Race, Identity & Culture
Henry Louis Gates Jr. On 'The Black Church' And His Own Bargain With Jesus
When he was 12, Gates made a bargain with Jesus in an attempt to save his mother's life. He talks about how that altered his own life, and his new book and PBS series, The Black Church.
A Poet Reflects On How We Reckon — Or Fail To Reckon — With The Legacy Of Slavery
Atlantic writer Clint Smith grew up surrounded by Confederate iconography, being told that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. He shares a poem from his forthcoming book, How the Word Is Passed.
Black Power Scholar Illustrates How MLK And Malcolm X Influenced Each Other
In his book, The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., Peniel Joseph braids together the lives of the two civil rights leaders. He says that King and Malcolm X had "convergent visions" for Black America — but their strategies for how to reach the goal was informed by their different upbringings.