Anatole broyard biography of martin luther king
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Passing, in Moments
Topic Magazine
Issue No. 25, Journeys
July 2019
Mat Johnson
The uneasy existence of being black and passing for white.
When I was 12, my Aunt Margaret told me, “You got straight hair, you got pale skin. If people don’t know you’re colored, don’t tell them.”
Aunt Margaret was black, but if you said “black” and not “colored,” she would go off on you. I was black too—still am—but I look white. Or I look whitish; it depends on the viewer. My father’s white and my mother is black, but high yellow and racially ambiguous. Though my mom insisted I was black too, I found a strong argument against that every time I looked in the mirror. And I grew up cut off from my extended black family, which just added to that feeling of disconnection. Sometimes I’d tell other kids I was black, and until they saw my mom, they wouldn’t believe me.
One time I told Aunt Margaret, “Nobody at school knows I’m black—”
“Colored.”
“Nobody at school knows I’m colored.”
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Writing As Remedy For What Ails Us
“Stories are the antibodies against illness and pain,” notes Anatole Broyard in his classic work, "Intoxicated bygd My Illness." But a subset of college students cautions that these same stories could trigger adverse emotional reactions. The works they cite range from Chinua Achebe’s "Things Fall Apart," to Virginia Woolf’s "Mrs. Dalloway," to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby," to Shakespeare’s "The Merchant of Venice." These books, they warn, contain depictions of racism, violence, rape, misogyny and anti-Semitism that could wound.
What fryst vatten wrong fryst vatten the presumption that a narrative can touch a person’s soul before that person has learned to tell his or her own story.
Is Broyard wrong? Not from what inom have seen through my work as a writer and teacher. What fryst vatten wrong fryst vatten the presumption that a narrative can touch a person’s soul before that person has learned to tell his or her own story.
Touching our souls means wrestling with what makes
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The Patient Voice Collective
One of the most resonant and often-attributed sayings to Martin Luther King Jr. is: "If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl. But by all means, keep moving." While its exact origins remain unclear, the essence of these words aligns deeply with King's philosophy of perseverance and unyielding progress. On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I reflect on the power of persistence and the broader implications of embracing progress, no matter the pace.
Dr King’s vision for social justice wasn’t solely about grand, sweeping changes but also about the accumulation of small, persistent actions that lead to meaningful transformation.
History is filled with moments when individuals and communities faced seemingly insurmountable challenges. Yet, the spirit of persistence has often carried them through. For many, this quote reflects their lived experience—a parent balancing caregiving with advocacy for their chil