Western films are the major defining genre of the American film industry, a nostalgic display of praise to the early days of the expansive, untamed American frontier. Director John Ford was a much-celebrated director who made some of the most famous pictures in Hollywood cinema, if not ...

The Sport of the Gods, Dunbar's final novel, presents a far more critical and disturbing portrait of black America. The work centers on butler Berry Hamilton and his family. After Berry is wrongly charged with theft by his white employers, he is sentenced to ten years of prison labor. His remaining ...

One day as I was driving to my sister's house in Ravenswood, I saw an elderly man standing at the end of the off-ramp. The gentleman was holding a sign that read: "Homeless will work for food. God Bless." As I rolled to a stop, I rolled down my window and offered him my last five dol...