Category: Black in the World
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Meet Sienna Brown of Las Morenas de España
Hello Meltingpot Readers, Yesterday on Instagram, I announced I would be heading back to Spain this summer for the first time in seven years. This will also be the first time our family of five has traveled to Spain together and I’m really excited. In addition, 2019 marks the 10-year anniversary of the paperback release…
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It’s 2019, Why Are We Still Policing Blackness?
Hello Meltingpot Readers, As we wind down the Blackest month of the year, I wanted to write something positive and inspirational about Black people in America. Instead, I’m using this penultimate Black History Month blog post to lament the continuous policing of Blackness. Not Black Enough As a Black girl who grew up in Caucasia,…
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Five Reasons Why Green Book Won the Best Picture Oscar
Hello Meltingpot Readers, By now you probably all know that the movie Green Book, the inspired-by-the-true-story tale of a white man and a Black man becoming friends during a road trip, won the Oscar for Best Picture last night. Some people are a little salty about this decision because they believe the movie is yet…
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Father Divine: The Greatest Civil Rights Leader You Never Heard of!
Hello Meltingpot Readers, When I first moved to Philadelphia, back in 2006, I was an adjunct professor at Rosemont College. I was teaching a graduate course on biography writing and one of my students wanted to write about a man named Father Divine. I had never heard of him. Like never ever. His name rang…
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Happy 88th Birthday, Toni Morrison!
Hello Meltingpot Readers, Today, one of the most important voices in contemporary literature and one of my personal literary heroes, Ms. Toni Morrison, is celebrating her 88th birthday! Besides the fact that living to age 88 is cause enough for celebration, Morrison also has a brand new book of nonfiction essays out. It’s called The…
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Black History is American History
This essay was originally published on Beacon Broadside in February 2017. I still agree with every single word. February is Black History Month. Personally, I’ve always felt conflicted about a month being set aside to celebrate the achievements of African Americans in the United States, because it seems to suggest that once February is over,…
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African American Culinary History Doesn’t Begin or End with Aunt Jemima
(Note: This post was originally published in 2015, but has been updated.) Hello Meltingpot Readers, I had one of those driveway moments the other day when I heard a fascinating story on NPR. It was about Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef, James Hemings. Yes, the brother of Sally Hemings. James was apparently quite the culinary genius,…
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Black People Made America Great in 2018
Hello Meltingpot Readers, It’s officially December, the last month of the year. That means it’s time for people to start making those “The Year that Was” lists. They’re going to look at all of the major milestones and big moments from the last 11 months and try to figure out what 2018 was all about.…
