.
With the demonstrations on countless streets and the conversations taking place in countless homes, bookstores are now experiencing a surge of interest in books about Black history, racism and social justice.
“The Forging of a Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 Through the Civil Rights Era” by Quintard Taylor
Published in 1994, this book by Taylor, a University of Washington history professor emeritus and founder of BlackPast.org, remains a must-read for those who want to understand Seattle’s history.
“The Fire This Time” was conceived as a modern response to James Baldwin’s powerful 1963 essay collection “The Fire Next Time” (in our list below of must-read books on racial justice) and explores the “untidiness” of race in the U.S.
Reading fiction won’t give you a specific list of steps to take to fight social injustice — but it will do something just as important: It places us inside someone’s head and someone’s imagination, letting us begin the work of understanding and empathizing.
A key figure in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston wrote many novels, stories, essays and poems, including two long-posthumous books: the nonfiction work “Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’” (published in 2018) and the short story collection “Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick,” published earlier this year.
“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander
“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates
“White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People To Talk About Racism” by Robin DiAngelo
“How To Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi
“Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More” by Janet Mock
“So You Want To Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo
“Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor” by Layla F. Saad
“Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption” by Bryan Stevenson
“The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration” by Isabel Wilkerson
For even more suggestions, see the Schomburg Center Black Liberation Reading List from the New York Public Library.
By Victor Omondi A man from North Carolina has been charged for allegedly trying to steal more than $6 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans for companies with names from “Game of Thrones.” According to the Department of Justice, Tristan Bishop Pan was charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and taking part in unlawful […]
SEE THE FRONT PAGE HERE We are San Diego's largest African American newspaper, reporting news from an African American perspective. Established in 1960, Dr. John Warren is the Publisher of the San Diego Voice & Viewpoint, a 56-year-old nationally award winning publication. Dr. Warren and his late wife and co-publisher, Gerri Warren (emeritus), worked diligently […]
The post This Week’s Paper - October 22, 2020 appeared first on Voice and Viewpoint.
[African Arguments] These six films present varied snapshots of what it means to be African today.
American writer and activist Alice Walker is best known for her novel The Color Purple, which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has written numerous other novels, stories, poems, and essays.
Her story Everyday Use originally appeared in her 1973 collection, In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women, and has been widely anthologized since.
The story is narrated in the first-person by a mother who lives with her shy and unattractive daughter, Maggie, who was scarred in a fire as a child.
They are nervously waiting for a visit from Maggies sister, Dee, to whom life has always come easy.
Dee and her companion boyfriend arrive with bold, unfamiliar clothing and hairstyles, greeting Maggie and the narrator with Muslim and African phrases. Dee announces that she has changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo, saying that she couldnt stand to use a name from oppressors. This decision hurts her mother, who named her after loved ones.
During the visit, Dee lays claim to certain family heirlooms, such as the top and dasher of a butter churn, whittled by relatives. But unlike Maggie, who uses the butter churn to make butter, Dee wants to treat them like antiques or artwork.
Dee also tries to claim some handmade quilts, fully assuming shell be able to have them because shes the only one who can appreciate them. The mother informs Dee that she has already promised the quilts to Maggie.
Maggie says Dee can have them, but the mother takes the quilts out of Dees hands and gives them to Maggie.
Dee then leaves, chiding the mother for not understanding her heritage, and encouraging Maggie to make something of yourself. After Dee is gone, Maggie and the narrator relax contentedly in the back yard for the rest of the afternoon.
Dee insists that Maggie is incapable of appreciating the quilts. She exclaims, horrified, Shed probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use.
For Dee, heritage is a curiosity to be looked at -- and something to put on display for others to look at, as
(CALMATTERS) - Ling Kong supports universal healthcare and more spending on public schools in poorer areas. She laments how far California and the U.S. have fallen behind other countries in providing early education to children under five. “That’s the reason why I’m in the Democratic Party,” Kong said. She’s also voting against Proposition 16. That’s […]
Born on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio as Chloe Anthony Wofford, Toni Morrison is an American author, editor and professor who won the 1993 Nobel Prize in literature for being an author “who in novels characterized by visionary force and poetic import, gives life to an essential aspect of American reality.”
