Felicia Johnson-LeBlanc

Ladies, break out the headwraps, and fellas, get ready to snap ya fingers for "The Kings and Queens of Spoken Word," the summer poetry concert featuring established poets and emerging vocalists. This year's show promises to do it very big, with poetry performances by the infamous Equality, the revolutionary Brother...

FRI 11/4 For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf debuted on Broadway in 1976, at a time when black women's stories just weren't told on stage. Immediately, women across the country rejoiced at local playwright-poet-professor Ntozake Shange's powerful stories of love, hardship and spirituality. Originally conceived...

On a recent visit to Willowridge High School, her alma mater, poet-actress-playwright Melanie Wilson was approached by a bold student. "She asked to use my cell phone," Wilson recalls. "I said, 'For what?' and she said, 'I need to find some weed.' " This incident, among others, served as the...

Author and style maven Jenyne Raines wants to school young people -- especially assertive black women who play into bloodthirsty, power-hungry stereotypes -- about the ways of acting like a lady. Don't even get her started on The Apprentice's Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, who Raines feels devolved into "the angry black woman"...

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