Monthly Archives: June 2026
When the path to a first job isn’t straight
By Mitchell Brown When advisors warned Jade Bramwell about job struggles after college, she wasn’t worried. A year later, that changed. “You come out of college with a lot of expectations,” Bramwell said. “But I didn’t really understand how bad things were until it’s slapping you in the face.” Many recent journalism graduates, including aspiring […]
Food, fellowship and Black male mental health
By Robert Doyle They dub their monthly potluck The Medicine. On Father’s Day, they provide free acupuncture and haircuts. The founders all make a living through a variety of jobs but devote time to Men at Work Healing, the organization that hosts these events mainly for Black men. “We realized men move a little bit […]
Future of Harlem steakhouse rests on three feet of space
By: Samuel Geronimo After serving the community for 22 years, this beloved Harlem Steakhouse is three feet from trouble, trying to avoid its future going up in flames. Every year for the last 22 years that Jimmy Mateus has owned Ricardo’s, renewing his liquor license has been a fairly standard process. “You know, we’ve been […]
Schomburg marks 100 years of studying and archiving a disaspora
By Kordell Martin Advocate Kevin Matthews was pondering these times as the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture reaches its 100 anniversary as a world-class library: “We haven’t lost anything,” said Matthews about being among the many Black Institutions that have lost federal grants under President Donald Trump. Some people say we got a […]
In a Brooklyn brownstone, parlor jazz
By Marquis Chambers Photos by Brandon Aninipot It started with a Friday night fish fry to celebrate a beloved person who’d died. “My cousins played drums. I danced. We cooked food. We celebrated. And from there, things just started to happen,” said Debbie McClain, of what was happening in her Brooklyn backyard. Jazz lover McClain’s […]
Fractions, flavors, ‘culinary courage’ for kids
By Javon Huynh Surrounded by books, students at P.S. 191 Paul Robeson School in Crown Heights found themselves in a library transformed into a makeshift cooking classroom. Tables were covered with cutting boards, measuring cups and bowls of vegetables. A smart board displayed the day’s lesson, “Mediterranean Rainbow Chickpea Crunch Bowls.” “Whether they put me […]
Preserving and highlighting Harlem’s history
By Marcus Craig Harlem’s Convent Avenue Baptist is a majority Black church in a mainly Black neighborhood. But on a recent Wednesday afternoon, white people filled up most of the seats. They’d paid to hear seven singers, a pianist and a drummer perform black gospel music. I’m a soldier in the army of the Lord […]
Inviting the boss to dinner, hoping for a gig
By Denzel Massaley Inside the lounge of BoxGroup’s office, college students mingled with employees from an investment fund during a private dinner organized by Chelsea Commons, a group of 12 college students who are bringing businesses to themselves and their peers — instead of cold-calling, blind-emailing or otherwise waiting to hear back from job recruiters. […]
For Gen-Z men, a surge in religious faith
By Danny Chung-A-Fung Health, relationships, finances, spirituality. Of those four self-professed pillars of 30-year-old Alex Gittens’ life, the last is what’s first in his heart and mind. It has not always been that way for Gittens. Especially while working three jobs to help pay his way through college, his faith fell through the cracks. He […]
‘Shirley Chisholm’ 5K races toward good health
By Xavier Board In 2021, the Shirley Chisholm 5K Trail run started as a simple way to foster community. Five years later, the event has increased its count and diversity of runners, while also upholding its tandem goals of improving public health and spotlighting the first Black female congresswoman and first Black person to vie […]