Kovie Biakolo

Kovie Biakolo is a writer, journalist, editor, and multiculturalism scholar specializing in culture and identity.

Two bars that Hershey's devised for the U.S. military: Ration D, and the tastier (and more enduring) Tropical Chocolate Bar, which soldiers received as late as 1991.

When Hershey’s Crafted a Special Treat for the Troops

In the run-up to World War II, the chocolate company was tasked with creating a nutritious snack that, by design, wouldn't taste good

Ethel Payne wore this plush, wide-brimmed hat in the early 1960s, during her pioneering civil rights journalism for the Chicago Defender.

Pioneering Journalist Ethel Payne Wasn’t Afraid to Stand Out

Her hats turned heads, but it was her work as a reporter that changed the nation

Head of a Negro Woman, 1946, by Elizabeth Catlett.

How Elizabeth Catlett Lifted Up Black Women Through Art

The pioneering sculptor defied trends to honor the daily lives of her subjects

Roughly two million years old, this tool, known as the Kanjera stone, was part of a new Stone Age technology that helped make better-fed, smarter hominins.  

This Is the Oldest Human-Made Object in the Smithsonian Collections

Roughly two million years ago, simple items like the Kanjera tool sparked a revolution in the way humans lived

A first edition of Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773), written while the poet was enslaved to John Wheatley of Boston. The book has a brown leather cover, the original Morocco spine label and a frontispiece featuring a portrait of Phillis by Scipio Morehead.  

How Phillis Wheatley Beat All Expectations

The Revolution-era Boston establishment couldn't believe that the young African American woman wrote the exquisite book of poetry

A new form of entertainment and a wandering trainload of frozen turkey triggered a convenience food boom.

A Brief History of the TV Dinner

Thanksgiving’s most unexpected legacy is heating up again

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