Hello World,

I’m back with my monthly roundup of blog posts and or magazine articles for black Christian women! So below is my Top 10 monthly roundup of blog posts and or magazine/newspaper articles for black Christian women for May ( but you don’t have be a black Christian woman to to check them out 🙂  As usual, let me know if you like my list! Enjoy and share!

1. “The Ragland family of Jonesboro celebrates one of their own in Meghan Markle” by Stephen Boissy

Excerpt: The Raglands were forced to come to Jonesboro in the early 1800s. Revolutionary War veteran William Ragland won a land lottery as a reward for his service. The property he won was on then frontier land in Georgia. The city of Jonesboro that would serve as the backdrop for Margaret Mitchell’s Tara. He bought slaves forcing them to work the land and also forced his last name on them. Meghan Markle can trace her roots to them. Her side of the family would leave Georgia in the early 1900s, but leaving behind plenty of other family members. See more at: 11alive.com.

2.”How Female Celebrities Used Their Met Gala Outfits to Both Honour and Subvert Religious Norms” by Katie Edwards

Excerpt: Solange Knowles paired her braided golden halo with a black du-rag, pushing back against the notion that heaven is white and reminding onlookers that contemporary African-American sartorial culture is also heavenly. In an interview on the red carpet, Solange stated that she was directly influenced by the Black Madonna and African saints. See more at: independent.co.uk.

3. “Beyoncé And The Intersectionality of Faith” by Sonya Eskridge

Excerpt: By now you have probably heard of the Beyoncé Mass. At first glance, this looks like an entirely blasphemous church service praising Queen Bey, and many people of faith have taken deep offense to the fact that it even exists. Some have outright refused to watch the investigative piece about the service, dismissing whatever value it may have simply because it looks unorthodox on the surface. See more at: madamenoire.com.

4. “Austin Channing Brown: White people are ‘exhausting’” by Emily McFarlan Miller

Excerpt:  “White people can be exhausting.” That’s the first line in Austin Channing Brown’s new book, “I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.” Brown, who writes and speaks about justice and racial reconciliation, said she chose those words carefully. “Exhausting” was truer than “frustrating” or any other adjective she tried, and, she said, “In the whole book, I’m trying to be as honest as I can about what it’s like to be a black woman who navigates whiteness on a very regular basis.” Plus, she said, she didn’t intend to write an introduction to racial justice. She wanted to move the conversation forward by sharing her experiences that showed how hard and sometimes dangerous it can be for a black woman navigating white Christian spaces, while also celebrating blackness. See more at: religionnews.com. 

5. “They Were the Only All-Female, All-Black Team in a NASA Science Competition. Then Came the Hackers” by Gianluca Mezzofiore 

Excerpt: Three teenagers came up with an innovative way to clean lead-contaminated drinking water in public schools — an idea so smart it made the finals of NASA’s coveted nationwide high-school science competition. The trio — the only all-female, all-black group in the finals — engineered a filter that purifies drinking water in old public-school buildings by detecting impurities such as chlorine, copper, and bromine.But when NASA opened the contest to online voting, users from 4chan, the image-based online bulletin board, launched a campaign to hack the results, forcing NASA to shut down the voting. See more at: cnn.com. 

6. “From Dating to Marriage, He Had a 5-Prong Plan” by Vincent M. Mallozzi

Excerpt:  “Both Elizabeth and Michael are really gracious, hospitable and friendly people, each with a wacky sense of humor,” Ms. Augustin said. “They are also very much grounded in their Christian faith, which is why I thought they would be perfect for each other. But as it turned out, the timing just wasn’t right for them as both were going through difficult times, so there was absolutely no spark.” See more at nytimes.com. 

7. Tuskegee Names Lily D. McNair as its 8th President by Michael Tullier

Excerpt:  Dr. Lily D. McNair will become Tuskegee University’s eighth president after being unanimously selected by its Board of Trustees. She will serve as the first female president of the institution in its 136-year history. McNair currently is provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Wagner College in New York City…Since Tuskegee University’s founding in 1881, it has been under the leadership of seven presidents — the first of which was Booker T. Washington, who led the institution from 1881 to 91915. See more at: tuskegee.edu. 

8. “White Woman Who Called Cops on Black BBQ in Oakland is Now a Meme” by Jessica Lipsky 

Excerpt: A woman in Oakland, California, who called the police on two black men barbecuing along Lake Merritt and became the subject of a now-viral video is now proliferating social media as a meme.  The woman hurled several racial epithets at the group and told them they’d soon be going to prison for their Sunday afternoon cookout, Newsweek earlier reported. In the video, the woman said her call had “nothing to do with their race.” The woman spoke with police, who arrived on scene to find both parties complaining of harassment. The officers wrote a report but issued no citations, made no arrests and allowed the barbecue to continue. In response, Oakland residents held a huge cookout on the same site on May 10. See more at: newsweek.com. 

9. “‘I Love Hate Speech’: Sarah Braasch, the White Woman Who Called Police on Black Yale Grad Student for Napping in Dorm, Defends Slavery and Supports Burqa Ban in Writings” by The Grio

Excerpt: “I was placed on the pro-slavery side of the argument. I remember spending many an hour in the local public library poring over Time Life books… And then I had a eureka moment. Some—not many, but some—of the slaves didn’t want to stop being slaves. A small number wanted to remain with their owners or return even after being freed. I knew I had just won the debate. And indeed, I did. I led our team to victory. The pro-slavery contingent defeated the abolitionists because, in a democracy, in the land of the free, who are we to tell people that they can’t be slaves if they want to be? Who are we to tell someone that she has to be free? Who are we to tell someone that she has to be regarded as fully human?” See more at: thegrio.com. 

10. “Black Ministry Students At Duke Say They Face Unequal Treatment And Racism” by Nick Chiles

Excerpt: “One of my classmates was sitting in a class, and she texted me and asked me to come to her class because a student was in her class saying, ‘N****** like you come here and think that you can just change everything. Why don’t you just learn what Jesus is really about?’ ” said Amber Burgin, president of the Black Seminarians Union, who is in her third year at Duke Divinity. “We are in classes trying to pull each other out of class to hear people making inappropriate slurs, like a white student calling someone a jigaboo and then claiming they didn’t know what that means. Or a white classmate calling a black classmate ‘ghetto.’ … I’ve had classmates who have had to take leave; I’ve had classmates who have left the program because they were tired of being treated in such a way.” See more at: npr.org.

If you know of any black Christian women bloggers and or writers, please e-mail me at jacqueline@afterthealtarcall.com as I’m always interested in expanding my community of black Christian women blogs and websites. As I noted before, while this is a roundup of interesting blog posts and or magazine and newspaper articles for black Christian women, you don’t have to be one to appreciate these pieces  🙂.

Any thoughts?