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That crumbling house with its rusty iron fence, like a disillusioned spider’s web, became important. Even its blotch of drained soil, discolored and long sterile, was a symbol of warfare. This spelled out a larger drama of the world I was just beginning to realize I was living in.
By Leslie Woolf HedleyMay 1982February 1982I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.
Sylvia Plath
For the first time I wonder if I have gone too far, overlooking too many potential danger signs in this landlord/tenant relationship, and maybe I should ask for my money back, take the lease form from the wife’s hands where it is lying and tear it into pieces, but then I decide that I am as worthy of two walls of windows and a murphy bed on swiss avenue as anyone else.
By Pat Ellis TaylorJanuary 1982The day I sat in the courtroom, there were three or four white men with the same charges, but they let them pay out, maybe seven or eight hundred dollars. I was black. The man didn’t say nothing about no fees or charges. They gave me the maximum sentence. My skin color gave me away. I can base it down to that. I didn’t have the money, so I got to pull the time. It’s just as simple as that.
By Wolfgang Bischoff, Mariam Nassadien, Vernon RoseSeptember 1980As Manny walked he was overwhelmed by the delicate, inviolable crown of the stars. Freedom was a feather brushed and swept across the heavens, now sweeping his tongue, his nostrils, his lungs. There was nothing more he needed.
By Jimmy Santiago BacaSeptember 1980Before it was over, there were nearly 1000 police and 2300 National Guard troops called in to augment local police. There were nearly a thousand arrests, more than 100 people shot, one killed, one blinded, and a million dollars in property damage in one of the longest-running civil disturbances in the nation’s history.
By Dana W. ColeSeptember 1979Following through on an attempt to understand white South Africa’s control and manipulation of the Black/Colored/Asian majority is a journey that invokes a logical progression of disbelief sliding to horror, then, finally, a half step beyond to revulsion.
By William GaitherJuly 1977The people of Menitz could never remember a time when there had not been a vampire. So of course it was hard for them to remember the details of the good old days.
By Randee Russell AscherJuly 1977Cheever’s narrative details the later history. It tells the story of the wanderer, the outcast, the man cursed from the ground. It is a story not just of the fate of Cain, but also of the society which condemns him.
By David GuyMay 1977Personal, political, provocative writing delivered to your doorstep every month—without a single ad.
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