Clint Smith
He is the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, and of the No. 1 New York Times best-selling book How the Word Is Passed. He is also the host of the Crash Course Black American History YouTube series.
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Gabriela Pesqueira / The Atlantic No Parent Should Have to Live Like This
I spent last week mourning those murdered in Buffalo. I will spend this week mourning children murdered at school.
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Zohra Bensemra / Reuters Senegal’s Soccer Victory Is So Much More Than a Soccer Victory
The nation won its first-ever Africa Cup of Nations, giving Senegalese people the world over something to celebrate.
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Joakim Eskildsen Close to Home
What a photographer found when he trained his camera on his own family
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Digital alteration by Ken Gonzales-Day for The Atlantic. … Now We Know Their Names
In Maryland, a memorial for two lynching victims reveals how America is grappling with its history of racial terror.
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Jeff Kravitz / Jon Kopaloff / Getty; The … ‘I Always Think of Poetry as Home for Me’
The poet Amanda Gorman discusses her new collection, Call Us What We Carry, and how the last year has brought new urgency to her writing.
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Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times / Getty 800,000 Deaths
The number is so enormous that we risk becoming numb to its implications.
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John Boss / The Advocate / AP 57 Years in a Cage Is Long Enough
It’s time Henry Montgomery came home.
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David Grunfeld / The Advocate / AP ; … A Slow and Quiet Calamity
I don’t know how long the power will be out in New Orleans. But I know more storms are coming.
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John Moore / Getty The Lines of Connection
States make millions off phone-call fees from incarcerated people, but the cost can be even higher for their families.
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Glyn Kirk / AFP / Getty ; Hulton … Why I’m Supporting England at Euro 2020
The squad has transformed culturally since the last time the English were champions. I’m rooting for the future it represents.
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Vladimir Pesnya / Sputnik / AP The Near-Holy Experience of Watching Euro 2020
This year’s tournament has been unlike any I’ve ever witnessed, a reminder that when soccer fans enter a stadium, it becomes a church.
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Paul Spella Why Confederate Lies Live On
For some Americans, history isn’t the story of what actually happened; it’s the story they want to believe.
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George Floyd Was Also a Father
For many of us, when we see the Floyds, we see our family.
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National Archive/Newsmakers/ Getty The Infrastructure Bill Should Look After Our Future, and Our Past
It’s time for a new Federal Writers’ Project.
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Adam Maida / The Atlantic Restoring Pell Grants—And Possibilities—for Prisoners
Classes inside prison give people a sense of community, a sense of purpose, a sense of identity, and a sense of hope.
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Photograph by Aaron Turner; archival image from Library … Stories of Slavery, From Those Who Survived It
The Federal Writers’ Project narratives provide an all-too-rare link to our past.
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Virgnia Department of Corrections / AP Trump Is Putting the Machinery of Death Into Overdrive
After 17 years without a federal execution in the United States, the Trump administration has gone on what can only be called a killing spree.
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Mike Theiler / Reuters The Whole Story in a Single Photo
An image from the Capitol captures the distance between who we purport to be and who we have actually been.
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Brynn Anderson / AP Black Voters Understood What the Stakes Were
For those who remember the history of disenfranchisement, what happened in Georgia was especially poignant.
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Library of Congress / Getty In 1864, Like in 2020, America Just Got Lucky
The arc of history does not bend inevitably toward justice. Sometimes, Americans barely avoid disaster.
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