My cell phone rang as I was working my way through the morning meds and procedures that are part of Day 4 after a mastectomy. I didn’t recognize the Dallas number, but these days there are so many calls from…
Dixie’s Daughters, the Lost Cause and the roots of white Christian nationalism
Did you grow up hearing the Civil War was fought over states’ rights, not slavery? And how was the war referred to? Civil War? War Between the States? The War of Northern Aggression? Then you were exposed to the Lost…
Reflections from London on the queen’s life and death
The queen is dead. Long live the king. From my earliest childhood memories during World War II, Elizabeth has been a constant in my life — a changeless symbol of stability during unstable times. By an accident of timing, I…
How we’re learning to see and hear the Black experience at Colonial Williamsburg
Last week, when I left Williamsburg to drive to Peace Hill, my cousin’s farm in the next county, I could hear my uncle’s instructions over the phone during our first trip to Williamsburg in 1997. “Take the road to Jamestown…
I can’t make sense of how we treat the working poor
She sat across from me at the table, a pretty young woman with a baby in her arms and a toddler at her feet, nervously clutching the paperwork that would prove her eligibility for assistance at the church food pantry…
Baylor endows new academic chair in study of Black worship
Baylor University will create an endowed faculty position for the study of Black worship, with a gift from the Prichard Family Foundation and Ella Wall Prichard of Corpus Christi, Texas. The new Lev H. Prichard III Chair in the Study…
My Coronavirus Summer: Coping with grief and seeking joy
None of us are exempt from significant loss at some point in our lives — loss of loved ones, property, health, income. Losses often pile up on one another, and the world seems to turn upside down overnight. After my…
Tearing down statues doesn’t erase history
Three years ago, I wrestled with the news that my great-grandmother’s statue memorializing “Uncle Jeff” had been removed by the City of New Orleans from the site where it had stood on Canal Street since 1911. I know it really…