The Smithsonian Magazine recently published “Black In America,” in honor of the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture on September 24th. It is the best single issue of a magazine I’ve encountered in a very long time.
Oprah Winfrey, Congressman John Lewis, Spike Lee, Angela Davis and astronaut Mae Jemmison have all contributed pieces, and a section called Generations asks the children of Civil Rights leaders to share their stories.
And that’s barely scratching the surface.
Although all of it will be rich fodder for the raceAhead crowd, I suggest you start with Isabel Wilkerson’s extraordinary piece on the Great Migration. You don’t need to have read her book The Warmth of Other Suns, to enjoy it, though I recommend it highly. The book is a massive and beautifully rendered account of the slow but steady migration of six million African Americans from the violent repression of the Jim Crow South, to the North and West in search of a better life. The Migration lasted between 1916 and 1970 and reshaped America in ways that we are just now starting to understand.
It was a tough road. “The migrants were cast as poor illiterates, who imported out-of-wedlock births, joblessness and welfare dependency wherever they went,” she wrote.
But Wilkinson’s extraordinary reporting tells a different and more nuanced tale – one of risk, hard work, and achievement despite racial barriers that still exist in some forms. “It’s hard to imagine what it would be like if there was no Great Migration,” she says. “So many aspects of what we view as American culture were affected by this unleashing of pent up, unrecognized talent, creativity and ability, that had been withheld for centuries.”
And an astonishing number of prominent African American executives, artists or athletes either are, or are direct descendants of, someone who took that perilous journey to a new life.
In a recent conversation, I asked Wilkerson to help explain what we get wrong about the Great Migration, and why it is imperative that business leaders closely study the difficult history that shapes our world in unseen ways. “If there are disparities in how African Americans are making their way in the business world, and they are encountering barriers and assumptions, it is a direct manifestation of the unaddressed history of the world in which we all live,” says Wilkerson. “History can be a tremendous guide, and more of a comfort than people can imagine.”
Click here for the full interview.
On Point
| Female staffers in the White House invented a strategy for combatting ‘manterrupting’ |
| Evidently the women were having trouble getting the floor during White House meetings. So they hit upon a tactic: When one of them made a good point, another woman repeated it, and gave credit back to the originator. This “amplification” forced the men in the room to listen and respond. I bet it would work for any non-majority group and their woke allies. Thanks, Obama. |
| Washington Post |
| Trump visits Flint, Michigan, gets schooled by pastor |
| Although the Republican candidate was visiting the city to learn more about its water crisis and to continue his outreach to black voters, he took the opportunity while visiting a congregation at the Bethel United Methodist Church to deride his rival, Hillary Clinton. He was politely reminded that he had not been invited “to give a political speech.” |
| Reuters |
| Tech industry still not convinced that diversity will make them money |
| According to a new survey, some 72% of tech founders believe building a diverse workforce is very important, and 81% say it will help stoke creativity and innovation. Yet in spite of the real evidence to the contrary, only 23% believed a diverse workforce improves financial performance. Follow the data, guys. |
| Fast Company |
| The ACC joins the NCAA and pulls all post-season play from North Carolina |
| Citing North Carolina's new state law that removes important protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, the Atlantic Coast Conference has joined the NCAA in pulling most post-season college tournaments from the state. A costly decision for North Carolina, says NPR. |
| NPR |
| HBCUs are unfairly penalized by the NCAA for poor academics |
| The bowls – and the playoffs – are the big thing in college football and other sports. So, who is eligible to play in these all important, post-season contests? It turns out, it’s complicated. The Undefeated breaks down how it came to be that of all but one of the NCAA sanctioned teams that are banned from post-season play this year come from historically black colleges. |
| The Undefeated |
The Woke Leader
| On being Muslim in post 9/11 America |
| Although the anniversary may have passed, the challenges of living under a permanent cloud of suspicion have not. Nine Muslim people share how growing Islamophobia has changed their lives, and what others misunderstand about their faith. “Once it became tied to politics is when things got scary,” says one woman. “Now it’s a multimillion-dollar machine." |
| Vox |
| Margot Lee Shetterly has more stories to tell |
| Her new book, Hidden Fingers, tells the now nearly famous story of the female mathematicians working for NASA who helped put a bunch of white men on the moon. Now that she’s gotten everyone’s attention, she believes that there are many more stories like these, buried in the complex history of science and achievement, that deserve to be told. |
| New York Times |
| A novelist made fun of cultural appropriation and now everyone hates her |
| Here is the link to Lionel Shriver’s full speech, the keynote at the Brisbane Writer’s Festival. It was intended to be a provocative discussion of identity and the role of fiction to explain the world. But the Australian novelist went too far – even wearing a sombrero - as she defended the notion that fiction writers should be free from thinking about racial stereotypes and cultural sensitivities. Another writer, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, published an impassioned rebuttal. |
| The Guardian |
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