As the World Backslides: Margo Jefferson and Others on Roe Reversal and Buffalo Massacre

In the last three weeks we have witnessed the return of an America that we thought—we hoped—we would never see again. The leaked announcement, by the Supreme Court, of the intention to overturn Roe v. Wade and the racist murders of 13 decent people in Buffalo by a white 18 year old Payton Gendron (followed by several other racist shootings around the country) were astounding reminders that the oppression and ugliness of the past can return in a heartbeat.

I was interviewing esteemed literary critic and memoirist Margo Jefferson (pictured above)—one of our top public intellectuals—about her remarkable new book Constructing A Nervous System, when both of these news items hit. Her book is a kind of companion to Negroland, her much-praised memoir of upper-class Black life in Chicago in the 1950s on up, which won the National Book Critics Circle award.