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Black Body As Told By The Stirrups
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Do you remember
when we met How no drugs were administered
How the hands that opened you were cold
and soiled How the unsurgical steel slid
you open easy as an envelope
Arts & Literature
Singing with lions: New Orleans’ dames of OperaCréole
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Unearthing nearly 200-year-old compositions by free people of color in New Orleans, daughter-mother opera singers Aria Mason and Givonna Joseph built a monument to these composers’ musical legacies—creating one of their own in the process.
Art & Music
Could a Universal Basic Income Solve Appalachia’s Post-coal Poverty?
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While a three-week reprieve to the 35-day government shutdown is easing some of the pain, the month-long spat between President Trump and Democrats in Congress threatened the livelihoods of people receiving government assistance all over the country. Local economies are still feeling the ripple effects, and many fear the new negotiations could lead to another damaging impasse. In central Appalachia, where one in four residents live below the federal poverty line, the shutdown adds urgency to a long-standing debate about what a safety net in rural America would look like, and whether there are ways to construct programs that would be more immune to the politics of the moment. One solution increasingly becoming a part of the mainstream political discourse: Universal Basic Income. UBI—a federally-provided, no-strings-attached monthly payment to all U.S. adults, similar to Social Security—has been proposed as a potential solution to rampant poverty since Richard Nixon’s presidency.
Appalachia
Blocked at Five Points
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Artist Masud Olufani discusses his impetus and process behind developing a permanent memorial to enslaved persons at Atlanta’s Five Points MARTA station.