Women

It Hurts to Love Hip-Hop

The earliest rap song I remember loving was 50 Cent’s 2003 single “21 Questions.” Growing up, I enjoyed its breezy melody and jingling...

Brittney Griner: A Life Deterred

On February 17, 2022, Russian Federal Customs Service detained WNBA superstar, Brittney Griner for possessing vape cartridges containing...

Black Women Superintendents Teaching Civil Rights History at National Parks

Judy Forte remembers a 1966 judge’s desegregation order forcing her and her brothers to transfer to the all-white elementary school near...

All I Want for 2022 is for Women Athletes to be taken Seriously

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” WRONG. Words do hurt. They hurt a lot. Looking back on 2021, women...

Hoops!

espn.com I’m in my first semester of college – eleven hours away from home – and also a former basketball player and multi-sport athlete....

Courtroom Kiki and the Dream of Self-Determination

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash In the first and second seasons of A Black Lady Sketch Show on HBO, there is a recurring sketch titled,...

The Demons That Dance at Sundown

I’ll always remember the afternoon of Sunday, November 15, 2020. That’s the last “normal” conversation that I had with mama. As usual,...

Sisterhood

“What I can offer every Black woman is empathy. Just because I don’t f*ck with you, just because you can’t come to my party and I’m not...

Financial Independence and a Village to Boot

I have never been financially independent. Every bit of what you see has been given to me or provided by someone else. More specifically,...

The Girls Are Not Alright

If your life is anything like many of us who work at The Lighthouse, whenever your phone buzzes lately, it’s one of a few things: someone...

Thing Is, Black Do Crack

We sat in a square, not a circle. There was grey patio furniture with black pillows that’d been repurposed as a sectional, accent chairs...

Old Scars, New Legacies

Years ago, I began writing a poem about one of the languages my mother spoke. It began, “Pain is my mother’s tongue, but I speak it...