vibrant

It’s been about five months since I set foot in a bar. Like many of you navigating life in a pandemic, I miss bars. I miss the simple pleasure of sharing a beer with friends. And I know I’m not alone. People have been gathering over a beer for thousands of years. As an archaeologist, I can tell you the history of beer stretches deep into the human past – and the history of bars is not far behind. If you could travel back in time to one of the bustling cities of ancient Mesopotamia (c. 4000–330 B.C.), for example, you would have no trouble finding yourself a bar or a beer. Beer was the beverage of choice in Mesopotamia. In fact, to be a Mesopotamian was to drink beer. A beloved beverage For the Sumerians, Akkadians and Babylonians, the ancient inhabitants of modern-day Iraq, beer was a da...

For the black community in Chicago and elsewhere, Johnson Publishing Company represented a certain kind of hope.The company’s magazines, most notably Ebony and Jet, gained prominence during the struggle for civil rights — Jet published graphic photos of the murdered black teenager Emmett Till that helped intensify the movement — and made it their mission to chronicle African-American life.At a time when much of the media was ignoring black people, or showing them primarily in the context of poverty or crime, Ebony and Jet celebrated their success, featuring stars like Muhammad Ali and Aretha Franklin on their covers. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, the first print publication he granted an interview to was Ebony.So when Johnson Publishing, which is based in Chicago, announ...

Tag: vibrant

Brewing Mesopotamian beer brings a sip of this vibrant ancient drinking culture back to life