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Chaz Ebert to Produce Emmett Till Biopic

By goodblacknews on May 15, 2015

Chaz Ebert poses for a portrait at the 'THE END OF THE TOUR' Screening at Virginia Theatre on April 16, 2015 in Champaign, Illinois
Chaz Ebert (Photo via eurweb.com)

Shatterglass Films and Chaz Ebert, the wife of the late Roger Ebert, said they will adapt the Emmett Till book “Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America” into a feature film.
The book, co-written by Till’s mother Mamie Till and journalist Christopher Benson, was nominated for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the death of Till, who was 14 years old and visiting relatives in the Mississippi Delta when he was slain after allegedly whistling at a white woman. The 1955 murder made headlines around the world and set in motion the civil rights movement that was to come.
Emmett Till
His story has been the subject of several documentaries including the 2003 PBS American Experience film “The Murder Of Emmett Till” and Keith Beauchamp’s 2003 “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till.”
“The full Emmett Till story needs to be told now and told well as a narrative for our times, given all that is happening on American streets today, and Shatterglass Films are the people to tell it,” Ebert said.
The plan is to wrap principal photography next year after shoots in Chicago, the Mississippi Delta and Central Illinois, according to Deadline.com.
article via eurweb.com

Dee Rees and Shonda Rhimes Developing Historical Drama ‘Warmth of Other Suns’ For FX

By goodblacknews on May 5, 2015
Shonda Rhimes, Dee Rees Developing 'Warmth
“Pariah” and “Bessie” director Dee Rees (CINDY ORD/GETTY IMAGES FOR HBO)

FX is developing a limited historical drama series with writer-director Dee Rees and Shondaland based on Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 book “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.”
The book chronicles the movement of some 6 million African-Americans from the south into the north and western regions of the country from the period of 1915 to 1970. “Warmth of Other Suns” tells much of the story through the eyes of three characters who made the journey in different decades. Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize winner for her work at the New York Times, earned a host of critical acclaim for the book.
The TV adaptation is in the early stages of development. FX Prods. is shepherding with ABC Signature, the cable arm of ABC Studios, where Shondaland is based. Rees is writing the adaptation and exec producing with Shonda Rhimes and Shondaland’s Besty Beers.
Rees most recently wrote and directed HBO’s Bessie Smith biopic “Bessie,” which bows May 16. She made her feature directing debut in 2011 with the Sundance hit “Pariah.”
article by Cynthia Littleton via Variety.com

Sjohnna McCray Wins the 2015 Walt Whitman Award from Academy of American Poets

By goodblacknews on May 3, 2015

Sjohnna McCray (Photo: savannahstate.edu)
Sjohnna McCray (Photo: savannahstate.edu)

Sjohnna McCray, an adjunct instructor in the department of English at Savannah State University in Georgia, has been selected to receive the 2015 Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. The award, established in 1975, honors a poet of “exceptional promise” who has not yet published a book of poetry.
As the winner of the Walt Whitman Award, McCray will have his collection of poems entitled Rapture published by Graywolf Press in 2016. He will also receive an all-expenses-paid six-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy.
McCray is a native of Cincinnati and is a graduate of Ohio University. He earned a master’s degree at Teachers College of Columbia University and a master of fine arts degree from the University of Virginia.
article via jbhe.com

LeVar Burton, Will Packer Produce "Roots" Remake to Air on History, A&E and Lifetime Next Year

By goodblacknews on April 30, 2015

rootscover“Roots” is returning to TV next year as a big-ticket event series production to air across History, A&E Network and Lifetime next year.
Producer Will Packer and LeVar Burton, an original “Roots” cast member, are shepherding the project with Mark Wolper, son of the original producer of the 1977 ABC miniseries, David L. Wolper.
Lawrence Konner, Mark Rosenthal, Alison McDonald and Charles Murray are on board to write the new rendition of the saga of Kunta Kinte, which follows his capture in Africa as a young man through his enslavement in colonial America. “Roots” is based on Alex Haley’s landmark novel of the same name.

