When Black Celebrities Wore Blackface
A Black Bohemia flourished in New York before the Harlem Renaissance and with it a new type of self-determined, contradictory Black celebrity.
The Rec Room Party Where Hip-Hop Was Born
Thinking quickly and reading the dance floor, an innovative DJ began playing the funkiest parts of every record.
The First Black Woman to Perform at the Grand Ole Opry
Linda Martell made the switch from R&B to country music in the late 1960s. Her star then shined on country's biggest stage.
Choosing Love over Eugenics
Some writers see contagion as a metaphor for community—proof that we exist within an interdependent network and not as autonomous disconnected islands.
How to Meme What You Say
The linguistic theories behind what we're trying to say when we adapt and share internet memes.
How the H-Bomb Led to a Reckoning in Japan
For years, the trauma of the atomic bomb was hardly talked about in Japan. The H-bomb test at Bikini Atoll changed that.
In Defense of Kitsch
The denigration of kitsch betrays a latent anti-Catholicism, one born from centuries of class and ethnic divisions.
Meet Loveday Brooke, Lady Detective
Fictional detectives usually reflect conservative values. But the first "lady detective" story written by a woman broke boundaries.
When the Truman Campaign Used a Song from an All-Black Show
"I'm Just Wild about Harry" originated with the songwriting team of Sissle and Blake and first appeared in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along.
The Newport Rebels and Jazz as Protest
In 1960 a group of jazz musicians organized an alternative to the Newport Jazz Festival, which they saw as too pop and too white.