I came out to my doctoral dissertation advisor under unusual circumstances. It was August of 1988, the seventh month of my residency at the University of Dar es Salaam, where I was researching and writing on East Africa’s most famous playwright, Ebrahim Hussein. As an American with an uncertain but growing grasp of Kiswahili, I was a recognizable figure on campus – all the more so because I was sponsored by a popular Tanzanian professor in the Department of Literature, Joseph

The shoga of the East African coast, a man accepted as a member of women’s society, did not emerge from a vacuum nor from the imposition of outside influence. She was born from the long encounter between Bantu-speaking Africans and Muslim traders from the Arabian Peninsula. Unlike medieval Christianity, which not only condemned “Sodomites” but sought to prosecute and exterminate them, the posture of classical Islam was categorically different. Liwat [anal intercourse between

In "The Texas Branch," Robert traces his paternal family's deep roots in 19th-century Texas — from his great-grandfather Moses Haas, a Prussian immigrant in San Antonio, to the remarkable Levi family of Victoria, whose patriarch Abraham built the largest state-chartered bank in Texas. The essay spotlights Leo Napoleon Levi, a trailblazing Jewish lawyer and B'nai B'rith president, while reflecting on the insularity, contradictions, and quiet defiances woven through generations

Robert examines two parallel "Atlanta Compromises" — Booker T. Washington's famous 1895 bargain accepting segregation in exchange for economic opportunity, and the unspoken accommodationism of Southern Jews, who sought safety by assimilating as loyal Southerners and avoiding controversy. Through figures like Judah P. Benjamin and Leo Frank, he reveals how both communities navigated survival under hostile white power by silencing dissent.

Aimee Semple McPherson preaching at her Angelus Temple, Los Angeles My mother once told me that her mother, Jeanette, had named her Amy after the celebrity evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. I didn’t give this statement much thought at the time, but it would have been odd that my conflicted Jewish mother had inherited something from a Pentecostal evangelist. When I did think about it, however, I figured that religion had nothing to do with Jeanette’s choice. In Jeanette’s wo

In 1920, Perry Bradford, a Black composer and publisher, had the crazy idea that African Americans would buy music recorded by Black artists and musicians. He convinced Okeh Records to shellac a vaudeville and cabaret singer from Harlem named Mamie Smith backed by Black jazz musicians. “Crazy Blues” proved to be a smash hit. Within two months of release, it had sold 75,000 copies. Record company executives (all white) woke up. There was a market here! Money to be made! And so

Americans with a moderate knowledge of musical history know about the minstrel shows that originated in the 19th century — how could they not? Some of them might even be aware that the Black musical reentered and transformed the Broadway stage during the 1920s. But there is this gap from the last decade of the 19th century to the 1920s where only fragments of Black musicality (ragtime, the cakewalk) flicker through the imposed amnesia of the time. Why? Take a deep breath and

It's funny how you can live in a society whose wealth was built upon the slave trade and not be aware of it even though the legacy of the trade is layered in the language, social relations, and racialized prejudices of the present-day population. No, I'm not referring to the American South. I'm reflecting on the time I spent learning about Swahili language and culture on the East African coast. My introduction, through a two-month intensive Swahili language program for gradua

Marion Michelle with FIAF colleagues, 1957 I've written elsewhere of how my cousin Marion Michelle probably made cinematic history filming the first guerilla documentary, Indonesia Calling , for the famous Dutch filmmaker, Joris Ivens , in 1945. This was well before I was born. Marion was the same generation as my mother — they were first cousins — although of course we were cousins as well. Since 1950, Marion had settled as an expatriate in Paris. I lived in Paris on two di

Cotton Club dancers circa 1930s This is a still from a British Pathé newsreel, filmed sometime during the 1930s of dancers at the Cotton Club. Up until the advent of the internet, it would have been impossible to find this episode titled "Harlem (AKA Harlem, New York)." Although the footage, long since recovered and incorporated into every Harlem Renaissance history, is now recognized as a unique and invaluable moving image window on Harlem during the waning days of the Renai

Year one of the Harlem Renaissance

Robert Philipson discusses his experience learning Swahili

In 1924, Carl Van Vechten, a white writer, music critic, and promoter of African American cultural art forms, met Langston Hughes at a Harlem party. "Kingston" he called him in the journal he kept at the time, but when he met Langston a second time as the winner of the first poetry contest sponsored by a Black magazine, Langston’s recital of “The Weary Blues” knocked him off his feet. Then and there he committed to getting Langston's first book of poems accepted by his own pu

In January of 1975, I was lying on top of a water tower in the middle of Africa. It was a fine, warm night. A full moon had scrubbed the sky of its spangle of stars. Stretched out next to me was a handsome African man, one month younger than I. His name was Yves D-, a Central African English teacher at the high school that used to be serviced by the defunct water tower, which served as our perch. We were both stoned on grass I had purchased over the Christmas break in Bangui,

L to R: Human #1, MAXIMILLION, Human #2, GRANDMA, Human #3, HAMLET, Human #4 It was a good life for a dog. We had returned to our mesa,...

The real history behind the song "Hound Dog"

Emma Lazarus, a privileged Sephardic Jewish poet, transformed her awakening Jewish identity into passionate advocacy for Eastern European refugees and, through her sonnet The New Colossus, redefined the Statue of Liberty as a beacon of welcome for immigrants.

An in depth look at Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke

Shoga Films creator Robert Philipson reflects on his successful first film festival submission "Ma Rainey's Lesbian Licks"

Robert Philipson attempts to save him and his daughter from eternal damnation