Black Immigrants Redefine Identity and Belonging in the South
By Leah Donnella Titile Keskessa was 15 years old when she “almost got beat up” by a classmate for asking, the day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, who exactly this King guy was — and why he warranted a day off from school. It was 1987, and Keskessa had recently moved from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Memphis, Tenn. — the city where King was notoriously assassinated. She laughs at the memory now. It’s almost too absurd to be satire: a Black kid threatening violence against another Black kid to defend the honor of the leader of the nonviolent organizing