Stay informed with Keith Gilyard’s latest reflections on literacy, education reform, and Social Justice. New ideas and insights are shared regularly through thought-provoking blog posts.
Never been all that easy to get Black doctoral students through English departments. They know....
A small casualty of COVID-19 was my first scheduled trip to China. In anticipation of....
Be assured that I had no intention of landing overseas and telling folks over there....
Amid several notable responses, CNN legal analyst Laura Coates made a great linguistic move on....
“Whadup, Junior Boyd?” “I’m doing just fine,” Semple Johnson.” “I see you out here in....
With more and more professional sports events being televised, I’m drawn back to the fun....
When I thought I was going to visit China, I began thinking about the picture....
The virtuoso poet Audre Lorde opened her popular poem “Power” with the following lines: The....
It is fairly easy to see that white nationalism is largely an expression of fascist....
I missed a good speech on September 15, 1970. The person that gave it, Chuck....
Once I was at a composition conference headquartered in downtown Nashville. Some colleagues and I,....
Only on rereading Langston Hughes’s The Big Sea for my course on African American Autobiography....
“What’s up, Semple Jenkins. You’re moving pretty fast out here.” “Tryna get home with this....
“Well, in being a virtuous leader, that’s where your ability to use the third liberal....
Winning is one of those funny words that people use when they mean another word.....
Taught by Women: Poems as Resistance Language, New and Selected is a love letter, a....
Cold wind whipped across the masks of the two men as they passed the police....
In a sociolinguistics class back in graduate school, Professor Roger Cayer told us about an....
In 1986, approximately a decade before her death, Toni Cade Bambara declared at the National....
In 2017, while attending the Rhetoric Society of America’s Summer Institute at Indiana University, I....
On the occasion of my ENGLISH 467 class discussing Richard Wright’s classic novel, I post....
I never knew explicitly why David was my father’s favorite Biblical figure. But if you....
As a kid, one of my favorite movies was the 1989 boxing documentary Champions Forever.....
When you reach for the new poetry volume by Ishmael Reed, you just wonder which....
In class yesterday, a perplexed student asked if Daniel Sullivan, a central character in Larry....
Frank Money, despite his name, contends with more misfortune than any of Toni Morrison’s major....
My introduction to the energetic, charismatic wordsmith DMX was in the winter of 1998. I,....
“Wait, Junior Boyd. You’re fading out. You must be moving around. Oh, that’s better. Watch....
Next month, Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins, will release The Minister Primarily, a novel by....
“Perhaps the black intellectual we still have the most to learn from is David Walker.”....
After a wait of more than three decades, we have a new installment of Ishmael....
Semple was perplexed as he sat on Boyd’s sofa engaged in the news streaming from....
When Leroy Howard Dewer, Jr. hit Senior Lieutenant Richard Maroney with a two-piece in A....
As Manny Pacquiao nears the end of his boxing career, we are hearing the story....
I mentioned in the last post that I once commented about the need for a....
Semple hadn’t talked to his good friend in a while. Texting felt too clumsy, so....
As we know, somebody will always come to your party, eat up as much food....
To illustrate the point of textual conversations in American literature, I had students read Toni....
I start by apologizing to my good friends Glenn Cooper and the late Leroy Charles.....
I never tire of teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God because I’m always interested in....
Seems the Color Purple movie is a quiet staple of holiday-season television. Many see it....
After maneuvering and maneuvering, I finally ran out of shelf space for books at home.....
Way behind because of personal matters, I wanted to post this last month. These remarks,....
After having the privilege of conversing with Haki Madhubuti and Joanne Gabbin this past Wednesday....
Semple Jenkins and Junior Boyd bumped into each other outside of a coffee shop they....
As is frequently noted, one person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist. One’s suicide bomber....
Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys obviously has much to recommend it. A gripping tale about....
I have not agreed with John McWhorter on much, particularly regarding his ignorant remarks about....
On the seventy-seventh anniversary of his birth, I recall the stunning epic poem, Jazz in....
Supreme Team, the limited series directed by Nas and Peter Scalettar for Showtime, is mostly....
We are not ones to hold grudges. We have always sided with Antigone on such....
America’s favorite word echoed throughout the hallowed Ethel Barrymore Theatre this past weekend during the....
On the anniversary of the beginning of Kristallnacht, the anti-Jewish rampage in the Third Reich....
“I have not seen you in a few days, Semple.” “Been holed up at my....
The borough of Queens usually has been an afterthought, if that, in conversations about Black....
A while back I received in the mail an envelope containing a short newspaper article....
During the first two years of the pandemic, my partner, Michael, and I were accorded....
Some of My Favorite CCCC 2023 Moments that Ain’t Got Nothing to Do with the....
If you wait twenty years for something, you figure the payoff should be special. It....
At times, you have been asked which prior literary scene you would want to visit.....
Eugenia Rho and her research colleagues have demonstrated in a recent study that the verbal....
After Cornel West announced his quest to run for president as the Green Party nominee,....
Today, Chris Wallace reminded me why, besides the Trump fetish they pretend not to have,....
The fuss fading over the Brawl in Montgomery. The rap song been made by Gmac....
As I turned back into the Language Lane, I was reminded of the continual vibrancy....
When I saw a teenage Beyoncé play the lead in Carmen: A Hip Hopera, which....
The success of the excellent movie American Fiction has brought renewed attention to Percival Everett’s Erasure,....
When my students and I read Sing, Unburied, Sing, we were aware that author Jesmyn....
Scottie Scheffler was arrested in Louisville for disobeying a detective’s traffic command and dragging him....
By now, most media followers have heard about how the house was set afire, that....
“Glad to be out for convo and the coldest beer,” exclaimed Semple Jenkins, seated next....
As Republicans and Democrats agree, this election discourse is weird. For one, Republican pundits are....
While operating within a lifelong lyrical odyssey, his journey to build “roads of odes” (22),....
In March 1969, the Fisk graduate made a literary splash in New York City as....
If, as a young Ebonics speaker and gospel-inflected and sermon-inflected Jocko lover in Harlem, I....
The Promise of Language has a different purpose than my previous memoir writing, most notably....
