Page 3 - Reckoning With News Today

My family owned plantations, but how my generation atones can only ever be a start, says author and campaigner Alex Renton

In his memoir “Holding Fire,” Bryce Andrews confronts the violence and guilt of past generations.

Clint Smith, author of "Above Ground," spoke at the American Library Association's 2023 LibLearnX conference in New Orleans.

Listen to speeches from the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize recipients: Clint Smith, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, and Wil Haygood.

We had the Mississippi River to ourselves.

A humble ending on the mighty Mississippi

We had the Mississippi River to ourselves.

On Feb. 7, 1865, the Illinois legislature repealed its “black laws” — codified restrictions on Black citizens’ rights — following strong advocacy by Black lobbyists. Almost two centuries later, this day passes by each year without widespread acknowledgment.  Attendees at history Prof. Kate Masur’s “Remembering Illinois’s Early Black History” lecture pondered why Illinois does not...

Over the past year I have taken what I initially thought was a side-step from my usual work in foreign affairs to research the behaviour — and failings — of family courts. Yet what I have discovered…

As a young boy growing up in New Orleans, Clint Smith felt socially, intellectually and emotionally paralyzed. “(I was) inundated with messages about all the things that were wrong with Black people, sometimes explicit and sometimes subtle,” Smith said.  He knew those words felt wrong, but didn’t know how to fight them. Smith said he...