Vivian Phillips

Residual record snowfall clung to the streets of Brooklyn, turning curbs into uneven white ridges and muting the usual urgency of traffic on the early February afternoon of my visit to the Weeksville Heritage Center. Walking toward the preserved historic homes at the far end of the site, the stillness felt uncanny. The structures seemed less like artifacts than presences — as though former residents might be peering from behind lace curtains, momentarily interrupted by the arrival of...

At 24, Paulette Nardal left the vibrant, tropical landscape of her home in Le François, Martinique, to sail across the Atlantic, landing on the cobblestone streets and limestone facades of Paris, France. There, she became the first Black person to study at the famed Sorbonne. Later, with the arrival of her sisters, Jeanne "Jane" and Andrée, they established an influential literary salon at their home, Le Salon de Clamart. Portrait of Paulette Nardal. Credit FLAMME (Archives Territoriales de...

Each March, women are asked to remember. To turn toward the past with reverence. To measure distance in declarations, in firsts hard won and futures deferred. History gathers around us like ceremony — heavy with names, dates, and the quiet expectation that we will stand inside remembrance as evidence of progress. But Black womanhood has never lived comfortably within a single timeline. It moves differently. It folds. It circles. It anticipates. For much of my life, I have been surrounded by...