Toni Morrison was born to Ramah and George Wofford and was the second of four children in a working class family. She grew up in the black community of Lorain as her parents moved there to escape the problems of southern racism. During her early childhood Toni, was quite a fan of Jane Austen and Tolstoy. In 1946, Toni got into Howard University in Washington, where she changed her name from “Chloe” to Toni. Later she continued her studies at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. From 1955-1957, Toni taught English at the Howard University and Texas Southern University where she also wrote her first book The Bluest Eye (1970) while taking care of her two children. The Bluest Eye is partly based on Morrison’s story written for a writers’ group, set in the community of a small, Midwestern Town, consisting of all black characters. Morrison’s second book, The Sula (1973), that won the National Book Critics Award, depicted two black woman friends and their community of Medallion, Ohio.
Morrison’s book Song of Solomon (1977) was the main selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club, which was the first novel after Native Son, written by a black American to be chosen. Through this book Morrison gained international attention. She received the Pulitzer Prize, in 1988, for the novel Beloved (1987), though this book failed to win the National Book Award. Although this work of hers proved to be quite a masterpiece, exploring love and the supernatural. Beloved was eventually turned into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey.
In 1989, Morrison continued to produce great work and also became a professor at Princeton University. After being the first African American woman to have received the Nobel Prize, Toni, published a novel
On Tuesday ( Oct 20) Beyoncé took to Instagram to share her support of protestors and activists fighting on the frontlines of the #EndSARS movement and speak out against the violent attacks that they are facing at the hands of police. According to published reports, Amnesty International has confirmed that the Nigerian army and police killed at least 12 peaceful protesters Tuesday at two locations in Lagos.
Rush Limbaugh has been a lightning rod for controversy, and racism, over his career that spans nearly five decades.
Martin Luther King Jr. is often the first name that comes to mind when one thinks of a civil rights movement leader.
Coretta Scott King is known as the wife of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but more than that, she was also a dedicated civil rights activist.
Her dedication resulted in the national holiday on January 15th: Martin Luther King Jr. day, a tribute to his life, death, and dedication to the economic, political, and social advancement of black people.
King never allowed the death of her husband never stopped her solo activism work, and created the Martin Luther King Jr.
Like the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., we should strive to remember that of Coretta, her work, achievements, and dedication to eradicating inequality anywhere that it exists.
A Louisiana Black man sentenced to life in prison for attempting to steal hedge clippers in 1997 has been granted parole after his case drew national
Nigerians protesting against police brutality stayed on the streets in Lagos on Wednesday, breaking the government curfew following a night of chaotic violence in which demonstrators were fired upon, sparking global outrage.
Shots were fired Wednesday as young demonstrators set up barricades by the Lekki toll plaza in Lagos, where protesters had been fired upon Tuesday night, causing numerous injuries although officials said no deaths.
One protester told The Associated Press that his brother was shot and killed in the previous day's demonstrations and that he himself had been hurt in the leg.
Gunfire could be heard across Lagos, Nigeria's largest city of 14 million, including on the highway to the airport, at a major bus station, outside the offices of a television station and at the Lekki tollgates. Smoke could be seen billowing from several points in central Lagos.
Demonstrations and gunfire were also reported in several other Nigerian cities, including the capital city, Abuja.
The nationwide #EndSARS protests against police brutality have rocked Nigeria for more than two weeks. They started after a video circulated of a man being beaten, apparently by officers of the police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS.
In response to the protests, the government announced it would disband the SARS unit, which Amnesty International says has been responsible for many cases of torture and killings.
The demonstrators' demands have widened to include calls for accountable government, respect for human rights and an end to corruption in Africa's most populous nation of 196 million.
Despite massive oil wealth and one of Africa's largest economies, the bulk of Nigeria's 200 million people have high levels of poverty and lack of basic services, as a result of rampant corruption, charge rights groups.
With Black History Month beginning next month, Mattel, maker of Barbie, announced this week that they're honoring Dr. Maya Angelou with her own Barbie doll. Dr. Angelou's Barbie doll honors […]
The post Dr. Maya Angelou Honored With A Barbie Doll appeared first on Essence.
