Ashawnta Jackson is a reader, writer, and record collector living in New York. She has written for NPR Music, Bandcamp, Artsy, Atlas Obscura, and GRAMMY.com, among others. You can read more of her work at heyjackson.net.
In the 1980s and 1990s, Christian heavy metal bands used head-banging music to share the politics and values of evangelical Christians with America’s youth.
As a musician of color during the Ancien Régime and French Revolution, Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, lived a life unlike those of his peers.
Though many associate the accordion with polkas and klezmer, the instrument played an important role in Black music after its arrival in the United States.
Asian American artists who performed for primarily white audiences in the 1930s and ’40s both challenged and solidified racial boundaries in the United States.
One of the first Native American women aviators, Riddle leaned into stereotypes to earn a name for herself in the male-dominated world of American aviation.
In the early twentieth century, women were discouraged from competing in track and field. The First International Track Meet for Women helped change that.
Guru Maharaj Ji, the teenage leader of the Divine Light Mission, was poised to usher in a new era. His huge Houston gathering proved to do anything but.
