City University of New York‘s board of trustees recently voted to appoint two African American scholars to lead colleges in the university system, according to jbhe.com.
Berenecea Johnson Eanes was appointed president of York College of the City University of New York. She has worked as interim president there since last fall.
York College, located in Jamaica, Queens, enrolls nearly 8,500 undergraduate students, according to the latest data supplied to the U.S. Department of Education. African Americans make up 38 percent of the student body.
Dr. Eanes has previously served as vice president for the Division of Student Affairs at California State University, Fullerton and had been on the staff at Cal State Fullerton for seven years.
Dr. Eanes is a graduate of Dillard University in New Orleans. She earned a master’s degree at Boston University and a Ph.D. in social work at Clark Atlanta University.
Anthony E. Munroe will be president of Borough of Manhattan Community College, effective October 1.
Since 2017, Dr. Munroe has been president of Essex County College in Newark, New Jersey. He was previously president of Malcolm X College, part of the City Colleges of Chicago system.
Borough of Manhattan Community College is the largest in the CUNY system with more than 25,000 students, according to the latest U.S. Department of Education statistics. African Americans make up 27 percent of the student body.
Dr. Munroe is a graduate of Regents College of New York. He holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and earned an MA in public health and a Ph.D in health education from Columbia University in New York.
A reboot and reimagining of 1960s-set half-hour comedy series “The Wonder Years” has landed a pilot production commitment at ABC, with Saladin K. Patterson (“The Last OG,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Bernie Mac Show”) writing and executive producing. “Empire” and “Star” producer LeeDaniels will executive produce along with MarcVelez via Lee Daniels Entertainment.
According to variety.com, the updated version of the series will focus on how a Black middle class family in Montgomery, Alabama in the turbulent late 1960’s made sure it was The Wonder Years for them too.
The new show will live in the same time period as the original series, which was set between 1968 and 1973. A mini writer’s room for the show will be opened once ABC signs off on a pilot script.
Fred Savage, the lead of the original series, will direct the pilot and executive produce. NealMarlens, the co-creator of the original series, will serve as consultant.
Photo Credit: Oprah (Harpo Inc./Ruven Afanador) / Nikole (James Estrin/The New York Times )
Pulitzer Prize®-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times have chosen Lionsgate Studios to be the home for a wide-ranging partnership to develop Ms. Hannah-Jones’ landmark issue of The New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project, and hit New York Times podcast, 1619, into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content for a global audience.
As part of the ground-breaking venture, Lionsgate has partnered with Oprah Winfrey as a producer who will provide stewardship and guidance to the development and production of The 1619 Project.
Lionsgate, The Times and Ms. Winfrey will join forces with Ms. Hannah-Jones, who will serve as the creative leader and producer in developing feature films, television series, documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment enlisting world-class Black creative voices to help adapt her celebrated series chronicling the ways that the original sin of slavery in America still permeates all aspects of our society today.
Jones’ colleague at The Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper, an editor of The 1619 Project and head of scripted entertainment at The Times, will also produce.
One of the most impactful and thought-provoking works of journalism of the past decade, The Times Magazine’s 1619 Project was a landmark undertaking that connected the centrality of slavery in history with an unflinching account of the brutal racism that endures in so many aspects of American life today.
It was launched in August 2019 on the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the English colonies that would become the United States, and it examines the legacy of slavery in America and how it shaped all aspects of society, from music and law to education and the arts, including the principles of our democracy itself.
Ms. Hannah-Jones created and was the architect of the initiative at The Times Magazine with contributions from Black authors, essayists, poets, playwrights, and scholars comprising a special issue of the magazine and a special section in the print edition of The New York Times produced in collaboration with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History & Culture, as well as a five-part podcast that topped the Apple Podcast charts.
One of The Times’ most widely read pieces of journalism last year, The 1619 Project has been discussed in the Senate, is being adapted into a series of books with One World, a division of Penguin Random House, and is already changing the way that American history is being taught in schools.
