The average life expectancy in the U.S. is 79, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that average ranges drastically — from the mid-50s to the mid-90s — based on where people live. A new model called the “universal basic neighborhood” aims to help people in all communities maintain an average life expectancy of at least 80 by spreading health across neighborhoods rather than concentrating it in a few pockets.
Read MoreOn a summer morning in Louisville in 1965, the Ohio River carried an unbearable message. The body of Alberta Odell Jones—34 years old, a prominent Black attorney, and Louisville’s first female prosecutor—was found floating near Fontaine Ferry Park. In the blunt language of police work and bureaucratic recordkeeping, her death would be categorized, revisited, argued over, and filed away. In the lived language of the city she served, it landed as something else: a warning flare and a void, the sudden removal of a person who had been building Black political power with the unglamorous tools of law and electoral mechanics.
Read MoreThe Carolina Chocolate Drops brought music that had been forgotten and even looked down upon into the rarefied world of art music—the country mouse ushered from dusty backwoods to the velvet seats of the city mouse’s concert hall. While at first listen the Carolina Chocolate Drops might sound like a scratchy field recording from the wanderings of Alan Lomax, their collective musicianship and charisma gained them enthusiastic audiences who knew little or nothing of the well from which they were drawing.
Read MoreSince the financial crisis and Great Recession of the early Obama era, a core group of community and union organizers in Minnesota had been building what they called “alignment.” January 23 was one fruit bore from that labor.
Read MoreArthur is a musician, community activist and veteran of many performances under Hackman’s baton, including previous performances of the Resurrection Mixtape at the ISO.
Read MoreIn 2023, Louisville passed a first-of-its-kind bill to make sure no more city subsidies help build new housing that displaces existing residents. Earlier this year, the city introduced a new tool to implement the law. The open-source tool analyzes whether any given project meets the neighborhood’s housing needs and income levels, ensuring that rents match local residents’ income. If the development does not meet these standards, then the city cannot subsidize it.
Read MoreLike many workers in the U.S., artists often make ends meet in non-traditional and resourceful ways, holding multiple jobs, cycling in and out of roles, and engaging in artistic practice through self-employment. These ways of working in turn may limit artists' financial security and their ability to access workplace protections and employer benefits. They also make it difficult to identify artists in existing research. To better serve artists, we must see the full complexity and reality of how they earn a living and piece together support for their creative lives.
Read MoreIn order to meet the dire challenges that face us, social movements are going to need new and creative strategies. We are going to need groups that are willing to escalate and take risks. And when breakthrough “movement moments” arrive, we are going to need organizations nimble and adaptive enough to jump into the fray, heighten the impact of mass mobilizations and create mechanisms to help absorb the energy created.
Read More“The date 13 May will be forever etched in my mind,” former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode wrote in an article for The Guardian this past May. In the piece, Goode called on the city of Philadelphia to formally apologize for the infamous MOVE bombing that took place on May 13, 1985, which targeted the commune owned by members of the militant Black liberation group MOVE. “There can never be an excuse for dropping an explosive from a helicopter on to a house with men, women, and children inside and then letting the fire burn,” he wrote.
Read MoreThe pausing of SNAP benefits amid the government shutdown has low-income families worried about getting food and scrambling for help. Many food pantries now say they are being stretched to the limit, and need help staying stocked. If you'd like to help, several pantries in the Louisville region are asking neighbors for donations, either through drop-offs, drives or via online donation.
Read MoreIf the Black entertainment world is any kind of barometer of the state of Black America, something is amiss. Black athletes today are getting record NBA and NFL contracts. Black musicians like Kendrick Lamar and SZA are raking in millions — in their case, hundreds of millions of dollars — from globe-spanning tours. And after years of being denied film and TV’s top roles and highest honors, Black actors and actresses are now regularly cast in major projects as well as nominated for (and actually winning) major awards. On top of this, many of today’s top influencers are both young and Black, attracting legions of followers and large, coveted corporate sponsorships.
Read MoreIn 2019, the union representing over 30,000 Los Angeles teachers went on strike for six days. United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) wanted to transform the city’s school system to make it work for not just teachers and students, but also for the community. Central to this vision was the union’s demand for community schools.
Read MoreOn Monday, President Donald Trump ordered 800 National Guard troops to the nation’s capital — a move Princeton University professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad described as “a slide towards fascism” and “textbook” authoritarianism. Claiming emergency powers from the D.C. Home Rule Act, Trump also announced a takeover of the Metropolitan Police.
Read MoreFrom time to time, researchers, policy makers, philanthropy and practitioners all join together in a coordinated response to address the most pressing issues facing America’s youth. I’ve been involved with this process for long enough to have participated in each of these roles. I recall during the early 1990s experts promoted the term “resiliency,” which is the capacity to adapt, navigate and bounce back from adverse and challenging life experiences. Researchers and practitioners alike clamored over strategies to build more resilient youth.
Read MoreWhen Jesse Hagopian first encountered Malcolm X, it wasn’t in a textbook or classroom lecture. It was through Spike Lee’s iconic 1992 film. “I realized I needed to learn more,” Hagopian, educator and director of the Teaching for Black Lives campaign at the Zinn Education Project, tells Word In Black. “Reading his autobiography in college was transformative — like it has been for so many. But it also left me feeling betrayed. Why hadn’t I learned about Malcolm in school?”
Read MoreCelebrate Thurby night at the The Bluegrass Ball, a homegrown event featuring the very best performers from the Bluegrass region and beyond. Featuring Amythyst Kiah, Jecorey Arthur, Ben Sollee, and surprise guests. Patrons are encouraged to wear their finest Appalachian-chic to walk the bluegrass carpet, enjoy special, cocktails, cigar bar featuring local cigar maker Gary Smith, and dance under the spare parts chandelier. A portion of the proceeds will go to benefit Fund for the Arts.
Read MoreSome of Ashley Jackson's earliest memories took place at church services she attended with her grandmother. The rising harp player leaned into those experiences for her sophomore album Take Me to The Water. Spirituals, and their coded messages of freedom for the enslaved, are at the heart of her arrangements of works by Alice Coltrane, Margaret Bonds and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.
Read MoreEach of the organizations Prism spoke to acknowledged the importance of resource provisions around language access, child care, and meals to reduce barriers to entry by making community engagement more convenient and appealing. But not every organization has the resources to achieve goals around accessibility, especially groups that are entirely volunteer-run. Volunteers and funding dollars are drying up across mutual aid communities, making matters more difficult for these groups and limiting capacity even further.
Read MoreProtest songs have been part of American history for centuries — from “Yankee Doodle” during the Revolutionary War period to “Okie from Muskogee” by Merle Haggard to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” — and these tunes have covered all sides of the political and social spectrum. However, the history of protest music is often associated with men. Musicians like Woody and Arlo Guthrie and Bob Dylan are lauded for their issue-focused songs, yet women have played a key role in this American tradition as well.
Read MoreThe American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) Advocacy Foundation is a grassroots organization that arose in response to a national landscape rife with yawning racialized gaps.
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