We Need to Talk About Black History

It’s so much more than slavery, MLK Jr., and rap’s founding fathers.

U.S. President Richard Nixon presents Harlem Renaissance maestro Duke Ellington with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 (White House Photo Office Collection)

It’s eight p.m. at Zula Sound Bar in Cape Town, and dinner with Brendan, a thirty-year-old white man from Pittsburgh, is about to turn into an unexpected history lesson.

Brendan has temporarily relocated to Cape Town for a two-month internship after spending three…