Thanks to James Horton, curator at Sights and Sounds Black Cultural Museum and Expo for permitting us to use the museum as a backdrop for the photoshoot of Phyllis Smith’s forthcoming book, Cotton Pickin’ Days.

Smith is a poet. She started writing as a pre-teen about her life growing up in Fayetteville, Georgia, during the 1950s. Smith never stopped writing. She seldom shared her poems with the public, except for poetic tributes to people in the community who had transitioned. Soon Smith started getting requests to write poetic eulogies for members of the city. She read them during their homegoing services. read more

You expect lewd and lascivious acts from Donald J. Trump, and you usually get them. When you think that Trump has fallen below the lowest common denominator, out of thin air comes the point you feel cannot be matched, even by Trump himself.

At a weekend campaign rally in October with a few thousand of his cultlike followers, Trump stooped to perhaps his lowest level. Lower even than his crude, crusty talk about grabbing women in their panties, “cause they like you to do it.” Smaller than mocking a reporter with Down Syndrome, lower than whining about John McCain, while McCain laid in state in the Rotunda, lower than separating children from their parents and locking them up in cages, more denigrating than anything he has ever done before this weekend. read more