Finding that the evidence for jumping the broom’s “origins” pointed to western Europe, I wanted to better understand how groups adopted and adapted rituals for their own communal needs, and what this suggested about its popularity in African American history. If the broomstick wedding was “forced” into enslaved communities, as some have claimed, how then is it remolded into something that many embraced over time? If it was accepted willingly in some circumstances, what does this suggest about agency and the evolution of Black culture in the antebellum era?

Americans send hundreds of billions of U.S. dollars a year through remittances so much that countries like the Philippines rely on these funds to stay solvent.

Vegas restaurant icon Lotus of Siam put Thai food in our city on the national map — one food critic called it the “bestThai food in North America,” and chef Saipin Chutima has won a James Beard award (which is basically the Grammys of food).

Javon Johnson is Assistant Professor and Director of African American and African Diaspora Studies with an appointment in Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. An acclaimed slam poet and recognized performance studies scholar, Dr. Johnson is the author of the book Killing Poetry: Blackness and the Making of Slam and Spoken Word Communities. He is also co-editor of The End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape, which collects poetry, lyrics, essays, and other media from youth artists in Chicago, and, most recently, published the book of poetry Ain’t Never Not Been Black.

On the final episode of season 2 of The Futures Archive, Rachel Lehrer and Lee Moreau explore pleasure with a conversation about the vibrator and women's control over their bodies. With additional insights from Lynn Comella, Ti Chang, Jenny Winfield, and Mireille Miller-Young.

This week, Ira spoke with Tyler D. Parry, author of Jumping The Broom, The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual (published by UNC Press). In this academic episode of Ira’s Everything Bagel, Tyler talks about the historical narratives vs memories of Jumping The Broom; viewing the tradition through the paradigm of resistance; the efforts of black writers to revisit the ritual; the unifying feature of jumping the broom; the importance of the community endorsing the marriage after the couple jumped the broom; the humanity of the ceremony itself; the revival of interest in the subject in the 60’s and 70’s; the booming heritage weddings industry in the 90 that featured it; the different groups around the world who utilized the ceremony; and the surprising results about the single origin point of the ritual.