From Doodle to a future $20 bill, Harriet Tubman is a cultural icon. But comforting images don’t show the disabled Black woman who was not only a guide, but a freedom fighter.
Home. The thought of it conjures up a tangle of images, of safeness and permanence and comfortable refuge. Home is also tenuous shelter under a busy overpass, in a neighborhood
Resmaa Menakem intersperses political commentary and predictions about American democracy with explanations of how racialized trauma presents in our bodies, and offers body-focused exercises to deal with it.
Bill McKibben has been a leading advocate for climate change action since he wrote the first popular book about global warming in 1989. In his new memoir, “The Flag, The Cross and the Station Wagon,” he connects the climate crisis to his suburban American boyhood and wonders “What the hell happened?”
“The Vanishing Half” deals with the theme of racial “passing” in the 1950s. Passing is different today, but still presents a choice between safety and authenticity.
Changes in public attitudes toward the death penalty include factors like technological change and urbanization. But strategic actions by impassioned advocates can appeal to the public’s compassion.