theblackbottom

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read~Mary McCleod Bethune
Once you learn how to read, you will be forever free!~Frederick Douglass
REVIEW
Fredrick C. Harris is Professor of Political Science and the Director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He is the triple award [...]

Source: Washington Post
A majority African American swimming club breaks records and stereotypes
Five years ago, the Kingfish Swim Club swam in the least competitive division in the Prince-Mont Swim League. Now, after going undefeated for three years, they are swimming in their league’s most competitive division, defying stereotypes about the sport, which remains overwhelmingly white. Check [...]

Source: New York Times
David Snell knew only two other black gay people while growing up in Madison, N.J., an upper-middle-class town with white-picket fences, a mostly Irish and Italian population. One was a 13-year-old boy whom Snell encountered at his small Baptist church.
At Sunday school, the boy started crying. Snell said that [...]

Source: VOA
WASHINGTON – A U.S.-based organization is carrying on the legacy of the late basketball star Manute Bol by continuing to build schools and work for reconciliation in South Sudan. The recent work comes despite South Sudan’s many struggles during its first of year of existence as a country.
Immediately as he enters the Washington offices [...]

Source: LA Times
“Undefeated” presents itself as a look at a single season in the life of a striving high school football team in impoverished North Memphis, Tenn., but really it’s about so much more.
Like all memorable sports documentaries — and this Oscar-nominated film is definitely one of those — “Undefeated” is [...]

By WILLIAM C. RHODEN
Midway through a discussion about the world of sports at the Connecticut Forum in Hartford last week, Rebecca Lobo, the former University of Connecticut basketball star, posed an intriguing question. Could anyone recall a black athlete who had come off the bench like Tim Tebow or out of the [...]

Once You Learn How To Read, You Will Be Forever Free!~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Shaquille Rashaun O’Neal is a retired NBA center who played 19 seasons in the league. He played in the NBA from 1992, when the Orlando Magic made him the 1st overall pick in the NBA Draft, to 2011, when he retired as a [...]

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Joe Frazier, the son of a South Carolina sharecropper who punched meat in a Philadelphia slaughterhouse before Rocky, won Olympic gold, and beat an undefeated Muhammad Ali to become one of the all-time heavyweight greats, died on Monday, his family said in a statement. He was 67.
Mr. Frazier, whose liver cancer was diagnosed [...]

Once You Learn How To Read, You Will Be Forever Free!~Frederick Douglass
REVIEW Condoleezza Rice was U.S. Secretary of State from 2005 until 2009 under President George W. Bush, after serving four years as National Security Advisor (2001-05). As a child, Rice was a gifted student and a prodigy on the piano, and she entered college [...]

Once You Learn How to Read, You Will Be Forever Free~Frederick Douglass
REVIEW Gerald Early is Professor of English, African and African American Studies, and American Cultural Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

REVIEW Sally H. Jacobs lives in Boston. She has been a reporter for more than three decades, most recently with The [...]