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America@250: Clint Smith & Tim Miller on Grappling with the U.S. and Its Contradictions
Image credit: The Bulwark, Tim Miller interviews Clint Smith Tim Miller interviews Clint Smith on The Bulwark podcast. Tim Miller: How are you processing where we’re at today and the backsliding we’ve done recently? There are probably going to be some Americans out there not contemplating deep historical weight of what’s happening and gleefully enjoying fireworks and hot dogs. My guess is if you’re listening to this podcast right now, you’re not one of those people. So, I’m

Gina Greenlee, Author
6 days ago7 min read


America@250: Nikole Hannah-Jones on Patriotism and Heroes
Image credit: Kettering Foundation This blog post excerpts the transcript of Alex Lovit interviewing Nikole Hannah-Jones in May 2026. Image credit: Kettering Foundation This interview is the conclusion of our three-part series called Democracy Under Construction. We’ve been commemorating America’s 250th by examining US history and asking where our patriotism should lie, who we should be lifting up as national heroes, and how history helps us find a path toward a more inclusiv

Gina Greenlee, Author
Sep 66 min read


America@250: Olympic Pride, American Prejudice
At the 1936 Olympics, in Berlin, Germany, 18 African American’s challenged discrimination on the world stage. And won eight gold medals. It wasn’t only Jesse Owens, you ask? Nope. The American narrative of the 1936 Olympics is about one Black athlete named Jesse Owens. Like most narratives, there’s more to the story. ◊ ◊ ◊ The documentary, “Olympic Pride, American Prejudice explores the experiences of 18 African American Olympians who defied Jim Crow and Adolf Hitle

Gina Greenlee, Author
Aug 231 min read


America@250: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror at the National Peace and Justice Memorial
Image credit: National Memorial of Peace and Justice dedicated to lynching, Equal Justice Initiative. The National Memorial documents the most active era of racial terror lynchings from 1877 to 1950 including Emmett Till. On a hilltop overlooking Montgomery is the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It is the first public reflection space to acknowledge the history of racial terror lynchings in America; the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jul 269 min read


America@250: South Africa and Germany Inspire Narrative History Design at Montgomery’s Legacy Sites
Image credit: Legacy Museum Image credit: Equal Justice Initiative “When I moved to Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1980s there were 59 monuments and memorials to the Confederacy,” says Bryan Stevenson. “You could not find the word slave slavery or enslavement anywhere in the city landscape. And the absence of any acknowledgment of that history bothered me. I saw it as a problem, but it wasn’t a priority then. It wasn’t a focus then. “I was focused on trying to get people who w

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jul 194 min read


America@250: Bryan Stevenson on a New Narrative Landscape
Image credit: Legacy Museum Image credit: Equal Justice Initiative Renowned human rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, reflects on why efforts to erase or soften Black history are intensifying, how fear and false narratives have shaped American law and culture for generations, and why preserving historical truth is essential to the country’s future. Image credit: The Grio In the Grio interview excerpted in this blog

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jul 125 min read


America@250: Author Isabel Wilkerson Honors Juneteenth 2026
Image credit: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth124054/ “246 years. Nearly two and a half centuries. That is how long slavery lasted in what is now the United States of America,” wrote Isabel Wilkerson on Facebook in June 2026. “This is the day that we commemorate the moment that the last enslaved Americans were finally freed in the slavery stronghold of Texas on June 19, 1865. They had toiled for two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and mon

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jul 52 min read


More Beautiful Black Women 2026
Image Credit: Lisa Marie Theck, Unsplash Image Credit: Jabari Timothy, Unsplash Image Credit: Andrea C. Taylor, Unsplash Image Credit: xhemambosannie, Unsplash Image Credit: Awala unsplash Image Credit: artistic operations unsplash Image Credit: Pixabay Image Credit: Manuel Thelensman, Unsplash Image Credit: Corey Lankford, Unsplash Image Credit: Chris Benson, Unsplash Image Credit: Kory Williams, Unsplash Image Credit: Daniel Adesina, Unsplash Image Credit: Lisa Marie Theck,

