Nation Topics - Racism and Discrimination | The Nation

You cannot even spell here without her. First, Margaret Walker, Margaret Walker Alexander. She was one of the greatest writers of the language.

When I came out in Boston in the mid-l970s, I had no way of knowing that the lesbian and gay movement I was discovering was in many ways unique.

This article originally appeared in the March 13, 1995 issue.

Some events carry an exceptional symbolic charge.

There are two unmistakable signs that France is entering a pre-electoral period: The government is once again tinkering with the electoral law and the politicians, particularly the leaders of the

Baldwin sheds light on the state of America by surveying the dispiriting array of candidates for the 1980 presidential race.

All profound social movements reach a plateau of this sort, short of the summit, and the presence of new opposition should not dismay us. New obstacles should not be deplored but welcomed because their presence proves we are closer to the ultimate decision.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in March of 1964, 'Exactly one hundred years after Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation for them, Negroes wrote their own document of freedom in their own way. In 1963, the civil rights movement coalesced around a technique for social change, nonviolent direct action.'

From 1961 to 1966, King wrote an annual essay for The Nation. In 1963, he cautioned that the American people had mistaken token victories for real progress on racial justice.