This week I'll be attending my first conference as a member of the venerable Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), founded in 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the "Father of Black History," and several colleagues. This 104th annual confe...

In recent days the sitting governors of South Carolina and Florida have each referred to their political opponents as animals.

It is no coincidence that these same political opponents overwhelmingly represent African Americans.

This would just be more of a tired old stor...

My friend, a young African American man, was beaten up by police and arrested yesterday in the Charleston area after being stopped for not using a turn signal.

A turn signal.

My friend.

Not somebody in the news.

Somebody whom I've known since he was a kid, who has been t...

Yesterday among the many Memorial Day tributes I saw on social media, I was particularly struck by one from the Reconstruction Era National Monument with a link to a fine article from 2011 by one of our most respected historians, David Blight, about the interracial ori...

I just saw this glowing review of Michele Moore's The Cigar Factory: A Novel of Charleston (University of South Carolina Press, 2016) in the Charleston Post & Courier and am intrigued. It's the latest offering from Story River Books, the imprint of the late renowned au...

South Carolinians are used to hearing plenty of less-than-positive news about their state in the media, local and national. Some of it is condescending and smug, but much is well deserved for a state that continues to lag behind in most measures of human development an...