Women of Controversy: Nina Mae McKinney

The writhing serpent hair. The fearsome gaze that can turn onlookers to solid stone. Medusa is one of the most instantly recognizable monsters of Greek mythology. But her story and image have evolved over the centuries — sometimes a villain, sometimes a victim, sometimes a divine ...  Show more

Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1959-present) dedicated her life to speaking out for Indigenous Guatemalans, fighting tirelessly against the human rights abuses that occurred during and after the Guatemalan Civil War.For the past six years, we’ve been telling the stories of women you may o ...  Show more

Karima K. Jeffrey-Legette's book Speculative Film and Moving Images by or about Black Women and Girls (Lexington Books, 2022) examines depictions of African-descended women and girls in twentieth and twenty-first century filmmaking. Topics include a discursive analysis of stereot ...  Show more

Once there was a girl whose powerful voice would inspire people to fight for equality. Her name was Isabella Baumfree, but we know her now as Sojourner Truth. She was a Black woman born into slavery in Dutch-speaking rural New York in 1797. She escaped to freedom after nearly 30 ...  Show more

Hi friends, happy Wednesday!Most celebrities are lucky to be known for one big thing. But some are famous for different things, across multiple generations. To me, those are the icons. And one of those people is Eartha Kitt. A lot of millennials recognize her as the voice of Yzma ...  Show more

Part memoir, part cultural critique, In Our Shoes: On Being a Young Black Woman in Not-So 'Post-Racial' America (Plume Books, 2023) uses pop culture and author Brianna Holt’s own lived experience to dissect the stereotypes and preconceived notions that young Black women must over ...  Show more