“If I can do it, you can do it. That was his message.”
On February 6, 1993 Arthur Ashe died of AIDS-related pneumonia in New York at the age of 49. His body was laid in state at the Governor’s Mansion in his hometown […]
Author Archive for: jkluk
Entries by Joe
A retrospective on Althea Gibson
In this poignant retrospective by Richard Evans he reflects on Althea Gibson’s legacy as the first African American to win a Grand Slam title and the significance of this achievement […]
Dr. King and SCLC leaders begin to march from Selma to Montgomery
On this day in 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other religious and lay leaders led the 54 mile “Alabama Freedom March” from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital. […]
Healthy Children Will Become Healthy Adults: America’s Commitment to Reverse the Obesity Epidemic
Earlier this month The School Nutrition Association celebrated National School Breakfast Week, the culmination of its annual campaign to promote school breakfasts and the importance and intersection of nutrition and […]
Arna Bontemps: A man of letters, and so much more
Arna Bontemps was a prominent literary figure throughout the first half of the twentieth century, particularly notable due to his influence on African American literature and culture. “His career as […]
The Last Renaissance Woman: Dorothy West
“When I was a child of 4 or 5, listening to the conversation of my mother and her sisters, I would sometimes intrude on their territory with a solemnly stated […]
William Attaway: Blood on the Forge and the Great Migration
William Attaway was most well-known for the novel, Blood on the Forge, a story of three brothers who escape sharecropping life in the south to migrate north and find a new life […]
Carl Van Vechten: Capturing the Era
© Jorge Colombo, the New Yorker In the articles about black authors of the mid-20th century, it is easy to notice a recurring tag accompanying all of their portraits: © […]
Willard Motley’s Chicago Style
© Car Van Vechten Willard Francis Motley was born in Chicago in 1909, a city that reverberated throughout his entire life, even after he left the country. He was raised […]
A Look Back: Figure Skater Debi Thomas
Today the world tunes in to the Sochi Olympic Games to watch the Women’s short program in figure skating that, in combination with the long program that occurs tomorrow, will […]