“We took very seriously our duty to find TV and film partners that would respect and honor the work and mission of The 1619 Project, that understood our vision and deep moral obligation to doing justice to these stories. Through every step of the process, Lionsgate and its leadership have shown themselves to be that partner and it is a dream to be able to produce this work with Ms. Oprah Winfrey, a trailblazer and beacon to so many Black journalists,” said Ms. Hannah-Jones. “I am excited for this opportunity to extend the breadth and reach of The 1619 Project and to introduce these stories of Black resistance and resilience to even more American households.”
“From the first moment I read The 1619 Project and immersed myself in Nikole Hannah-Jones’s transformative work, I was moved, deepened and strengthened by her empowering historical analysis,” said Oprah Winfrey. “I am honored to be a part of Nikole’s vision to bring this project to a global audience.”
Please see a link to The 1619 Project essays here and podcasts here.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Matthew Cherry recently landed a deal with HBO Max for a 12-episode season of “Young Love,” an animated series based on the characters from Cherry and Sony Pictures Animation’s short, “Hair Love.”
Cherry will jointly run the series with Carl Jones, who is best known for his work on “The Boondocks” and “Black Dynamite.” Blue Key Entertainment’s Monica A. Young, who produced “Hair Love,” will executive produce the show alongside Lion Forge Animation’s David Steward II and Carl Reed.
Matthew Cherry (photo via Twitter)
“Hair Love” explored the relationship between a father and his daughter, Zuri, as he does her hair for the first time. “Young Love” will expand on the story of the family of father Stephen, mother Angela, daughter Zuri and her pet cat Rocky.
“I am beyond excited to continue telling the story of Stephen, Angela and Zuri and further explore the family dynamics of a young Black millennial family we established in our short film “Hair Love” as an animated series,” said Cherry.
“Couldn’t ask for better partners in Sony Pictures Animation and HBO Max in helping us get ‘Young Love’ out to the world.”
According to The New York Times, Dana Canedy was named senior vice president and publisher of its Simon & Schuster‘s named namesake imprint yesterday, one of the biggest jobs in book publishing.
Since 2017, Ms. Canedy, 55, has been the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, overseeing a period when the awards have acknowledged an increasingly diverse body of work, including the music of Kendrick Lamar.
Under Ms. Canedy’s watch, the Pulitzer board also issued a posthumous award to the pioneering Black journalist Ida B. Wells and presented a special citation along with $100,000 to The Capital Gazette, a small daily newspaper in Annapolis, Md., where five people were killed in the newsroom in 2018.
Before that, Ms. Canedy spent 20 years as a reporter and senior editor at The New York Times, where she covered business, politics, race and class. She was part of a Times team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2001 for the series “How Race Is Lived in America.”
While Ms. Canedy has never worked for a publishing house, she has written a book: a memoir called A Journal for Jordan, about her partner, First Sgt. Charles M. King, and the journal he wrote for their son, Jordan, in case he did not return from the war in Iraq.
He was killed in combat there in 2006. A movie based on the book, starring Michael B. Jordan and directed by Denzel Washington, is scheduled to begin production this fall. Ms. Canedy is a producer on the film.
Ms. Canedy, who will begin her new job on July 27, said she reads books in bed late at night wearing tortoiseshell glasses fitted with tiny lights on either side, which she bought years ago so she could read in the dark when her son would sleep beside her. Jordan, now 14, affectionately calls his mother “word nerd,” she said.
“The ultimate goal of the job is to champion the work of our amazing authors,” Ms. Canedy said of her new position, “to bring in new authors, and to commission books that I and my team think are important. And basically, when you boil all that down, that means applying news judgment.”
During this time of unprecedented demands of civil rights, our Good Black News playlists have focused on African-American artists during the month of June. But Reggae artists from Jamaica, the U.K., and Africa have long had a thing or two to say about the triumphs and struggle of people of the African diaspora as well.
Reggae came into being in the 1960s as an evolution of the Rocksteady and Ska musical styles. (More on those forms in the weeks to come.) Reggae is a soulful export of Jamaica that expresses in words the pain, struggle, hope, and emotion that is felt by the average person.
Reggae is often marked by its lament-like chanting and emphasizes the syncopated beat. It leans heavily on the use of the Jamaican vernacular and African drumming style.
