This year on Friday July 3, 2020 we presented Frederick Douglass Day — An Alternative Fourth of July Celebration via Zoom, gathering Frederick Douglass speech readers, Lissa Tyler Renaud, Kim McMillon, and Robert Cuffy— from NYC to Oakland. We also featured “live” music over Zoom from saxophonist Richard Howell in the SF Bay Area, and bassist Hilliard Greene in NYC. We first presented our […]
Juneteenth 2020: Notes from the Field
We all have a stake and so much to gain in the rooting out of white supremacy. This is a moment for holy uprising. We have all been the beneficiaries of Black women’s brilliance and grace, whether we know it or not. —Women’s March webinar Understanding and Transforming White Womanhood June 10, 2020 Trent Willis, […]
2 Poems By Zigi Lowenberg
Hamsa (Eye of Fatima): Sheltered in Place My Kurdish comrade, journalist all of twenty-five with the soulful eyes of fifty We meet again in a grid, half a dozen video boxes and I see you from my treelined reflected window, afternoon sparkles the roofs of Oakland I see your window grow dark in Brooklyn as […]
Frederick Douglass Alternative 4th of July Celebration
“An ensemble that earns its exclamation point with dynamic performances that capture the soul, humor and off-the-cuff inventiveness of a cascading saxophone solo.” –Contra Costa Times […]
NWU Celebrates Frederick Douglass
An Alternative 4th of July Celebration Commemorating Frederick Douglass was truly a community-building event! The event organized by Raymond Nat Turner (Co-Chair NY Chapter, NY Delegate) brought members of the music, literary and political communities together. NWU members Margaret Kimberly and Diane Ward were two of the four readers of Frederick Douglass’ historic 1852 speech, “What Is The Fourth of July To The […]
All Hands—and Dialing Fingers—On Deck for ACA
For the past few weeks, I’ve been making hundreds of calls to NWU members, urging them to submit the Authors Coalition survey. It’s been inspiring to connect with journalists, fiction and non-fiction writers, academics, and a songwriter/banjo/guitar player who is writing a children’s book. When one writer I called discovered I was a poet, she […]
NWU is the sole provider of IFJ Press Passes to freelance journalists in the U.S.