In a late-night victory speech, President-elect Donald Trump called his base “the forgotten men and women of our country,” and he promised they “will be forgotten no longer.” His line embodied the spirit of 2016: This was the year that nationwide events put a spotlight on plights that can no longer be overlooked. Beyond Trump’s core base of white working-class voters, there was an assortment of marginalized communities making headlines, from the gay Latinos targeted at an Orlando nightclub to the black men confronted by police in Baton Rouge and suburban St. Paul; from indigenous peoples protesting a pipeline in the Dakotas to those fleeing climate change in Alaska and Louisiana; and from hijab-wearing victims of hate crimes to unemployed veterans.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom, because where there is strife there is also powerful art to make sense of it. And 2016’s collection of books, movies, TV, plays, music and other works was no different, helping us see these groups, to understand their grievances and develop a response. After polling our staff, here is the art that most moved us at NationSwell in 2016.
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Tag: podcast
Why America Must Remember Its Lynching Past, The Compassionate Nonagenarian Who Knits Hats for Those on the Streets and More
The Legacy of Lynching, on Death Row, The New Yorker
Bryan Stevenson, one of the foremost civil rights lawyers of our time and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, sees a link between wrongful convictions, today’s police shootings of young black men and the nation’s barbarous history of lynching. To honor the 4,000 African Americans killed in the former Confederate states, Stevenson plans to build a $20 million memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on the site of a former public housing complex.
Man, 91, in hospice care knits hats for the homeless, WXMI
For the last 15 years, Morrie Boogart, a 91-year-old in Grandville, Mich., has knit hats for the homeless. Using donated yarn, Boogart has made at least 8,000 caps to keep the homeless warm during the winter. Confined to bedrest from skin cancer and a mass on his kidney, he’s spending his last days in admirable service to others.
Yes, Queens, The Ringer
When one thinks of podcasts, the image of a bespectacled white man, like “This American Life”’s Ira Glass, probably comes to mind. The seriously irreverent, wildly popular weekly podcast “2 Dope Queens,” hosted by Jessica Williams, formerly of “The Daily Show,” and Phoebe Robinson, a standup comedian, opens the medium to a new type of host. Racism, sexism and politics, as seen from a black woman’s perspective, are all carefully discussed, and somehow hilarity ensues.
MORE: Why Sleeping in a Former Slave’s Home Will Make You Rethink Race Relations in America