Almost one hundred years after its heyday, the Harlem Renaissance is all the rage once again.
Streaming giant Netflix is currently in talks to acquire Passing, the film adaptation of Nella Larsen‘s 1929 novel that examines the relationship of two biracial women in the 1920s where one chooses to hide her Black ancestry and “pass” for white.
Directed and adapted by Rebecca Hall and produced by Significant Productions partners Forest Whitaker and Nina Yang Bongiovi along with Hall and Margot Hand, the movie stars Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga in the lead roles.
Passing premiered last Saturday as part of the U.S. Dramatic Competition lineup for Sundance’s virtual 2021 film festival.
Amanda Gorman, 22, is set to become the youngest inaugural poet in memory when she recites her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” at President-elect Joe Biden‘s inauguration tomorrow, according to thehill.com.
So honored to be the Inaugural Poet reciting at #InaugurationDay ! Not only am I excited to see @JoeBiden@KamalaHarris sworn in, but I also have the privilege of being the youngest Inaugural Poet in history. See you soon! https://t.co/b58CiVxMCD
In 2014, Harvard University graduate Gorman became the the first Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles. Three years later she was named the country’s first National Youth Poet Laureate. She will carry on the tradition for Democratic presidents of having celebrated poets read an original piece at inauguration ceremonies.
According to The Associated Press, Gorman said she had been recommended to Biden’s inaugural committee by incoming first lady Dr. Jill Biden.
Gorman’s poem will follow in the line of noteworthy works by celebrated poets such as Robert Frost and Maya Angelou. Angelou’s “On the Pulse of Morning,” written for the 1993’s inauguration of President Clinton, sold more than 1 million copies when published in book form.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, best-selling author (How to Be An Antiracist) and academic Dr. Ibram X. Kendi has signed a deal with Netflix to develop projects based on three of his books on race, racism and race relations.
Kendi’s book Stamped From The Beginningwill be a hybrid documentary/feature adapted and executive produced by Kendi and Mara Brock Akil(Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane, Black Lightning). Roger Ross Williams, the first Black director to win an Oscar (for the documentary short Music by Prudence), will direct and produce through his One Story Up banner.
Dr. Ibram X. Kendi (photo via ibramxkendi.com)
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You, which Kendi co-wrote with best-selling author Jason Reynolds (All American Boys, The Long Way Down) for the Young Adult market, will also be directed and produced by Williams, with Kendi executive producing. This YA documentary will pair as a companion to Stamped From the Beginning to explain how racism in America originated and has persisted, with the aim of learning how to counter it.
Antiracist Baby, Kendi’s children’s book bestseller, will be adapted into a series of musical animated shorts, executive produced by Kendi and Chris Nee, creator of the Peabody-winning Disney Junior series Doc McStuffins.
The musical shorts will focus on the nine steps to being antiracist as explained in Kendi’s 2020 board book (illustrated by Ashley Lukashevsky), which already has been featured in Netflix’s preschool series Bookmarks: Celebrating Black Voices.
[Top L to R: Monika Schleier-Smith, Ralph Lemon, N.K. Jemisin, Jacqueline Woodson; Bottom L to R: Fred Moten, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Catherine Coleman Flowers, Tressie McMillan Cottom and Thomas Wilson Mitchell; photos courtesy macfound.org]
Every year, the MacArthur Fellows Program awards its recipients a $625,000 “no strings attached” grant, an investment in a person’s originality, insight, and potential so they may continue to “exercise their own creative instincts for the benefit of human society.”
In 2020, nine of the 21 “geniuses” that have been selected are Black. Among them are award-winning author N.K. Jemisin who wrote the science fiction series The Broken Earth Trilogy, and Jacqueline Woodson, who wrote the young adult books Brown Girl Dreaming and Harbor Me, among others.
Sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom, artist Ralph Lemon, environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers, law scholar Thomas Wilson Mitchell and experimental physicist Monika Schleier-Smithare among the other 2020 MacArthur Fellows. A full list and brief bios follow below:
N. K. Jemisin is a speculative fiction writer exploring deeply human questions about structural racism, environmental crises, and familial relationships while immersing readers in intricately imagined, fantastical worlds. The societies she constructs are populated by protagonists who push against the conventions of earlier-era science fiction and epic fantasy, which often feature male-dominated casts of characters and draw heavily from the legends of medieval Europe. Her multi-volume sagas counterbalance the monumental themes of oppression and exploitation with attentiveness to the more intimate inner workings of families and communities and the range of emotions—from love to rage, resentment to empathy—that they inspire.
