Mary Wollstonecraft: It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world!
I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.
Minnita Daniel-Cox: The brief but shining life of Paul Laurence Dunbar, a poet who gave dignity to the Black experience
We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Paul Laurence Dunbar: Invitation to Love
Come when my heart is full of grief
Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Julia Conley: Thousands in Midwestern GOP Districts Attend Sanders’ First Stops on Tour to Fight Oligarchy
“The energy around what Bernie is doing is insane….”
George Yancy: Black History Testifies to the Impossible Creative Power of Black Resistance
Literary scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin discusses how Black yearning keeps surviving in the face of racist violence.
Baron Wormser: Salvation
On Flannery O’Connor, Donald Trump, and American Violence
William D. Hartung: In Stunningly Bright Colors
Enrico Muratore Aprosio’s Cry for Common Sense and Common Humanity,
Michael Simms: America
Beside the highway outside McKeesport PA
a state trooper has pulled over a black man
who leans against his rusty Ford
palms flat, feet apart
assuming the position
as we say in America
Abby Zimet: For Cruel, Stupid, Dastardly Deeds Done and Proposed
Gandhi famously said, “Civil disobedience therefore becomes a sacred duty when the State has become lawless.”
Molly Fisk: Two Poems
Part, partial, apart, apartheid,
apartments invaded, a woman
shot though she too was a piece
of the continent, she was a part
of the main.
George Yancy: Frederick Douglass’s Words Ring True: “Power Concedes Nothing Without a Demand”
The draconian measures of the Trump administration must be challenged by way of the mass movements that extend beyond the pale of electoral politics.
Robert Cording: Pilgrims
a girl
dancing topless on a table
at the West End bar
more than fifty years ago,
and Richie Havens singing Freedom,
Freedom, Freedom from a jukebox,
everyone clapping their hands
Video: Grace
Sixteen-year-old Grace prepares for her baptism in the 1950’s South. When she learns she must repent before the ritual, Grace contemplates her budding romantic feelings toward her best friend, Louise.
Robinson Jeffers: Love the Wild Swan
I hate my verses, every line, every word.
Oh pale and brittle pencils ever to try
One grass-blade’s curve, or the throat of one bird
That clings to twig, ruffled against white sky.