Actor/Producer LeVar Burton
Actor/Producer LeVar Burton

“My career began with ‘Roots’ and I am proud to be a part of this new adaptation,” said Burton. “There is a huge audience of contemporary young Americans who do not know the story of ‘Roots’ or its importance. I believe now is the right time to tell this story so that we can all be reminded of its impact on our culture and identity.”
The original eight-part miniseries was a sleeper megahit for ABC that aired over consecutive nights in January 1977. There’s no word yet on how many hours the new “Roots” will run.
A&E Networks execs said producers will work closely with historians and other experts to incorporate new information about the historical period uncovered since the original book and mini were released.
“Kunta Kinte began telling his story over 200 years ago and that story went through his family lineage, to Alex Haley, to my father, and now the mantle rests with me,” said Wolper. “Like Kunta Kinte fought to tell his story over and over again, so must we.”
Said Packer: “The opportunity to present one of America’s most powerful stories to a generation that hasn’t seen it is tremendously exciting. Contemporary society needs this story and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
article by Cynthia Littleton via Variety.com

Viola Davis Developing Harriet Tubman Movie at HBO

By goodblacknews on April 27, 2015
Viola Davis Developing Harriet Tubman Movie
Viola Davis (BARRY KING/GETTY IMAGES)

Viola Davis is attached to star in an HBO telepic about the life of Harriet Tubman, the activist who helped devise a system that allowed hundreds of slaves to escape to freedom via the Underground Railroad.
Davis is developing the project with Amblin TV and writer Kirk Ellis, who has penned historical projects for HBO including its “John Adams” miniseries, and “Entourage” exec producer Doug Ellin. The untitled movie is based on the book “Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman: Portrait of an American Hero” by Kate Clifford Larson.
Davis is executive producing with her partner and husband, Julius Tennon; Amblin’s Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank; Ellin; Jim Lefkowitz; and Cliff Dorfman.
The movie is in the early development stage and has not been given the go-ahead for production. But  it’s eyed for filming during Davis’ hiatus next year from her hit ABC drama “How to Get Away With Murder.”
Tubman became an American icon as a woman who escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1849 and helped organize a network of safe houses to help her relatives. She eventually helped hundreds of slaves to secure their freedom and became the most famous “conductor” on the network.  During the Civil War, Tubman served with the Union Army as a cook and a nurse, but she was eventually pressed into service as a spy.
Tubman is not the only African-American historical figure that Davis has sought to portray onscreen. The actress has been developing a feature film based on the life of pioneering congresswoman Barbara Jordan.
article by Cynthia Littleton via Variety.com

Gregory Pardlo's 'Digest' Wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

By goodblacknews on April 22, 2015

Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Gregory Pardlo (Photo:
Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet Gregory Pardlo (Photo: poetry foundation.org)

“Digest” by Gregory Pardlo has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.  The judges cited Pardlo’s “clear-voiced poems that bring readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and histories public and private.”
Pardlo was born in Philadelphia and grew up in Willingboro, New Jersey. Currently, he is an associate editor for the literary journal Callaloo and a contributing editor for Painted Bride Quarterly. Pardlo’s poems, reviews, and translations have been widely published and are noted for “language simultaneously urban and highbrow… snapshots of a life that is so specific it becomes universal.” He lives in Brooklyn.
To learn more about Pardlo and his work, click here.
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (follow @lakinhutcherson)

Pomona College English Professor Claudia Rankine Wins National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry

By goodblacknews on April 1, 2015

Professor and National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Claudia Rankine
Professor and National Book Critics Circle Award Winner Claudia Rankine (PHOTO: kcrw.com)

Claudia Rankine, the Henry G. Lee Professor of English at Pomona College in Claremont, California, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for her book Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press, 2014).
Rankine’s poetry recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Citizen is her fifth published poetry collection.1416441763-citizen
Earlier this year, Professor Rankine made literary history when she was the first author to have a work nominated as a finalist in two categories in the 39-year history of the National Book Critics Circle Awards.
Professor Rankine is a native of Jamaica. She is a graduate of Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and holds a master of fine arts degree in poetry from Columbia University.
article via jbhe.com

