Gwendolyn Brooks was the very first real famous writer (the gods!) I helped organize a special event for. My ad hoc University of Chicago "sorority" for women of color on campus was blessed enough to get Ms. Brooks as the first guest speaker we ever booked, to launch our name and mission on campus. What a launch it was!
Category: Women
Sisters Jennifer and Jordan Turpin Give Testimony to Life
It is my privilege to salute Jennifer and Jordan Turpin, two young women who escaped and started over after a lifetime of the unimaginable. David and Louise Turpin raised their 13 children in secret squalor and tortuous rules, until, to save her siblings, Jordan found the courage at age 17 to leap into the world she'd never known.
Halle Won November, maybe the year
Way to make everybody feel bad when the #1 trending movie over the gluttonous, lazy Thanksgiving Weekend shows us a 50something sister doing crossfit.
Celebrating Adele with Oprah
These ladies both look beautiful, powerful and serene. Health always comes before weight. More self-made women in media, please.
Appreciating Miss Long
Heard it's Nia Long Appreciation Day. I'm here for it. Here are some of my favorite interviews and appearances from her. Stream a Nia Long film tonight to show how powerful black women are and have always been for the arts and entertainment.
Cicely, Titan of American Literature: 13 Classics She Brought to Life
No other screen persona served the general public more as a constant reminder of the stubborn, healthy and diverse black literary world which defied sentencing to invisibility and dismissal as just a trend. Cicely Tyson achieved this while diversifying in roles by other writers from all backgrounds, regions and genres… Please enjoy and share this catalog of Ms. Tyson’s greatest roles drawn from great, classic American literature I hope you seek out soon.
Now About That Cover…
I thought, by now, these recent cover shots like Lorna Simpson's construction with Rihanna for ESSENCE or Regina King and Viola Davis's old Hollywood glamour shots would just be the norms for black women. VOGUE has reminded me to never get comfortable. Hope, always. But never be surprised...
negression 