In this episode, Todd Lawrence, Maria Lewis, and Lamont Pearley will host a live stream event offered by the AFS African American Folklore Section, the African American Folklorist and Jack Dappa Blues featuring Notable Folklorists of Color creators and curators, Phyllis May-Machunda, Sojin Kim, and Olivia Cadaval.

There is a deep and complex battle that hovers over Charlotte. In competition, being the first usually comes with celebration; however, in a racist society, being the first usually comes with sorrow, anger, rage, or plain sickness. I’m not necessarily saying Charlotte felt any of those emotions, though it’ll be hard to believe she didn’t.

As enslaved Africans gained their freedom in colonial America, they used the labor activities learned in slavery to start a new life. Across the cities and towns of this nation, free Blacks set up agribusinesses and took up as bricklayers, gunsmiths, shoemakers, nurses and innkeepers to form the initial steps of the Black business community.

I think, in an essence, this means going beyond the superficial tendencies we have during this time of year. I refer to Lil Son Jackson, who sings

I speak with the youngest daughter of Civil Rights Activists Charles and Marvinia Neblett, Kesi Neblett, who was born and raised in Russellville, KY, and has a fantastic story. She was also recently featured on THE Mole, a reality game shows that initially aired on ABC from 2001 to 2008 before being rebooted on Netflix in 2022.

I am the grandson of a sharecropper on my father’s side. He had a simple philosophy about firearms: “better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.” Racism, then as now, represented a mortal threat, be it physical violence of the lynch mob or the systematic violence exercised by the legal system. My maternal grandfather was raised by a single mother who was born into slavery and washed clothes for white folks for a living. Nevertheless, she made sure that her ten children learned to read

Michelle Slater loves history. That’s a good thing because her family’s story is woven into Pittsburgh’s Hill District’s history about as tightly as possible. Slater’s grandmother wrote numbers for some of the Steel City’s best known numbers bankers

In this broadcast, Todd Lawrence and I discuss the scholarship and work Of John Wesley Work III and the newly launched Award named in His honor. The AFS African American Folklore Section is proud to issue the first call for submissions for the new John Wesley Work III Award

In this episode, I speak with Deidra R Moore Janvier, Esq. about her new book, From Me to You: The Power of Storytelling and Its Inherent Generational Wealth.

In this episode of the African American Folklorist, I speak with Sherley Spears, NAACP Unit 6219 President, President of the National Historic Landmark Fort Concho, and founder of the Buffalo Soldier Project. The National Historic Landmark Fort Concho Museum preserves the structures and archeological site features for pride and educational purposes, serving the San Angelo, Texas community.

In this issue, I interview our current African American Folklorist of the month, Dr. David Todd Lawrence, Associate Professor in American culture and Difference English at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota.

A little boy had read numerous stories in his children's books about different life and death struggles between a Man and a Lion. But no matter how ferociously the lion fought, the Man emerged victoriously every time. Puzzled, the boy asked his father: "Why is it, Daddy, that the Man always beats the Lion, when everybody knows that a lion is the toughest cat in all the jungle?" The father answered, "Son, those stories will always end that way…until lions learn how to

Gentrification reflects how communities change. The question always is how good or bad it is for the community. Pictures provide different stories related to Gentrification. They include building improvements, more people, more businesses and different races living together.

In this episode, I speak with Phoenix Moon, a Colonial America historian, Forensic genealogist, Civil Rights Activist. Grassroots Political Legist.