From KQED.org by Claudia Escobar: In the early 1990s, the late trombonist-arranger Melba Liston lived with her three aunts in a stately, old home in Los Angeles’ West Adams neighborhood. Though she had recently suffered a stroke, she was in the… Read More ›
From O Say Can You See: Stories from the National Museum of American History by Alexandra Piper: A civil rights protest often invokes the vivid images of sit-ins, boycotts, and marches, but the fight for racial equality took many different… Read More ›
From Tropics of Meta by Jason Tebbe: We often tend to mistakenly think of the 1980s in ways that paint it as uniformly conforming to certain trends consistently throughout the decade. If you look into the cultural and political history… Read More ›
From The American Scholar by Sudip Bose: In July 1914, just before the First World War began, Igor Stravinsky took a hasty trip to his estate in the village of Ustyluh, very near the Polish border in western Ukraine. This… Read More ›
From Time Magazine by Billy Perrigo: Almost exactly 60 years ago, in the crisp, early spring of 1958, a young boy from California named Darius shuffled through the streets of Warsaw. He shivered; it still felt like winter, and snow… Read More ›
From History by Erin Blakemore: The gates of Folsom State Prison closed behind Gene Beley. It was 1968, and it was the first time the 28-year-old had ever been to state prison. “When you walk through there and they shut… Read More ›
From the American Scholar by Sudip Bose: The first time I heard the music of William Grant Still—it was in the car many years ago, and I had turned the radio on midway through the piece—I assumed I was listening… Read More ›