Gina Greenlee, Author
Apr 191 min read


The Jayne Cortez Listener
Listen to Jayne Cortez , renowned jazz poet spit “You Know” and “There It Is,” live at the San Francisco Poetry Center, 1985. In addition to publishing a number of collections , Jayne released several recordings throughout her lifetime, many of which feature her band, the Firespitters. ◊ ◊ ◊ Listen and Read Bernice Johnson Reagon Listener ◊ ◊ ◊ Toni Morrison Listener ◊ ◊ ◊ Chris Cooper Reader ◊ ◊ ◊ Leonard Cohen Reader ◊ ◊ ◊ Gloria Steinem Reader ◊ ◊ ◊ Tom Robb

Gina Greenlee, Author
Mar 291 min read


Beautiful Black Men: 2026
Image Credit: Anas Alhajj at Unsplash Image Credit: CovantNYC at Pixabay Image Credit: Glasses Shop at Pixabay Image Credit: JDaley at Pixabay Image Credit: Leroy Skalstad, Pixabay Image Credit: Leroy Skalstad, Pixabay Image Credit: Pexels on Pixabay Image Credit: Pixabay Image Credit: Brave Pictures, Unsplash Image Credit: Leroy Skalstad, Pixabay Image Credit: Meso Today, Pixabay Image Credit: Kaysha at Unsplash Image Credit: Kingsley Osei-Abrah, Unsplash Image Credit: Pixab

Gina Greenlee, Author
Mar 81 min read



Gina Greenlee, Author
Mar 10 min read


What Beautiful Looks Like: 2026
Image Credit: Lisa Marie, Unsplash Image Credit: Alisa Dyson, Pixabay Image Credit: Alisa Dyson, Pixabay Image Credit: Gabbyola, Unsplash Image Credit: Kingsley, Unsplash Image Credit: Baptista, Unsplash Image Credit: Eris Colors, Pixabay Image Credit: Eris Colors, Pixabay Image Credit: Gideon Hezekiah, Unsplash Image Credit: Good Faces, Unsplash Image Credit: Belinda Amoah, Unsplash Image Credit: Graca Assane, Unsplash Image Credit: Inno Joseph, Unsplash Image Credit: Jabari

Gina Greenlee, Author
Feb 221 min read


East Side Story
Image Credit: Gina Greenlee, paint, ink, collage For more of my take on growing up on New York City’s Lower East Side: Black and Blintzes: Growing Up Not Quite Jewish on the Lower East Side Postcards and Pearls: Life Lessons from Solo Moments in New York Hush Life, a novel No Tears for Frankie: A Memoir on the Life of an Essay ◊ ◊ ◊ Take a YouTube tour of my hometown. The background song is the 1977 hit Native New Yorker , performed by Odyssey . The lyrics, shared in this

Gina Greenlee, Author
Feb 11 min read


Dr. Daniel Black: “Here They Come Ya’ll, Here They Come!”
African American Studies Professor Dr. Daniel Black treated graduates to an EXPERIENCE at the 2024 Spring Commencement Ceremonies at Clark Atlanta University.

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jan 41 min read


Overlooked No More: Bessie Stringfield Motorcycle Queen of Miami
Bessie Stringfield impressed people with her accounts of being chased off the road as she traveled through the segregated South in the...

Gina Greenlee, Author
Jan 19, 20251 min read


Toni Morrison on “Standing at the Edge and Claiming it Center”
Interviewer : You don’t think you will ever change and write books that will incorporate White lives into them substantially? Toni : I...

Gina Greenlee, Author
Apr 7, 20242 min read


Black Like Me: Representation in Animation
Image credit: Aphton Corbin My March 11 post got me Googling: “Drawing black people features in cartooning.” Image credit: Aphton Corbin...

Gina Greenlee, Author
Mar 17, 20241 min read


A Trip to the Grocery Store
Author and educator Dr. Joy DeGruy shares how her sister-in-law uses her White privilege to stand up to systemic inequity.

Gina Greenlee, Author
Nov 27, 20221 min read


A Black-Owned Beach Is Returned to Its Owners after 97 Years
Wedding portrait of Charles Aaron and Willa A. Bruce who purchased the beachfront property in 1912. Image Credit: California African...

Gina Greenlee, Author
Sep 18, 20221 min read


Diggin’ on James Brown
Ya know the more things change The more they stay the same It may be a different age But I'm on the same page Cause one thing that I've...

Gina Greenlee, Author
Apr 16, 20221 min read
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