proposals due April 5, 2021
In her 1942 autobiographical work, Dust Tracks on a Road, author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston openly declared her desire to expand the focus and direction of African-American literature, indicating not only that “I was and am thoroughly sick of the subject [of the race problem in the United States]” but that she was interested in exploring “what makes a man or a woman do such-and-so, regardless of his color” (713). And while discussions of race inherently pervade much of her work, this artistic and ideological perspective the need to “tell a story the way I wanted, or rather the way the story told itself to me” (713) played a significant role in shaping Hurston’s literary works throughout her storied career. Whether it was using dialect to construct the African-American voice in text, driving down the coast collecting stories from Black folk whose voices had long been ignored, or delving into the lives of a white married couple in
The Pittsburgh Courier chronicled history of Black Americans
By MARYLYNNE PITZ, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteMarch 6, 2021 GMT
PITTSBURGH (AP) As a teenager, Robert Lee Vann plowed fields with an ox under the scorching North Carolina sun. But he didn’t plant seeds of justice until he came north for an education.
After earning bachelor’s and law degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, the young attorney began writing in 1910 for a weekly newspaper called The Pittsburgh Courier. His goal, he wrote, was to “abolish every vestige of Jim Crowism in Pittsburgh.”
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For more than 40 years, the Courier’s crusades laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement and for a time, it had 350,000 readers in the U.S. and overseas. Its journalists advocated for fairer hiring practices, better housing and health care and the integration of workplaces, including the military and sports.
How this pioneering Jesuit helped integrate Saint Louis University americamagazine.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from americamagazine.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
March 1st, 2021 in Featured. Closed
Left: Hubert Julian poses on the wheel of his plane named Abyssinia at Floyd Bennett Field, Long Island, New York, circa September 1933. Right: John C. Robinson in Addis Ababa, circa 1935-6. (Smithsonian)
Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
By: Elizabeth Borja
Archives Division
On October 3, 1935 the forces of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini began their advance upon Ethiopia, known in earlier times as Abyssinia. Italy had long coveted the territory to expand their colonial influence in East Africa. In 1896, Ethiopians had turned back an Italian invasion at Adwa, serving as an example of a Black-led country’s defiance of Europe. Taking inspiration from Ethiopia’s long history as an independent Black nation, two Black aviators Hubert Julian and John C. Robinson were drawn to Ethiopia by the events of 1935.