Urban Up Close: Geographies of Diversity & Senegalese Men in Madrid’s Lavapiés

Urban Up Close: Bob Marley and the Trenchtown Squatters

“When yuh step it’s nah right-left like dey teach yuh, it’s right-forward.”

-Stoneman, Management team of Trenchtown Culture Yard & Trenchtown resident

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Black Solidarity Goes Both Ways: American-Centrism and Transnational Activism

Do you know the names: Kingsley Chinagorom Echeta, Adama Traoré, Mzee Mohammed, Zyed Benna, Bouna Traoré, Laye Kondé?

Part III — Jericho, Jerusalem, Jordan: The Centers of the Beginning of Civilization

[I can write whole essays about these two cities and this one country, but I tried my best not to]

“You will find lots of people in Jericho who…

Roma Gypsies: An Example of 1,500 Years of Resistance to “Integration”

My sister came to visit me in Madrid during Easter Break and I was happy to see some of Madrid’s “must-see” tourist sites. In addition to a couple of Royal Palace’s and almost every Botanical Garden in the…

We’re Staying: The Replacements & The Fillmore Jazz Era

*Featured Photo*Patrons at the Club Flamingo, before it was remodeled and called the Texas Playhouse, early 1950s. Wesley Johnson Jr. Collection. [From Harlemofthewestsf.com]

Urban Up Close: Being Black in a Spanish Museum

People staring at me, staring at the paintings: I guess they wonder what I could be doing in a place where none of the art or artists reflect my identity as a person from the African Diaspora. I sometimes wonder the same.

A Reflection on IdeasCity Arles: It’s the People Behind the Ideas

She said “these are some of the brightest minds in the world around these topics,” and no one flinched. That’s how I knew I was in the right place. Even if each and every one of us had inner insecurities and…