Editor’s Take
BY NJEMILE Z. ALI
This is Age of the Return, when we gather the gifts from the past to fuel the next breakthrough to our highest Selves. Our writers are moving soil in the deep …
Black ACE Happenings
The drums are calling us to the fireside for stories, verse and film from the Black Arts, Culture & Entertainment abundant storehouse. Commune with fellow lovers of the arts …
Artists Speak
BY NJEMILE ALI
Two artists—master basket weaver Annette Jordan and children’s book author Shanté Morton—share how they relate to their art and how their art relates to the world.
NEW: Movie Review!
BY SHAUNDALE RÉNĀ
After a series of bad relationships, Renae manages to focus on herself and to rebuild her life through therapy and self-awareness. That is, until she becomes entangled with a high-powered attorney at the top of his legal game … It’s FATAL PROMISES THE MOVIE. You can’t miss this one.
Pop Pop Gro’ Sumn’
Check out Arc(k)’s Sankofa Village Unity Storytelling Hour every Sunday at 6pm on www.WURDradio.com Philadelphia.
The Charm: Artistically Speaking
BY KHADIJA POUNSEL
One phrase in for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf was a stunner to me: “i found god in myself & i loved her…” (63). When I read those words for the first time, it was like my soul looked up from what it was doing …
Why Black Joy Deserves Center Stage
BY ERYKA PARKER
Too often, joy is treated as a reward that arrives only after hardship has been overcome. However, joy exists alongside challenge. It thrives in family reunions and rests in moments of quiet contentment. These ordinary experiences remind us that Black life cannot be reduced to pain and perseverance …
Never Wear Red Lipstick, by Karmetria Dunham Burton, PhD
BY SHAUNDALE RÉNĀ
This book falls under this quarter’s Art & Artist for Dr. Burton’s creativity to apply something as simple as red lipstick to a corporate structure that starts with the individual self—the truest form of a raw canvas …
Black Art & The Black Artist: Finding the Creator Within
BY NASHID FURAHA-ALI
Wherever Black Art and the Black Artist go, creative sparks fly. Through hand, mind, heart and soul, they travel to places here, there, everywhere and nowhere, along life’s cosmic journey …
Tax Burden
BY TIMOTHE DAVIS
Ms. Baker had never been summoned to the Department of Emotional Taxation before. But when she saw that pink letter in her mailbox, she knew that she was about to be audited.
The Running Artist
BY RICHARD EDDIE
Artist and psychiatrist, Dr. December Fairbanks, desperately needed more space for her paintings, especially moving from New York City back to Kingston in 1930. She loved her apartment in the big city …
Daddy, Do You Love Me?
BY DE’ANDRE HOLMES
I was 12 now, tall and lanky, had poor coordination skills, B average student, and I couldn’t sing. For a long time, I thought I was the one boy in the world that was talentless. My father attempted to sign me up for other physically active hobbies like boxing, karate, football,
