“I had to learn to love my Blackness,” said the winner of this season's ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race.’ “I’ve learned to love my queerness. I had to learn to love myself.”
Jessa WilliamsManhattan Beach, Calif.
Autumn Kitchens grew up between Long Island and Rockaway, N.Y. She started surfing after taking a lesson when she was 15, and she has been surfing and living in the Rockaways for the past seven years.
Nina Stouffer is a self-described “soul surfer” from Jacksonville, Fla. She feels free in the water. “All your worries disappear,” she told me. “And especially with my friends, I always enjoy going out there and being with them, bonding.”
Kimiko Russell-Halterman’s love of the ocean is rooted in her Japanese ancestry. Her grandmother is from Okinawa and believes that one of her ancestors was an ama, a celebrated female free-diver.
A Veteran Tried to Credit Black Americans on Memorial Day. His Mic Got Muted.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter was speaking at an American Legion service in Hudson, Ohio, on Monday when he was intentionally silenced.
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Veteran’s Mic Cut as He Noted Black History of Memorial Day
During Lt. Col. Barnard Kemter’s Memorial Day speech in Hudson, Ohio, his microphone was turned off as he spoke about how freed Black slaves had played an early role honoring fallen soldiers after the Civil War.
Memorial Day was first commemorated by an organized group of Black freed slaves less than a month after the Confederacy surrendered. In recent years, the origins of how and where Decoration Day began has sparked lively debate amongst historians. However, Yale historian David Blight, asserting the holiday is rooted in a moving ceremony was conducted by freed slaves on May 1, 1865, at the tattered remains of Confederate prisoner of war camp. They were carrying armfuls of flowers a