Jemisin’s most recent novel, The City We Became(2020), is the first in what will become her Great Cities series and features present-day New York not only as its setting but also as a sentient entity itself. Invading and homogenizing forces threaten the metropolis she depicts and must be fended off by a team of human avatars—comprised primarily of people of color, male and female, queer and straight—who embody the diverse histories and distinct personalities of the city’s boroughs. The novel dramatizes the city’s own legacies of racism and both references and critiques the xenophobic and racist views of H. P. Lovecraft, whose horror fiction has had a profound impact on popular culture.
Jacqueline Woodson is a writer redefining children’s and young adult literature in works that reflect the complexity and diversity of the world we live in while stretching young readers’ intellectual abilities and capacity for empathy. In nearly thirty publications that span picture books, young adult novels, and poetry, Woodson crafts stories about Black children, teenagers, and families that evoke the hopefulness and power of human connection even as they tackle difficult issues such as the history of slavery and segregation, incarceration, interracial relationships, social class, gender, and sexual identity.
In the picture book Show Way (2005), also a picture book, Woodson tells the story of a quilt that was passed down through generations from enslaved ancestors who stitched the route to freedom on the quilt. Through sympathetic and convincingly developed characters and spare, poetic writing, Woodson portrays the search for self-definition and self-acceptance in which young readers are actively engaged.
In Harbor Me (2018), Woodson employs a unique structure: the text of the novel is ostensibly derived from recordings of weekly conversations among six middle school classmates from various racial and socioeconomic backgrounds. The conceit of the recordings allows the reader to intimately witness the characters’ efforts to confront their fears, biases, and confusion around topics like racial profiling, deportation, and incarcerated parents.
Tressie McMillan Cottom is a sociologist, writer, and public scholar shaping discourse on pressing issues at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology. In work across multiple platforms, ranging from academic scholarship to essays and social media engagement, McMillan Cottom combines analytical insights and personal experiences in a frank, accessible style of communication that resonates with broad audiences within and outside of academia.
In her book-length study of for-profit colleges, Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (2017), McMillan Cottom explores the rapid growth of these institutions in the context of rising inequality in the United States. The book has reverberated amongst educators and policymakers and has influenced recent policy debates about the racial, gender, and class inequalities of educational institutions.
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.”
Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo just won Book of the Year and Author of the Year at the British Book Awards, respectively, becoming the first Black authors to win these top prizes.
According to guardian.com, Carty-Williams won Book of the Year for Queenie, her debut novel about a young black woman navigating life and love in London. The award is judged on quality of writing, innovation of publishing, and sales.
“Carty-Williams said she was proud and grateful to win, but also “sad and confused” that she was the first Black writer to receive the top award.
“Overall, this win makes me hopeful that although I’m the first, the industry are waking up to the fact that I shouldn’t and won’t be the last,” said the author.
“The power of Queenie is the way it makes you feel: energised; moved; comforted. It is such an assured and original piece of debut fiction,” said judge Pandora Sykes. “Weighty issues about identity, race, family, heterosexuality and mental health are distilled into prose which is easily digestible, but extremely impactful.”
Evaristo, the joint winner of last year’s Booker prize for her polyphonic novel Girl, Woman, Other, was named author of the year at the British Book awards, also making her the first black writer to win in that category.
Evaristo also won the fiction category, beating her fellow Booker winner Margaret Atwood to the prize. The novelist, who became the first black British woman to top the fiction paperback charts earlier this month, said she was honoured.
“This is such an interesting moment in our cultural history because the Black Lives Matter movement has generated an unprecedented amount of self-interrogating in the publishing industry,” said Evaristo, who described her recent experience topping the charts as “quite surreal.”
According to cnn.com, Kennedy Mitchum, 22, emailed Merriam-Webster last month to let the renowned dictionary publisher know that she thought its definition of the word racism was inadequate. She was surprised when an editor responded and that the company agreed to update the entry.
“Merriam-Webster’s first definition of racism is ‘a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.’
Mitchum said many people she’s talked to use that to dismiss her concerns about racism and overlook broader issues of racial inequality because they don’t personally feel that way about people of color.
Mitchum said she sent her email on a Thursday night and got a reply from editor Alex Chambers the next morning.
After a few emails, Chambers agreed that the entry should be updated and said a new definition is being drafted.