This collection features a wide range of international artists including, Bob Marley, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Alpha Blondy, Steel Pulse, Hortense Ellis, Bim Sherman, Judy Mowatt, John Holt, and many others.
After two public hearings, the Boston Art Commission voted to remove the Emancipation Group, a statue installed in 1879 in Boston’s Park Square, according to a statement announcing the removal.
The statue is a replica of one in Washington DC, and has been controversial since its installation for the depiction of the freed slave.
The statue features Archer Alexander, a Black man who “assisted the Union Army, escaped slavery, and was recaptured under the Fugitive Slave Act,” the statement says.
The vote follows a nationwide movement calling for the removal of monuments that celebrate the Confederacy or viewed as racist.
“For generations, Bostonians have called for its removal due to its racist depiction of a Black person. Many also feel it implies that one person ended slavery and misrepresents the complexity of United States history,” the statement said.
The statue has always been criticized, but a petition started in early June renewed interest in its removal.
Tory Bullock, a Boston area actor and activist, launched the petition with the intention of getting 1,000 signatures, but quickly surpassed that goal. Currently, the petition has over 12,000 signatures.
Bullock was inspired by the social and cultural moment that Black Lives Matter protests created and felt this was a good time to reintroduce the issue.
No matter what your take on “Independence Day,” July 4th weekend usually provides an opportunity for Americans to get together around good food and good music.
This year however, due to the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve got to find other ways to stay connected to community and family. So although Good Black News can’t serve good food, we can serve good music!
Today we’ve got the perfect musical background for your entire weekend, as we journey back in time to offer up a massive mega-playlist of exclusively ’70s slow jams from artists such as Earth, Wind & Fire, Stylistics, Norman Connors, The Spinners, Shalamar, Phyllis Hyman and Rose Royce that lasts even longer than a D-Nice DJ set on Instagram.
Just set it and forget it – whether you are cooking on the BBQ, laying by the pool, reading in the shade, social distance drinking from red Solo cups in the backyard, watching the kids squirt the hose at each other, or just cleaning up the house by yourself with the windows open and the ceiling fans spinning. Crank it up and enjoy!
Children’s BLM protest organizer Nolan Davis (photo: Bailey Elizabeth Rogers)
“We are the children, the mighty mighty children. Here to tell you, Black lives matter!” hundreds of children chanted as they marched down sidewalks in Kirkwood, MO with their parents on Saturday, according to cnn.com.
Nolan Davis, 8, decided to organize the Black Lives Matter march for children in his hometown after attending a few other protests in the area with his mother Kristin Davis.
“Right after that, he asked me if he could have his own march so that he could let other people’s voices be heard,” his mother, Kristin Davis, told CNN.
So the two created a flyer for their “Children’s Black Lives Matter March” and shared it to Facebook, asking families to meet at Kirkwood Park.
“We thought that maybe 50 people would be there,” Nolan Davis said. “But there were like 700 people.”
Children of different races covered the sidewalks in chalk with phrases such as “Stop Racism” and “Be Kind to Everyone.” They marched with posters in their hands that read among other things “Black Children’s Futures Matter.”
Nolan Davis led the way with his poster that read, “Kids can make a change.”
Despite being a child in elementary school, Nolan Davis has already been taught the ways he needs to act differently in society compared to his White friends, such as playing with water guns only in the backyard “because you don’t want it to get mistaken for something else” or keeping the hood of his hoodie down, according to Kristin Davis.
As his White, adoptive mother, Kristin Davis acknowledged that she would never understand the fear that her Black son and daughter, five-year-old Caroline, would feel as they grow up. But she said she knew these talks were necessary to keep them safe.
“We’re preparing them for when they’re older and taller and bigger. When they’re not going to be perceived as cute little kids anymore,” she said.
Nolan Davis doesn’t like that there are different rules in society based on one’s skin color, which is why he organized the march.
He’s hoping he’ll inspire other children to use their voices and coe together to do the same.
While Ms. Canedy has never worked for a publishing house, she has written a book: a memoir called 
