“Vacation days are here!,” Ebenezer wrote in his New York Age column published in July 20, 1935. “A human current moves toward parks, playgrounds, camps, beaches and other vacation and summer resorts. The dust has been blown from the old lunch kit; the abbreviated bathing suit has been removed from the moth balls; the house holds but little charm; the typewriter, well we’d better skip it!” Zuri and I arrived in Barbados yesterday on a flight filled mostly with folks headed “home” for the holidays. I envied them. My seat mate on the JFK to Bridgetown was headed to St. Philip to spend six weeks with her daughter. Of course, I could not let an opportunity pass without asking if she knew any Wrays, Rays or Alkins. She didn’t. We will head to the archives today. But first, the beach . . .
Featured Posts
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Election days, then and now
Looking for something fresh to write about on Election Day, I searched my father’s columns for wisdom from the past. A footnote in a column published in the New York Age on November 3, 1934, implored readers to elect “Mrs. Eunice Carter” to the New York State Assembly. The name had a familiar ring. Five […]
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‘Was silence not an option?’
My barber called Kamala Harris a “ho.” The shop I go to is not the stuff of Black culture lore. It’s not a boisterous place. It doesn’t reek with toxic masculinity. It’s a nice, quiet, family friendly kind of enterprise. The worst I have been subjected to in the nearly three years I’ve gone there […]
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Standing on the shoulders of Black Legends
On Saturday, Feb. 17, I will be among several individuals inducted into the 2024 Class of the Black Legends of Silicon Valley. This is quite an honor. Previous recipients in the News and Documentary category in which I am being honored include journalists with stellar credentials. Loretta Green, an award-winning reporter for several local papers […]
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‘The Donna Collection’
My short story, “The Donna Collection” is included in the new anthology 166 Palms 2020. Buy the anthology on Amazon.
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Elaine Ray wins 2016 Gival Press Short Story Award
Blown away and humbled. The first piece of fiction I’ve ever gotten published wins an award. The story is published here.
Recent Posts
- The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture celebrates its centennial
- Elections: Facing Forward
- Election days, then and now
- ‘Was silence not an option?’
- Eerie Echos of ‘Democracy Losing’
- Shout-out to bus drivers
- Standing on the shoulders of Black Legends
- Nearly 200 will gather for the Brown, Kell, Tildon, Williams Family Reunion
- “Good Trouble” nominated for a GLAAD Media Award
- Harriet Tubman at the Crossing




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