Dara Mathis

Feb 1, 2024 | newyorkfolk.com | James White |Anna Smith |Dara Mathis |Eric Foner

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. It’s Black History Month again. And this February is our quadrennial Super Black History Month, where we get a whole extra leap day to squeeze in some bonus Black history. That’s roughly 4 percent more Black history than usual, more than enough time for one sitting of the 1998 NBC miniseries The Temptations.

Nov 13, 2023 | newyorkfolk.com | James White |Dara Mathis

How one photographer documented the disappearing landscape of Houston’s Fourth WardEditor’s Note: This article is part of “On Reconstruction,” a project about America’s most radical experiment. In 1984, Elbert D. Howze, a Black Vietnam War veteran in his 30s, was studying photography at the University of Houston. After class one day, he drove about 10 minutes northwest into Houston’s Fourth Ward.

Nov 12, 2023 | theatlantic.com | Dara Mathis

In 1984, Elbert D. Howze, a Black Vietnam War veteran in his 30s, was studying photography at the University of Houston. After class one day, he drove about 10 minutes northwest into Houston’s Fourth Ward. He wondered at the narrow streets, the tumbledown houses, and the proud community that seemed forgotten by the city. Howze had found his way to Freedmen’s Town, a once-bustling neighborhood settled by formerly enslaved people in 1866—one of many such enclaves founded in the Reconstruction era.

Nov 10, 2023 | nytimes.com | Dara Mathis

On June 24, 1983, Byllye Avery welcomed busloads of Black women to the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta. She was in a state of disbelief. The women had traveled from Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania — even as far away as California — for a three-day event billed as the First National Conference on Black Women’s Health Issues. She had hoped that 200 women would attend; nearly 2,000 showed up. The event inspired a remarkable change in attitudes.

Jul 23, 2023 | literarymama.com | Dara Mathis |Francesca T. Royster

In Francesca T. Royster’s heartwarming memoir, Choosing Family: A Memoir of Queer Black Motherhood and Black Resistance, she recounts her journey of adopting a Black baby girl with her wife in middle age. The path to becoming a mother leads her to reexamine the foundations of love and home in her life as she prepares to welcome a child into it.