Toni Morrison left behind for us to cherish her treasure trove of rich, Black storytelling
COMME des GARÇONS Adds Some Luxe Detailing To The Classic Air Force 1 Mid
By Erica Wright The Birmingham Times Despite concern from citizens about software for the police department that they say could include facial recognition, the Birmingham City Council approved an agreement to purchase the software on an 8-1 vote. Mayor Randall Woodfin repeatedly assured the council and the public that the $1.3 million contract with Motorola […]
This is where Skrill Money Transfer comes in. With Skrill, users have access to money...
The post Nigerians sent £2.8 billion back home appeared first on Voice Online.
Hurston/Wright College Writing Awards go to students at the University of Cincinnati and the University of Mississippi
Washington, DC—The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation’s 2020 Award for College Writers goes to a student at the University of Cincinnati, for fiction, and a student at the University of Mississippi, for poetry.
Sadia Hassan, an MFA candidate at the University of Mississippi, wins the poetry prize for her collection titled “Black Girl Prayer Poems.”
The award, which debuted in 1991 and is the longest-running program of the Hurston/Wright Foundation, encourages college creative writers with support early in their writing careers.
The Legacy Awards ceremony also features the announcement of the winners of the juried awards for debut fiction, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, as well as presentation of awards for college writers and career achievement.
Writing across dozens of genres, HarperCollins authors include winners of the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Newbery and Caldecott Medals and the Man Booker Prize.
YESTERDAY, SOCIAL media was shocked by reports that Nigerian authorities shot protesters at Lekki toll gate. The authorities deny this. Tensions have been rising as protests against police brutality and the country’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) have gained momentum.
AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Amanda Smyth and my third novel, Fortune, will be published on July 1.
I come from Pointe-a-Pierre. My family were in South. And then Valsayn North, where my mother now lives.
But my longing for Tobago, where my grandmother lived, doesn’t go away.
My dad died in 1999. My mother, uncle, cousins, people I love and hold close, still live in Trinidad.
I’m half-Irish, and also feel close to family over the Irish Sea, in Sligo, Yeats’s country.
My husband Lee Thomas, our daughter Amelie and I live now in Leamington Spa, an hour from London, half an hour from Birmingham, the Cotswolds on our doorstep.
It’s a pretty Georgian town with lots of green spaces.
My brother and an aunt live in London.
I’d never wanted children until I was 40. And I found myself staring at babies in prams.
I met Lee when I was 25 (but) lost touch. Ten years later, we met by chance on the Jubilee Line at Bond Street. I was wearing a velvet green coat and a hat with a question mark on it. I heard him say, “Amand-ah!”
We went out that night and that was it.
At my lovely little primary school in South Milford, a little village between Leeds and York, I felt nurtured and supported.
My secondary school, a huge comprehensive school, was rough. I remember kids making snowballs by packing fistfuls of snow around stones and lobbing them at teachers.
I didn’t do well there.
I’d come back from long summers in Trinidad with a suntan. My spiky comprehensive schoolteacher told my mother, “Not everyone can afford Caribbean holidays.”
I remember saying to my mother, Why can’t we just go on holiday to Bridlington or Scarborough, like everyone else?
No, BC Pires, I didn’t really want to go to Bognor Regis instead of Maracas Bay. But I wanted desperately to belong!
[caption id=\"attachment_897575\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"640\"] Amanda Smyth: \"My longing for Tobago, where my grandmother lived, doesn’t go away.\" - Courtesy Lee Thomas[/caption]
In Trinidad, my mother was much happier than in Yorkshire. (She went) to a woman in Leeds who read your fortune by your handwriting.
The woman said she couldn’t get anything from my mother’s scrawl, “apart from this.” And she drew an apple core.
My mother said, “Ah, that’s not an apple core, that’s a map of Trinidad.” It was in my mother’s bones and blood, so it makes sense it was in mine, too.
I used that story in Fortune, in Tito’s chapter, and it works.
Trinidad teenage summers were the best. I loved the Pelican, JB’s, Jolly Roger.
In my late teens as I began to find my tribe (at) a higher-ed college in Leeds, I started to feel more connected to England. I had super-cool arty friends who wore black and listened to Joy Division, Sisters of Mercy. Those parties were fun, too. But more grimy, boozy.
Ireland wasn’t imprinted on my being until I was older. My Irish family offered a different kind of restoring belonging. Acceptance, love. They were able to fill in the gaps (left by) my pretty absent father.
When my brother was married in Tobago, (I s
