(ThyBlackMan.com) She stood gloriously, her hair swallowed by a red scarf, the strength and glory of her taut brown face a symbol of a beauty that does not fade. Still, I imagine, she likely wouldn’t make the cover of some glamour magazine today without an “extreme makeover” or perhaps a ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Let’s get rid of Black History Month. I know. It sounds crazy — like something that you might hear at a Tea Party rally, or from a political pundit spouting some notion that minority people get special privileges, while ignoring white privilege. It’s a ludicrous idea, but let me ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) The best way to celebrate Black History Month is to make more Black history. Black History Month is now celebrated around the world. We are grateful for the visionary leadership of noted historian and scholar Carter G. Woodson for being the founder of what was known as Negro History ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) I just read a snippet from an old article in Essence Magazine indicating that researchers have uncovered new information suggesting that Cleopatra may not have been Black. The article brought back to mind a piece I read by Earl Ofari Hutchinson many years ago entitled, Whose Black History To Believe? In that ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) In 1852, Frederick Douglass spoke of America’s hypocrisy when dealing with the issue of slavery. He mused: “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Why should we celebrate the bombs bursting in air, when the nation had already declared war on us? On July 4, 1776, when the United States of America gained its independence from Great Britain, Africans in America were still in slavery. The nation talked about independence, but there was ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) On Thursday, March 21st, 2013, the world lost an intellectual heavyweight in Professor Chinua Achebe. He died at the age of 82. Commonly regarded as the father of African literature because of his development of the field, Achebe penned many significant books—most influential of these being Things Fall Apart, ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) SANKOFA: A West African word meaning to retrieve the past in order to live in the future. February, the nationally-recognized, officially-designated month to observe, celebrate, and praise much of Black America’s achievements and contributions to weaving the fabric of the American civilization has come and gone. It seems that ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) Every work of fiction is prefaced with the claim, “Any similarity to any real persons or situations is purely coincidental.” But don’t you believe it. Every piece of writing, particularly if it aspires to greatness, contains but a thin veneer over the real. The difference is that here the writer ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) “Keep the faith, baby!” is the title of the 2002 documentary about the life and times of the first Black New York Congressperson, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., starring Harry Lennix and Vanessa Williams. “Keep the faith, baby!” was the favorite saying of this charismatic, revolutionary leader of Harlem, and ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) My offering to Black History Month is dedicated to a man whom I knew and by whom I had the pleasure of seeing history being made right before my eyes. His words rang out in prose and song on the initial occasion of our meeting in Philadelphia in 1999. ...
(ThyBlackMan.com) I just read a snippet from an old article in Essence Magazine indicating that researchers have uncovered new information suggesting that Cleopatra may not have been Black. The article brought back to mind a piece I read by Earl Ofari Hutchinson many years ago entitled, Whose Black History To Believe? In ...