Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

African American Literature Matters

African American Literature Matters

Girl (6-8) looking at book in library, silhouette

Getty Images//Terry Vine

This year's observance of Black History Month carries forward the centennial anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance. However, in this reflective season, we find ourselves at a crossroads that would be painfully familiar to those pioneering writers and artists of the 1920s.

The significance of African American literature has never been more profound. This is neither an imaginative nor conspiratorial factoid, especially amid the systematic dismantling of DEI initiatives, ethnic-centered curricula, and history. With six states and counting passing anti-DEI laws, universities nationwide are discontinuing their diversity programs. And more than 30 bills across the United States now target diversity initiatives in public colleges, threatening to unravel decades of progress in educational equity and cultural understanding. These actions are not just judicious administrative decisions. On the contrary, there are meticulously coordinated attempts to mute the very voices and existence of people and their sociocultural experiences and artifacts across generations. Illuminating why African American literature and ethnocultural genres remain paramount.


The parallels between our present moment and the birth of the Harlem Renaissance are undeniable. Then, as now, Black writers faced a society that sought to minimize their experiences and contributions. The response wasn't retreat but renaissance—a flowering of artistic expression that changed the world and reshaped American culture irrevocably. African American literary works have forever served a dual purpose: art and as an instrument of social change. From the searing testimonies of slave narratives to the jazz-infused poetry of Langston Hughes, from Zora Neale Hurston's folk-rooted storytelling to Toni Morrison's mythic explorations of Black experience, this literary tradition has consistently done more than tell stories—it has preserved history, challenged oppression, and imagined new possibilities for justice and equality.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

African American literature’s prowess resides in its capacity to transform personal experience into universal truth. When Ralph Ellison wrote on invisibility, he wasn't just describing the Black experience in America—he was illuminating the human condition of being unseen, unheard, and misunderstood. When Maya Angelou asked why the caged bird sings, she spoke to anyone who fought for freedom against overwhelming odds. This universality, paradoxically achieved through the most specific and personal stories, makes African American literature relevant and essential to understanding the American experience.

Though numerous institutions are reevaluating or removing resources for underrepresented Americans from their websites and curricula, African American literature serves as both a repository of epic memory and a beacon for the future. The literature that emerged from the Harlem Renaissance didn't just document a movement; it became the movement, creating spaces for Black voices where none existed. African American literary tradition has always understood that words and art are the means for articulating struggle—the experience of being both American and Black in a society that never fully recognizes or respects such a reality. African American literature's exploration and explication of such complexity remains important as we grapple with questions of identity, belonging, and justice.

The relevance of Black Americans' literary contributions should not be debated. Our literary tradition offers what no policy can erase: authentic voices speaking truth to power, creating beauty from struggle, and insisting on the full humanity of all people. Black folks’ pens, brushes, and instruments provide a counter-narrative to simplifying or sanitizing American history.

As distractors diligently seek to silence uniquely diverse voices, my people's literature speaks louder than ever. There is life and power in logos— to illuminate truth, inspire change, and build understanding. No legislative agenda or executive decree can veto that divine reality. The power of yours, mine, and our story can change hearts, open minds, and transform worlds.

Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, and scholar-practitioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.

Read More

Future of the National Museum of the American Latino is Uncertain

PRESENTE! A Latino History of the United States

Credit: National Museum of the American Latino

Future of the National Museum of the American Latino is Uncertain

The American Museum of the Latino faces more hurdles after over two decades of advocacy.

Congress passed legislation to allow for the creation of the Museum, along with the American Women’s History Museum, as part of the Smithsonian Institution in an online format. Five years later, new legislation introduced by Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) wants to build a physical museum for both the Latino and women’s museums but might face pushback due to a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

Keep ReadingShow less
Banned Books Damn Our Children's Future

Two children reading in school.

Getty Images, Jim Craigmyle

Banned Books Damn Our Children's Future

April 2nd is International Children's Book Day. It is time to celebrate the transformative power of children's literature and mourn the spaces where stories once lived. The numbers are staggering: there were over 10,000 book bans in U.S. public schools during the 2023-2024 school year alone, affecting more than 4,000 unique titles. Each banned book represents a mirror taken away from a child who might have seen themselves in those pages or a window closed to a child who might have glimpsed a world beyond their own.

I'm a child of the 80s and 90s, back when PBS was basically raising us all. Man, LeVar Burton's voice on Reading Rainbow was like that cool uncle who always knew exactly what book you needed. Remember him saying, "But you don't have to take my word for it"? And Sesame Street—that show was living proof that a kid from the Bronx could learn alongside a kid from rural Kansas, no questions asked. These and other such programs convinced an entire generation that we could "go anywhere" and "be anything.” Also, they were declarations that every child deserves to see themselves in stories, to dream in technicolor, and to imagine futures unlimited by the accidents of birth or circumstance.

Keep ReadingShow less
Storytelling that exposes injustices and inspires equity
- YouTube

Storytelling that exposes injustices and inspires equity

Stephanie R. Toliver is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and Instruction focusing on English Education and Adolescent/Secondary Literacy.

In her research, Toliver employs creativity and imagination to confront systemic inequities and promote more equitable education environments.

Keep ReadingShow less
Black History Matters Act reintroduced amid debate on education and DEI policies

Students in a classroom.

Getty Images, Solskin

Black History Matters Act reintroduced amid debate on education and DEI policies

A year ago, Karsonya Wise Whitehead helped introduce Freedom Schools, a free program dedicated to helping raise student literacy while providing education on Black History for all ages.

Dr. Whitehead—president of the Association for the Study of African American Life (ASALH), which runs the Freedom Schools—works to advance public knowledge about Black history through various programs. According to Whitehead, at least 12 states have direct mandates to teach Black history in schools, but a recent piece of legislation introduced by Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) looks to change that.

Keep ReadingShow less