Farragut North

The trajectory of Wilbur Wright's life would be unbelievable, except that it is true. His father was born in 1898, his father, Wilbur's grandfather, was born a slave. Yet Wilbur's circuitous journey led him from Detroit, to Italy, to Egypt and the Middle East, where he advised rulers and kings. "Only in America" is perhaps tossed around too much but here it makes improvised sense - how can it be that such stories like this exist, and that we tend to find them, in certain communities, among certain groups of people? In the fertile land between the specific and the universal, we find a treasure trove of the beautiful - and we see how difference, through committed, thickly braided moral communities, tends to lead to remarkable outcomes, especially during the golden years of the great American experiment. 

History

African Americans Abroad, edited by Malik Wilson

November 15, 2025

African Americans Abroad is Malik Wilson's attempt to distill universal principles from three remarkable African Americans who worked in the Foreign Service or participated in foreign diplomacy abroad. Wilbur Wright, Ernest Wilson, and Wendy Wilson-Fall were all 'noticed', called upon, by people in the furthest places, people who knew little (or nothing) about the particularities of the African American experience. It begs the question, what did they see, and how do the crafted braids of sameness and difference, discipline and freedom, newness and tradition, show up when we are worlds away? Their experiences provide a kind of moral bas-relief of efficacious self-development, restless curiosity, and the doused scent - that all three carry - of other places, other ways.