By Sen. T’wina Nobles (D-Wa), Word in Black Opal Lee is the grandmother of Juneteenth. For most of her life, she has advocated to make Juneteenth a national holiday. In 2016, she even walked from her home in Ft. Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C., traveling two and a half miles each day to symbolize the […]
Author Archives: Word in Black
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#WordinBlack: Black Summer reading club
By Word In Black Fiction, nonfiction, memoir… Team Word In Black loves books. During our meetings, we regularly talk about what we’re reading and share book recommendations. We also come across plenty of must-reads during our reporting. (It turns out that experts in their field also somehow find the time to write books!) That’s why […]
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#WordinBlack: Juneteenth Ice Cream: Black exploitation or cultural celebration?
By Laura Onyeneh, Word in Black By now you would have thought corporations would have learned their lesson about exploiting Black pain for capital gain after the killing of George Floyd. Well… guess not. Walmart recalled its Juneteenth ice cream commemorating the holiday after it received heavy backlash on social media. The ice cream which […]
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#WordinBlack: Few eligible families have applied for government help to pay for COVID funerals
By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio, Word in Black On a humid August afternoon in 2020, two caskets ― one silver, one white ― sat by holes in the ground at a small, graveside service in the town of Travelers Rest, South Carolina. The family had just lost a mom and dad, both to Covid-19. […]
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#WordinBlack: Acts of racial violence don’t happen in a bubble – they happen in America
By Alexa Spencer, Word in Black Two things are clear about the recent mass killing of Black people on May 14 in a Buffalo, New York grocery store. First, the attack committed by 18-year-old White male Payton Gendron that resulted in the death and injury of 11 Black people was an outright racist act. Second, […]
Posted inHealth
#WordinBlack: Love letters to Black women from 5 organizations that care about their health
By Alexa Spencer, Word in Black Every day is a good day to honor Black women. They birth the Black community (even in the most difficult conditions), raise up world leaders and change-makers, and devote their lives to creating and advocating solutions. While Black mamas are known for protecting everyone, folks are now gathering to […]
Posted inWashington D.C. News
#WordinBlack: The Hornet’s Nest: Washington, D.C.’s First African American Fire Station
This post was originally published on The Washington Informer By Roland Hesmondhalgh Engine Company 4 is a woefully unknown player in the history of both the Washington, D.C., fire department and racial equality in America. Created in 1919 at the request of every African American fireman in Washington, D.C. — all three of them — the company has […]
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Why Health Concerns Are at the Heart of the New Amazon and Starbucks Unions
By Alexa Spence for Word in Black When news broke on April 1, that Amazon workers in Staten Island, N.Y. had managed to organize the first union in the notoriously anti-union company’s 27-year history, a common refrain across social media went something like this: This is not an April Fool’s Day joke. The news was […]