Nottoway Plantation: Videos of Louisiana's 160-year-old Nottoway Plantation burning to the ground spread on social media like wildfire. John Hampden Randolph had enslaved more than 150 Black people on this sugarcane farm. In recent decades, it was repackaged as a luxury resort, boasting wedding packages, guest suites, and tennis courts.
Beyonce’s Purse: When Beyoncé set her purse on the floor at a fashion show, folks lost it. That’s a big ancestral no-no for many who've inherited generations of Hoodoo-isms. “Purse on the floor, money out the door,” as the saying goes.
HilmanTok: A TikTok from Dr. Leah Barlow, an African American studies professor, went viral, sparking a digital education movement. Experts offered TikTok "courses" to thousands eager to learn everything from finances to gardening, a reminder that we've always found ways to educate ourselves when anti-Blackness tried to stop us.
Kendrick Bowl: Every detail of Kendrick Lamar's SuperBowl performance was intentional, from Samuel L. Jackson's minstrel caricature of Uncle Sam symbolizing the government's manipulation of the rule of law against Black progress, to the stage being made to resemble a prison yard—a brutal reminder of mass incarceration's grip on our communities.
Met Gala: We inspired the theme of 2025's Met Gala, "Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” Clothing carries power, and the enslavers of Black men deliberately abused it. Out of this painful history emerged a unique form of resistance: Black dandyism, which reminds us that liberation isn't only a political act but a profoundly personal and beautiful one.