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By TOLLEY M. JONES

My grandmother Esther died on Nov. 17 at the age of 95. Grandma had five children: Charles, Patricia, Michael, David, and Valerie. Tragically, she buried four of her five children as adults — one of whom was murdered, along with that adult child’s...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

The other day I was in my office working on a grant report with my door closed, when suddenly loud and joyous laughter exploded in the hallway. My fellow brown female coworkers were laughing the way brown women laugh when they are surrounded by other...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

Since my friend Kirsten suddenly died in June, grief is the cadence to every song I listen to or sing — happy, or sad, or pensive. It is the concrete that encases my feet as I slog through each and every step I take.It is like the smell of autumn,...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

How long was it before you, as a child, saw someone who looked like you on television or in a movie, or read a book with a protagonist who looked like you? If you are white, it was probably so long ago that you don’t even remember, and it was probably...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

My little brother is a tall, Black man who has a penchant for wearing all black, including a signature mysterious-looking black fedora, but he was a timid, gentle kid. Once when our entire neighborhood of kids saw a single lost sunfish wandering...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

“What upon Earth is the matter with the American people? Do they really covet the world’s ridicule as well as their own social and political ruin?” — Frederick DouglassI am still so tired.I am tired of having so many upsetting and horrible things...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

One recent blustery February afternoon, my partner and I took a walk through the Common Burying Ground in Newport, Rhode Island. Established in 1640, it contains 31 acres of Colonial headstones.We walked, leaning into the sharp ocean gusts that...