Kids Can’t Read Grandma’s Recipe Because It’s In Cursive
During one of the recent polar vortex school closings, someone posted on Facebook about having to help her daughters read a recipe card. Her daughters are excellent readers who are in grades 3 and 6. So why couldn't they read the neatly written directions? Well, [...]
Heroin Addiction Sent Me to Prison. White Privilege Got Me Out and to the Ivy League
I was a senior at Cornell University when I was arrested for heroin possession. As an addict — a condition that began during a deep depression — I was muddling my way through classes and doing many things I would come to regret, including selling [...]
Open Letter; We The Protesters
We, the protestors, believe that that our nation can only be great when it affirms and empowers all. All must mean all, and include especially those who define the global majority but whom American practices have confined to the margins. We, the protestors, are many [...]
The Selma Voting Rights Struggle: 15 Key Points from Bottom-Up History and Why It Matters Today
On this 50th anniversary year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March and the Voting Rights Act it helped inspire, national attention is centered on the iconic images of “Bloody Sunday,” the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the interracial marchers, and President Lyndon Johnson [...]
Chicago School Closings; Film Screening, Research Presentation, and Panel Discussion
Chicago's School Closings — Film Screening, Research Presentation, and Discussion The second installment in The School Project film series, Chicago's Public Schools: Closed will explore the major event in 2013 that sparked the filmmaker team to begin this project: the [...]
Girls In Justice
I was sitting in a sweltering California courtroom, serving as an expert witness on an adult case, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a tiny girl, fully shackled, walking down the courtroom aisle beside me. I was [...]
28/Heartbreak
my breath catches in my throat as the continuity of life is abruptly disrupted. again. as i sat down to write a poem about my slain brothers and sisters. (and sisters). another was murdered. i watched live streams of black souls gathering in berkeley, missouri [...]
Our Lives Matter — Why?
[ The “Our Lives Matters” project was inspired by the extrajudicial killings of minorities, particularly boys of color who are targeted on a daily basis. Fear of these young men continues to be seen as justification for the use [...]