The 2013 Smithsonian Folklife Festival showcases its five-year community research project on African American identity with the program “The Will to Adorn: African American Diversity, Style, and Identity.” This multicity collaboration examines the history and culture of the aesthetics of African Americans. The Festival will be held Wednesday, June 26, through Sunday, June 30, and Wednesday, July [...]
At Cannes, Filmmakers Challenge Notion that ‘Black Doesn’t Travel’
May 16, 2013 | Posted by
CANNES, France — In 1995, actor Will Smith begged producer Jerry Bruckheimer to let him go to the Cannes Film Festival to promote “Bad Boys,” despite the parent studio’s insistence that a black actor would not get any traction with the international fans and journalists thronging the city’s beach-side promenade, the Croisette. Bruckheimer and Columbia [...]
Identical Twin Sisters Named Co-Valedictorians at Spelman
May 14, 2013 | Posted by
Identical twin sisters Kristie and Kirstie Bronner have been named co-valedictorians at Spelman College after each of the music majors earned a 4.0 grade point average. The Atlanta sisters have traveled every step of their time at Spelman together, reports Atlanta Business Chronicle broadcast partner WXIA-TV. They grew up close, the station says, adding that the sisters were home-schooled and spent [...]
1963: A Defining Year For Civil Rights Movement
May 11, 2013 | Posted by
On 28 August, in the shadow of Lincoln’s monument, Martin Luther King announced to the March on Washington during his famous ”I have a dream” speech that “1963 is not an end, but a beginning.” For legal segregation, it would turn out to be the beginning of the end. The year started with Alabama governor George Wallace standing on [...]
‘Forever Free’: Scholars Study Impact of Emancipation Proclamation
May 9, 2013 | Posted by
Scholars from three continents gathered at Harvard University recently to parse the Emancipation Proclamation, the earth-shaking 1863 executive order from the Lincoln White House that proclaimed all slaves in the rebellious South “forever free.” It helped break the back of the Confederacy, gave the war its moral center, and rejuvenated federal forces starved for new [...]
Leaders Look For Answers to Austin’s Shrinking Black Population
May 7, 2013 | Posted by
On May 1, “The Future of Black Life in Austin” panel discussed a topic that is critical to all in our community. Wednesday’s event was part of the annual Heman Sweatt Symposium on Civil Rights, organized by University of Texas at Austin’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. The symposium commemorates the legacy of the first African-American admitted [...]
Harvard University Digitizing Thousands of Anti-Slavery Petitions
May 4, 2013 | Posted by
In the 18th and 19th centuries, thousands of petitions were sent to the Massachusetts Legislature asking lawmakers to abolish slavery and end segregation, and urging them to refuse to cooperate with the federal Fugitive Slave Act. The petitions — signed and circulated by abolitionists and former slaves, as well as members of the literary and [...]
Never-Before-Heard Martin Luther King Audio to Air at Schomburg Event
May 2, 2013 | Posted by
HARLEM, New York – The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Birmingham freedom struggle this Thursday at Canaan Baptist Church of Christ.During the event, a never-before-heard 1963 audio of Martin Luther King Jr. will be played. The museum is celebrating King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Dr. [...]
New Film ‘Wildcat’ Explores African-American Rodeo Culture
April 30, 2013 | Posted by
With the dawn of each new day, Flying Lotus seemingly piles on yet another new project to his ginormous calendar, like some real-life version of Katamari Damacy. The most recent outing sees FlyLo team with filmmaker Kahlil Joseph, who helmed the short film for last year’s Until the Quiet Comes, to direct and score a new short film about the African-American rodeo [...]
Talib Kweli on Mainstream Hip-Hop and Honoring Old School
April 29, 2013 | Posted by
Talib Kweli has been writing and performing for almost 20 years now — as a solo act and as half of well-received duos that reached a broad audience — and for much of that time he’s been pinned with a label that’s a relic of a 1990s understanding of hip-hop: “conscious rap.” The albums he [...]
