ICYMI: The Last Week in Black Writing and Culture (5/14-5/20)

Levelle Porter, assistant professor at CUNY, wrote on the politics of Audre Lorde: "It is not our differences that divide us, it is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."

Jim Marshall, creator of the "Hope" image of president Obama, highlighted new subjects in a new exhibit called "American Civics." Among the new subjects is Fannie Lee Chaney, whose son was killed by the Klu Klux Klan while registering black Americans to vote in the south.

While HBCU's are commonly known for their education of African American students, they also celebrate the diversity of the diaspora and blackness.

Author D. Watkins spoke about growing up around crack in his east Baltimore neighborhood, addressed in his newest book The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir. Despite the system that set him up for failure, Watkins went on to Baltimore University to earn a bachelor's, John Hopkins University for a Master's in education, and then Baltimore University for an MFA. For Watkins, college and education was his escape from drugs.

Poet Tayllor Johnson wrote a recap on the Medgar Evers International Writer's Conference. Stay tuned for part 2 of the conference recap.