"Since 2000, more than 1,800 apartments—many of them affordable units—have been built in complexes that combine new housing with new libraries. These projects can both address a communities’ housing needs + improve local infrastructure by replacing aging library complexes..." (see also: Inwood)

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/n...

Reginald Dwayne Betts was locked up as a teenager for carjacking. While in prison, books were his escape. After his release he went on to be a poet, lawyer and founder of Freedom Reads — a nonprofit that installs libraries in prisons across the country.

I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve fully reckoned w/how much the Trump agenda is rooted in racial grievance. Every day, we’re seeing the full force of white identity politics in action. Wild how much of it is just taken for granted, at least from where I sit.

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/12/a...

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, most remembered for playing Theo Huxtable on ‘The Cosby Show,’ passed away Sunday. But his legacy spans much more than one character. I wrote about how I’ll remember him best. www.theringer.com/2025/07/21/t...

NPR's Gaza producer faced Israeli military fire, private U.S. contractors pointing laser beams at his forehead and masked thieves as he tried to get food from a U.S.-supported group.

By Anas Baba

“I personally was pretty surprised, actually, at how efficient the government was,” Sahil Lavingia told NPR's Juana Summers.

In the 19th century, a New Orleans doctor sent the skulls of 19 Black Americans to a doctor in Germany, where they were used as part of now discredited racial science. The remains were recently returned to the city, where they will be laid to rest on Saturday.

People who say that the United States can’t build anything anymore must not be sports fans. Barely a year goes by without the debut of a sparkling new stadium or arena, often in the very cities where it’s most difficult to build almost anything else.

It’s funny because I grew up as a Black kid during the 90s and if “people think we’re bad” was as determinative as it’s being depicted me and everyone I know should be dead by now.

Today is Earth Day. Let's use EARTH in a sentence: DC is the only democratic capital on EARTH with no voting rights in its national legislature. And yes, we’re Green with envy. #EarthDay #DCStatehood

"Over four lectures, [Mabel O.] Wilson... examines buildings, works of art, + other historical documents through the interplay of race + the construction of national identity[, highlighting] the complex dichotomy btw the founding ideals of these institutions + the reality of their construction."

I and many others warned that the anti-CRT, anti-DEI propaganda campaign that so many embraced or down played was always about creating the narrative for and paving the way for a larger attack on civil rights. We are here.

There are many similarities between libraries and museums.

They each contain repositories of collected knowledge, seeking to educate local communities and visitors from afar.

We commonly associate the writer James Baldwin with the land of his birth—America—and with the land of his expatriation, France. But a fascinating new exhibit focusses on Baldwin’s years in Turkey, the country that, in his words, saved his life.