Mississippi River & Me: The Memoir My Dad Wouldn’t Write

(cover photo: Jennifer Colten) My dad’s upsouth childhood included the Mississippi river in a way that seems inconceivable now. From fishing it, to swimming it, to being baptized in it, to making love next to it, the river figured largely in the lives and imaginations of post war East St. Louis. ...

Calling Us “Out of Our Names”: Radical Black Feminism and the Evolution of Nomenclature

Within radical black feminism, the project to accurately identify and name our communities, our identities, and our dominators has been one way to combat nomenclature used to “deny the story, obscure injustice, and disguise power” (Sell). Depending from what vantage point one is viewing, the ...

This is How A Black Artist Is Made

“This is How A Black Artist is Made” The Memoir My Dad Wouldn’t Write is a Radically honest conversation between a daughter and her dad. My dad has had an incredible life as a poet, activist, professor, and cultural worker. He wouldn’t write a memoir, so this series of conversations is pa...