“In our courts, when it’s a White man’s word against a Black man’s, the White man always wins.” To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishes the right of a defendant charged with a crime to a trial by an impartial jury. But the history of our criminal…

[Information for this newsletter comes from “Illegal Racial Discrimination in Jury Service: A Continuing Legacy” by the Equal Justice Initiative.] After reading about the jury selection in the trial of the three White men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia last year, I was inspired to learn more about the issue of jury selection.…

For the past two weeks I have written about significant, but little remembered 19th century Black female authors. In this final installment in this series, I am including one better-known author (Sojourner Truth) and one 18th century author that I just couldn’t leave out (Phyllis Wheatley). The stories of these women, like those in parts…

Last week I visited the National Portrait Gallery and saw, among others, the current exhibit entitled “Her Story: A Century of Women Writers” which highlights 24 noted women writers from the last 100 years who are represented in the Portrait Gallery’s collection. Among them were four Black women writers: Maya Angelou, Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison,…