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Category Archives: Our Black History

Oh that black history!

February is coming up soon and that means Black History Month stuff will abound. While it is a bittersweet time of year for us black folks, it does serve as a reminder, even to ourselves, to go beyond the surface of our history in America

Angry Wee One

I’m in the process of collecting more information for some other OurStory posts. I want to get stories on the Larkin family from a cousin and also do the interviews about my mom. Next week for sure there will be posts about my maternal grandmother

Book Review: Middle Passages

Several months ago I happened to hear author James T. Campbell on a local NPR show talking about his book Middle Passages: African American Journeys to Africa, 1787-2005. Impressed by the interview, I ran out and bought the book. (In hardcover, for $30!) It’s very

Our Black History – Billy Strayhorn

NPR and PBS seem to be as tired of clichéd Black History Month tributes as I am. Not only did we have the Percy Julian features last week, but there was also a lot of coverage for the Billy Strayhorn documentary “Lush Life”. Morning Edition,

Our Black History – Percy Julian

NPR’s News and Notes has a great interview with actor Ruben Santiago-Hudson on his role in the Nova documentary Forgotten Genius about the life of Percy Julian. Don’t know who Percy Julian is? Well, you’re not alone. When most folks think of influential black scientists,

Our Black History – Sylvia & Walter

My maternal grandomther’s grandfather was a preacher named George Dallas Finley. A few years ago I asked some of my relatives to tell me about him and I ended up with a lot of amazing stories about the whole family. As part of Our Black

OurStory Carnival call for submissions

Things happen fast on the Internets, kids. In my Black History Month post last week I said that I wanted to make this month useful again by having folks bring up history and people that are ignored or forgotten. Included in that was wanting to