Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Bury Me in a Free Land
All that my yearning spirit craves,
Is bury me not in a land of slaves.
Video: The Atlantic Slave Trade
Slavery has occurred in many forms throughout the world, but the Atlantic slave trade — which forcibly brought more than 10 million Africans to the Americas — stands out for both its global scale and its lasting legacy.
Tom Engelhardt: The World We are Passing on to our children and grandchildren
Let’s just hope that, when it comes to creating a better world out of such a god-awful mess, the generations that follow us prove better at it than mine did.
Juniper White: The Distance Between Rings
let us sit under our words, a many-
ringed tree, bodies drunk on lost
time, listening to delicate leaves
Ira Sadoff: Old Selves (read by James Anderson)
Ok, I no longer want them,
the many selves I had to manage
that exhausted everyone.
Brian Mittendorf: Why New York AG Letitia James is suing the NRA
New York state Attorney General Letitia James is suing the National Rifle Association and four of its current and former officials. The primary goal of the New York lawsuit is to dissolve the NRA completely.
Alexis Rhone Fancher: Post Mortem
It’s the last time, I swear, except this time I mean it. The last time I mourn Kate so hard I don’t eat, unless you consider alcohol a meal. The last time I drive drunk the five miles to Chuck’s house, at midnight, despondent, disheveled, swigging Stoli…
Paul Christensen: The American Muse
We let the unresolved issues and crises that face us mount up beyond the poet’s window, as the writer gropes for a language in which to imagine something beyond the claustrophobic assumptions we have accepted as our grasp of the world.
Philip Levine: Red Dust
I do not believe in sorrow;
it is not American.
Dr. Michelle D. Holmes: Black Lives Depend on the U.S. Dietary Guidelines
Black Americans need science-based dietary guidelines in an acute way as they disproportionately benefit from federal nutrition programs that are mandated to follow the guidelines, such as school breakfast and lunch programs.
Yehuda Amichai: A Child is Something Else Again
A child is something else again. Wakes up
in the afternoon and in an instant he’s full of words,
in an instant he’s humming, in an instant warm,
instant light, instant darkness.
Helen Caldicott: The Lessons We Still Haven’t Learned From Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The United States needs to rise to its full moral and spiritual height and lead the world to sanity and survival.
Jake Johnson: Postal Union Leader Warns Trump Assault on USPS and Mail-In Voting Puts Nation on ‘Dangerous Path Toward Dictatorship’
Anyone who believes in the right to vote should enthusiastically embrace voting by mail. Without it, tens of millions of voters will be denied the opportunity to safely exercise their cherished right to vote.
Karen J. Greenberg: Accountability in Trump’s America
All told, the U.S. president has been a perfect model in deflecting all responsibility, even as the death toll soared over 150,000 with more than four million cases reported nationwide and no end in sight.
