theblackbottom

Sharan Strange grew up in Orangeburg, SC, was educated at Harvard College, and received an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of Ash, winner of the 2000 Barnard New Women Poets Prize, selected by Sonia Sanchez (Beacon Press, 2001). She is a contributing and advisory editor of Callaloo and cofounder [...]

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 Mark Long is a video game designer and producer living in Seattle. The Silence of Our Friends in based on Long’s childhoold experiences with the civil rights movement in suburban [...]

Remica L. Bingham, a native of Phoenix, Arizona, received her MFA from Bennington College. She has attended the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops and is a Cave Canem fellow. In addition to other journals, her work has been featured in New Letters, Crab Orchard Review, and Essence. She is the recipient of the 2005 Hughes, Diop, [...]

By Antoinette Campbell, CNN
updated 6:13 PM EST, Mon September 19, 2011

Washington (CNN) – College presidents from predominantly black institutions across the country gathered in the nation’s capital Monday for a conference commemorating National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week.
The two-day conference, titled “HBCUs: Engaging the World Anew,” began just days after President Barack Obama signed [...]

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Ruth J. Simmons, who made history in 2001 when she was named the first black president of an Ivy League institution, will step down from the leadership of Brown University at the end of the academic year, the university announced on Thursday.
Ms. Simmons’s presidency was baptized by fire. When [...]

Kyla Marshell is a poet, writer, and aspiring DJ. She attended the illustrious Spelman College, where she learned everything she knows about Black people. Currently, she is a student in the Master’s of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at Sarah Lawrence College, where she is learning about “diversity.” She lives in Brooklyn, which she [...]

Walter M. Kimbrough is president of Philander Smith College.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
This past May, I was invited to speak to a Sunday-school class at a local United Methodist church. I talked about how being a president is a calling for me, and how I have to exercise a great deal of faith [...]

William C. Rhoden has been writing about sports for The New York Times since March 1983. Previously, he was a copy editor in the Sunday Week in Review section since October 1981 when he joined the newspaper.
Before joining The Times, Mr. Rhoden spent more than three years with The Baltimore Sun as a columnist. Before [...]

Lauren K. Clark is a native Atlantan, and a graduate of Spelman College. A comparative women’s studies major, she also engaged in other studies. During her matriculation through her undergraduate studies, Ms. Clark engaged in multiple study abroad ventures such as Kenya, Tanzania, and others. She is a graduate student with the American University [...]

Lauren K. Clark is a native Atlantan, and a graduate of Spelman College. A comparative women’s studies major, she also engaged in other studies. During her matriculation through her undergraduate studies, Ms. Clark engaged in multiple study abroad ventures such as Kenya, Tanzania, and others. She is a graduate student with the American University in [...]