The historic Black Panther Party, originally the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, is one of the most spoken about organizations of the civil rights movements, remembered even decades after its founding in 1966. Speaker, writer, educator, and former leader of the party Ericka Huggins dedicated much of her life to the party and continues…
Promise, Witness, Remembrance The Speed Art Museum From April 7 - June 6, 2021 Promise, Witness, Remembrance is currently exhibiting at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, honoring the life of Breonna Taylor from April 7 to June 6, 2021, just over one year after her life was wrongfully taken merely a few months ahead…
Following a tumultuous year of pandemic fatigue, election anxiety, and civil unrest, companies are (finally) taking the time to research and better understand the discrepancies between people of color (POC) and white employees in the workplace. Several months after the Black Lives Matter protests took place across the world, the Council of Fashion Designers in…
Bound up Together: On the 100th Anniversary of the 19th Amendment Curated by Rachel Gugelberger October 3–December 13, 2020 Not to be missed: Smack Mellon currently has an exhibit on view through December 13th, Bound up Together, a group show celebrating the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment. The exhibition title borrows…
Fashion mirrors society’s aspirations, challenges the norms, and essentially reflects our current climate. Still, the question persists: Should fashion be political? The only correct answer is: Wasn’t it always? Fashion is one of the most readily available (not to mention accessible) political tool. Style has the potential to disrupt or affirm the status quo. It’s…
Despite the pandemic, actor Paapa Essiedu has had quite a prolific year. Right off the heels of the critically acclaimed I May Destroy You, on which he played the understated yet complex Kwame, Essiedu is on our screens again, this time in a completely different role. Diving into the seedy underbelly of London, Essiedu's newest…
Last Monday, September 29, the National Gallery in Washington DC announced that a traveling exhibition of the works of Philip Guston, known for blunt depictions of the Ku Klux Klan and other forms of racism in the US, would be postponed until 2024. Initially, the retrospective collection, ironically titled Philip Guston Now, was to be…
It is impossible to understate the lasting influence of historic Black American leaders like Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Boise, and more recent voices like Barack and Michelle Obama. But the history of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as countless aspects of general American culture…
California senator Kamala Harris has been named as Joe Biden’s running mate, making her the first ever Black woman and the first person of Asian descent to earn that position. The choice carries a special weight in this election cycle, as Biden has said he’d be “a transition candidate,” hinting that if health problems arise…
In the latest addition to the disturbing game of Mad Libs that is 2020, Kanye West is running for president. On July 4th, the rapper-cum-fashion designer-cum-media mogul posted the announcement to Twitter, quickly gaining over one million favorites. West first planted the seed of a presidential run at the 2015 Video Music Awards, during an…
As long as the art world has been bastion for self-expression and radical system-challenging, the structures that make it up have often been exclusionary and narrow-minded. Part of the work of the current fight against injustice is to examine the country’s most enduring fixtures- like art museums- and force the systemic hang-ups that’s baked into them…
Across the country, Juneteenth, a national holiday immortalizing June 19, 1865, the day on which all enslaved people in Texas were freed, has seen a recent public resurgence. Following the police killings of Black citizens Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, amongst others, and subsequent worldwide protests, our country has placed a renewed emphasis on the…
We are on the verge of a revolution. In response to the killing of George Floyd by police, amongst many other incidents of police brutality against Black people like the killings of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee, protests have been staged across the country and by extension the entire world, to fight the systemic racism…
The recent protests across America’s fifty states have spoken: issues of racial inequality are a matter of life and death. Always, but especially now, everyone should be paying attention to discussions about race. The internet has exploded in the last couple weeks with resources for self-education, a vital step in revolutionizing our attitudes. Countless writers,…
The important conversations about police violence and systemic racism happening right now are happening around hashtags. This isn’t a new phenomenon, #MeToo has become shorthand for the movement against workplace sexual harassment, but in the days since George Floyd’s murder, a critical mass of social media content has seemed to mobilize around a few slogans,…
Black Women Artists For Black Lives Matter [In Association with Artist-In-Residence, Simone Leigh] The New Museum 235 Bowery, NYC 10002 September 1st, 4:30 - 8:30pm On September 1st at the New Museum, the collective known as Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter (BWA for BLM) will hold a free public event in solidarity with…
