Home About Blog Gallery Contact

Blog

The 19th •

Louisiana sisters fight to protect their community's health and enslaved ancestors' history

We’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

WALLACE, La.— There are only a handful of homes situated on Alexis Court, but there are a whole lot of memories.

At one end of the short street, facing the Mississippi River, is Fee-Fo-Lay Café, run by twin sisters Jo and Joy Banner. The Fifolet, according to local lore, is a spirit that haunts the swamps and guards the treasures of pirate Jean Lafitte. Growing up, the Banner sisters
The 19th •

Long excluded from the Mississippi statehouse, Black women fight on the margins for democracy

We’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

JACKSON, Miss. — Black women in Jackson, Mississippi, are busy. They always have been.

From enslaved women who toiled in the cotton fields, to sharecropper-turned-voting rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer to political firsts like Flonzie Brown Wright, Black women in Mississippi have served as the moral conscience and the upholders of human rights.

Their unique positioning at society’s
The 19th •

We asked book lovers to reflect on AAPI Heritage Month. Here’s what they recommended.

For Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, The 19th spoke with scholars, bookstore owners and book lovers about the themes that resonate with them in works by AAPI authors, and books that best represent those ideas.

The term AAPI refers to people who can trace their roots to any of dozens of countries in Asia, the largest continent of the world, as well as those who trace their roots to more than 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The list of recommended books reflects the
The 19th •

After national spotlight, here’s what hasn’t changed in Tennessee — and what might

As the dust settles in Tennessee after the past few weeks, there have been allusions to change. But still, much remains the same.

There was a mass school shooting in Nashville, a protest over gun violence that left two Black lawmakers expelled from their seats and then their return to the legislature. Republican Gov. Bill Lee slightly changed his tune on gun control measures, though he is already receiving pushback from his party and gun lobbyists.

But the cameras have left and, while promises
The 19th •

Lorraine Hansberry’s family says Chicago’s racist policies seized their land. Now they’re seeking reparations.

Your trusted source for contextualizing the news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

The 1959 Broadway debut of “A Raisin in the Sun” brought America inside a crowded Chicago apartment where the dreams of Black families went to die.

And while Lorraine Hansberry was making history as the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway, she and her family back in Chicago were embroiled in a fight that reflected the role of racism in both her life and the conditions creating the conflict of
The 19th •

'We will not be defeated': Vice President Kamala Harris stands with expelled representatives in Nashville

Your trusted source for contextualizing education and politics news in Tennessee and beyond. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — A day after Tennessee Democratic representatives Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones were expelled from the state legislature, Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at Jones’ alma mater — Fisk University, a historically Black institution — delivering a message of praise for the lawmakers and an indictment of the Republican supermajority that expelled
The 19th •

Teachers joined the protest in Nashville. Here’s what they want.

Your trusted source for contextualizing education and politics news in Tennessee and beyond. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Two imposing wooden doors and a horde of state troopers stood between hundreds of protesters inside the state Capitol and Republican lawmakers, who voted Thursday to expel two Black colleagues and in favor of measures that would mean more guns in school buildings.

Another set of troopers, metal detectors and ornamental columns stood between hundr
The 19th •

Tennessee House votes to expel two members; vote to remove Johnson fails

Your trusted source for contextualizing politics news. Sign up for our daily newsletter.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee — State Rep. Gloria Johnson avoided expulsion on Thursday but two of her fellow Democrats did not, as members of the state House voted on measures to remove them from the legislative body.

Johnson and state Reps. Justin J. Pearson of Memphis and Justin Jones of Nashville last week called for the legislature to act to address gun violence, doing so in the chamber in a way that Republica
The 19th •

‘We are all bound up together’: ’s fellows on the life and legacy of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

This Black History Month, we’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to our daily newsletter.

On this date 112 years ago, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper — author, poet, abolitionist and suffragist — died at the age of 85. As the “mother of African American journalism,” Harper has inspired generations of Black writers and media makers, and The 19th’s HBCU fellowship program is named in her honor.

Our fellows are a living testament to Harper’s enduring l
The 19th •

Mothers of the movement: Black environmental justice activists reflect on the women who have paved the way

This Black History Month, we’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to our daily newsletter.

When Leah Thomas was earning her degree in environmental studies, she found that what she was learning in college and her personal experience did not match up.

Thomas, who is Black, noticed that the environmentalists she was studying did not look like her, nor did they look like the Black women she knew to be integral in the fight for clean water, air and la
The 19th •

We asked lovers of Black literature to curate a Black resistance reading list. Here’s what they chose.

This Black History Month, we’re telling the untold stories of women, women of color and LGBTQ+ people. Subscribe to our daily newsletter.

In 1926, when Carter G. Woodson started Negro History Week — which has since evolved into Black History Month — his vision was to preserve the contributions of Black people to the history of the world and combat their erasure from a fuller narrative.

Each year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, a group Woodson founded, provi
The 19th •

'I wiped my eyes and wrote the facts'

On the eve of Tyre Nichols’ funeral, I could not calm my nerves. Memphis was covered in ice, and there seemed to be no end to the freezing rain falling from the sky.

I realized I would have a front row seat to history the next morning, but I did not want to be there.

Who would?

As a reporter, I felt tasked with the duty of accurately representing this funeral and the vile circumstances that led to it. As a Black reporter, I felt a duty to bear witness to his unjust death and the burden of grief that came with it.
The 19th •

A new museum and clinic will honor the enslaved “Mothers of Gynecology”

33 S. Perry Street in Montgomery, Alabama, is a site of harrowing sacrifice that birthed modern gynecology. But though many know the breakthroughs that happened there, the dozens of enslaved women and girls who suffered for the medical standards that exist today are often erased.

Artist Michelle Browder is giving that space, and those women, a chance to speak. She purchased the site in February with plans to honor the memories of these women and girls. Less than a mile away from the state capit
Daily Memphian •

At Cummings K-8, community members wrap their arms around neighborhood kids

As middle-schoolers mill about at the top of a set of stairs leading up to Cummings K-8 and crunch the fall leaves below, Anthony Boyce Canada stands watch with his hoodie pulled tight.

A little girl who stands barely higher than his knee trips and lands face down. He picks her up. She hobbles but hesitates to put weight on one foot. Canada walks the girl up the remaining steps, where the school’s assistant principal carries her into the building.

On this brisk fall morning, Canada and two other men stand in the gaps physically and metaphorically, there in the moments when children are away from the watchful eyes of parents and teachers.
News21: Kids Imprisoned •

Children with disabilities face challenges in, out of detention

School environments that rely on harsh punishments to control classrooms often leave children with learning and behavioral disabilities more likely to be suspended, fall behind in school and enter the juvenile justice system.

Although they made up less than 13% of all public school students in the 2015-16 school year, according to the most recent data available, kids with learning and behavioral disabilities were arrested nearly three times more often than students without such challenges.
Load More