Author, “The Organ Thieves” It’s been over 40 years since the controversial death of a Virginia man named Bruce Tucker. In 1968, the Black man sustained a head injury and went to Virginia’s top research hospital to be treated. Tucker slipped into a coma, his family was never contacted, and his heart ended up in […]readmore

Black Military Fought on Battlegrounds, Here and Over There They served this country, too: In every war fought by or within the United States, African Americans participated, including the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the Civil War, the Spanish–American War, the World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf […]readmore

Summer of 2012, I interviewed Chadwick Boseman on the MacDonough Street “set” where important scenes were shot for the actor’s “42” feature film. Dodger great Jackie Robinson, the legend Boseman portrays in the film, lived at 526 in the 1940’s when he broke records and made history. Quite frankly, Jackie Robinson is in my genealogical […]readmore

New Book Tells Story of Organ Thieves in the Segregated South It’s no secret that the nation has seen a disproportionate loss of life among Black Americans in our medical system. That was the case in May 1968, when Bruce Tucker, a Black factory worker, suffered a skull fracture and was rushed to the Medical College of Virginia (MCV). In less […]readmore

TRAILBLAZERWhile serving as the Panamanian Ambassador for the United Nations, Dr. Russell, inspired by Douglas Turner Ward’s fictional play “Day of Absence” in which a small town in the South is suddenly devoid of its Black population and is crippled by their absence, established Black Solidarity Day (BSD) in 1969. BSD is held annually on […]readmore

By Harmeet Kaur, CNN What is Black August and how is it different than Black History Month?Activists and social justice organizations are celebrating the history of Black resistance this month in what’s known as Black August.This year’s commemoration follows months of ongoing nationwide protests over systemic racism and the killings of Black people at the […]readmore

Professor Amos Wilson The gun violence epidemic in African-American communities is made possible by the availability of guns and exacerbated by the health pandemic, increased poverty, stress and systems imbued with racism. But there is something else. Something the late social theorist and author, Dr. Amos Wilson, Professor of Psychology at the City University of […]readmore

David CohenPolitico John Lewis, who went from being the youngest leader of the 1963 March on Washington to a long-serving congressman from Georgia and icon of the civil rights movement, has died. He was 80.In December 2019, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.As a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis was a committed […]readmore