Ruth Negga Lands Female Lead in AMC Pilot "Preacher"

By goodblacknews on March 23, 2015

Tulip Ruth NeggaAgents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Ruth Negga has been cast as the female lead in Preacher, AMC’s drama pilot based on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s cult 1990s comic. The project, from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is about Jesse Custer, a conflicted Preacher in a small Texas town who merges with a creature that has escaped from heaven and develops the ability to make anyone do anything he says. Along with his ex-girlfriend, Tulip (Negga) — Jesse’s former and only true love — and an Irish vampire named Cassidy, the three embark on a journey to literally find God. Tulip is described as a volatile, action-packed, sexified force of nature, a capable, unrepentant criminal with a love of fashion and ability to construct helicopter-downing bazookas out of coffee cans and corn shine who’s not afraid to steal, kill or corn cob-stab her way out of a bad situation.

Negga is the first actor cast in Preacher, from Sony TV and AMC Studios. Agent Carter’s Dominic Cooper has been rumored for the lead, Jesse. Rogen and Goldberg developed the project for television and will direct the pilot, written by Sam Catlin who serves as showrunner.
RELATED: Networks Casting More Actors of Color This Pilot Season
Negga has comic book credentials with her recurring role as Raina on ABC’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. In features, she shot the titular role of the Irish drama Iona, directed by Scott Graham. Negga was recently seen in the Jimi Hendrix biopic All Is By My Side and next plays Lady Taria in another high-profile genre project, Warcraft. 
This marks the second consecutive comic book-based drama project, in which Sony has cast a minority actress as the female lead, drawn as Caucasian in the comics.Preacher joins the studio’s Playstation series Powers co-starring Susan Heyward.
article by Nellie Andreeva via deadline.com

New Book Series Planned on the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection

By goodblacknews on March 13, 2015

mlk_briefcase1
Dr. King’s briefcase and other items from the Morehouse MLK Collection

The University of Georgia Press and Morehouse College have announced that they will develop a new book series based on the Martin Luther King Jr. collection held at Morehouse. The archive at Morehouse contains more than 10,000 items including handwritten letters, manuscripts, memorabilia, speeches and sermons, and 1,000 books from Dr. King’s personal library, many of which have handwritten notes on the pages.
The new book series will use the items in the archives to provide new analysis on Dr. King’s views on poverty, racial discrimination, nonviolence, capitalism, education, civil rights, and the Vietnam War.
crawford.Vicki L. Crawford, director of the Morehouse Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, said that “we are excited about the opportunity to collaborate with the University of Georgia Press to publish a series of books inspired by the unparalleled documents in the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection. As a gathering of teachable texts, this series is an important step in our mission to foster greater understanding of Dr. King and the movement for civil and human rights.”
Dr. Crawford is the co-editor of Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965  (Indiana University Press, 1993). She holds a Ph.D. in American studies from Emory University in Atlanta.
article via jbhe.com

Duke University Debuts Website Documenting SNCC & the Voting Rights Struggle

By goodblacknews on March 12, 2015

Vq1ywrurDuke University in Durham, North Carolina, has just debuted a new website documenting the struggle of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to secure voting rights for African Americans. The site, entitled “One Person, One Vote: The Legacy of the SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights,” went live one week before the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights march in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.
Students and faculty at Duke University worked with veterans of SNCC and other civil rights leaders to develop the website. The site includes a timeline, profiles of the key figures in the struggle to secure voting rights, and stories relating to the struggle.
5193ppoofzL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Wesley Hogan, the director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the author of Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), stated that “this is an enormous achievement, to find ways to bring these experts who were so central to the voting rights struggle, into the formal historical record through their own words and on their own terms. The project comes at a moment when our nation is both commemorating key victories of the civil rights movement and seeing those victories challenged by new restrictive voting laws in many states.”
 
[vimeo 87707071 w=500 h=281]
article via jbhe.com