'Black Men in Public Spaces' by Brent Staples

The author, after earning a PhD in psychology, became a journalist. He wrote this reflection about an incident in the 1970s,  about how his mere presence as a black man caused a white woman to panic, for Ms. magazine in 1986 and titled it "Just Walk on By." He slightly revised the article for Harper's a year later and gave it the current title.

Click Staples-Black Men in Public Spaces.pdf link to view the file.