Surely I know you yet our eyes bear questions curious tensions conjured by an unwitting familiarity Surely I’ve seen you in deeply buried images of a collective memory Painful bonding amid searing-hot whips and ice-cold chains Blood-oaths forged by tortured souls in tortured flesh Surely I feel you Your claims of identity, your thirst for […]
Damien Jackson
Posted inNews
Minding the Child
Eighteen-year-old Bernard Dayshawn Marton has a good head on his shoulders. The senior at Lakewood Charter School in Burlington is a hard worker who has foregone typical teenage extracurricular activities to work odd jobs and prepare for the future. He is responsible, as indicated by the sizable savings he’s accumulated toward college. And he is […]
Posted inNews
Suicide Mission
Black folks don’t kill themselves. At least that’s what black folks say. This widely-held belief among African Americans is founded in a resilience acquired through a history of struggle and hardship. If our people could make it through slavery, the communal clich&233; goes, we can make it through anything. But for good friends Kathy Poole […]
Posted inNews
Deadly rumors
In 1998, after reviewing the charges made in a book, The Slaughter: An American Tragedy, by fellow Mississippian Carroll Case, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson and the NAACP called for an investigation of whether hundreds of black soldiers were massacred by their superiors at Camp Van Dorn in Mississippi in 1943. Their action sparked a 16-month […]
Posted inNews
Beneath the Makeup
Much was made of the ordinance adopted by the Cary Town Council a year ago that stiffened the penalties for the illegal placement of campaign signs. At least two dozen candidates seeking office in November were fined for violating the largely cosmetic policy. But the impact of the January ordinance paled in comparison to initiatives […]
Posted inNews
La Posada
La PosadaEn nombre del cielo os pido posada … (In the name of heaven, we are asking shelter … ) On a damp, misty Saturday evening in December, a group of 30 men, women and children stand singing at the mouth of a gated garden on Gilbert Street in Durham. The spirits of the predominantly […]
Posted inNews
Amazing Grace
The holiday season is typically a joyous time when families come together and parents reunite with grown children away at college or living on their own. But for Brenda Howerton, that’s what makes this time of year so painful. For seven years, the Durham resident has struggled through the season without her oldest son, Charles, […]
Posted inGuides
In to Africa
Fifty-three-year-old Bertie Howard relaxes on the floor of her Chapel Hill apartment recounting stories from her much-traveled past. The surrounding walls are adorned with a variety of African mementos, including several hand-carved masks from Nigeria, a zambiacloth tapestry from Zimbabwe and a Nelson Mandela campaign button from the 1994 South African presidential elections. “If you […]
Posted inNews
Remember the children
Two months ago, Advocates for Children’s Services, an arm of Legal Services of North Carolina, asked a Wake County district court judge for access to confidential records of children who have languished in the county’s foster care system for more than three and a half years. The nonprofit lawyers’ group was responding to recent reports […]
Posted inNews
On the Bubble
State Sen. Jeanne Lucas is not opposed to standardized tests. The former long-time teacher and school administrator feels such tests, as forms of student assessment, have their place. In fact, Lucas was one of the many legislators last year who voted in favor of the North Carolina Statewide Student Accountability Standards, the latest offshoot of […]