“This revision would not have been made without your persistence in contacting us about this problem,” Chambers said in the email, which was provided to CNN. “We sincerely thank you for repeatedly writing in and apologize for the harm and offense we have caused in failing to address this issue sooner.”
Peter Sokolowski, an editor at large at Merriam-Webster, told CNN that their entry also defines racism as “a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles” and “a political or social system founded on racism,” which would cover systematic racism and oppression.
“I think we can express this more clearly to bring the idea of an asymmetrical power structure into the language of this definition, but it’s there,” Sokolowski said.”
Music Supervisor Rob Lowry (Twitter: @robertlowry) was recently inspired by Han Martin‘s (Twitter: @hnicolemartin) “Resources for White Family” post to create his own version of a letter and resources to White friends and family and tweet it to anyone who wanted them.
Good Black News requested and was given permission by Lowry to share his document in its entirety, as especially now Black people are being asked for resources from White colleagues, friends and family, and already have way too much to handle. So why not just shortcut it for everybody?
Lowry’s intro, letter and resources below:
** To everyone reading this: Thank you for taking the time and making the effort to begin having necessary conversations. Please note that this is by no means exhaustive, nor is it “One Size Fits All,” and should be used as a template to revise and repurpose as you see fit.
This particular version is in many ways meant as a very simple spoon-fed entry way into this conversation. This was compiled from several templates and resources across the web.
You’ll see that I’ve started my resources with documentaries and movies as that is the easiest and most efficient media that someone is most likely to consume, especially if they can simply click Netflix and the documentary is waiting for them to stream. Please feel free to share, and I hope this proves to be a useful resource for you and your family and friends. **
Hello Family & Friends,
First and foremost, I hope everyone is healthy and safe. As our country goes through this difficult period, I have taken much time to reflect on my own privilege, racism (conscious or unconscious), and my education and evolution on those issues over the years. The last few days and weeks have understandably intensified those thoughts. This reflection has led me to reach out to my loved ones to engage and discuss how we can be better allies to Black and Brown people (especially those in the LGTBQ+ community) moving forward.
These conversations can be difficult. My hope is that by sending this message and opening up a dialogue among close family members, we can listen and learn together and figure out how each of us can play a role in supporting these communities who need our support now more than ever.
These unprecedented times are amplified in communities who directly suffer from racism, police brutality, and oppression on a day to day basis. We know the system is broken and the recent murders of George Floyd , Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, and Tony McDade are a direct result of the system that inherently promotes white supremacy. Below is a graphic to further illustrate how white supremacy expresses itself in our world and how, whether or not we are aware, we contribute to it:
As we all know, these murders are not an isolated incident but, rather, the results that come from a flawed system designed and built to oppress minorities. While protests rage on across the country, it is an opportunity for people with privilege (like our family) to listen, read, and educate ourselves so that we can play a role in promoting anti-racism. It is easy during times like this to look away and wait for things to settle back down and revert to how they were. But we can no longer do that. We have a responsibility to educate ourselves and be proactive in defending and supporting our fellow human beings. We have the ability to take action, invest in anti-racism, support minority communities, condemn racism and oppression and create a better country – for everyone.
It is not the burden of these communities to educate us; we must educate ourselves. We are lucky enough to live in a time where we have access to a wealth of information that we can use at the click of a button. Below is a list of documentaries, books, and other items readily accessible that we could spend a few hours reading or listening to and thinking about. My hope is that this can lead to a further discussion, as a family, of what we can do to be more supportive of these communities.
DOCUMENTARIES & FILMS
Here is a list of Social Justice Films & Documentaries to watch. Start with 13th. I would also recommend watching GET OUT, BLINDSPOTTING, DO THE RIGHT THING, 42, THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO, OJ: MADE IN AMERICA, A RAISIN IN THE SUN, DID YOU WONDER WHO FIRED THE GUN?, HALE COUNTY THIS MORNING, THIS EVENING
BOOKS
There is a plethora of literature on this topic – as a quick read and powerful introduction, I recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates “Between The World and Me” (BONUS POINTS FOR ORDERING FROM A LOCAL AND/OR BLACK OWNED BUSINESS RATHER THAN AMAZON). Here are some BLACK OWNED BOOK STORES across the country that could use your help
WHERE TO DONATE:
*Along with these charities, please google local organizations as well as victims’ families GoFundMe accounts that you can donate to and have a huge impact on their lives*
The Ida B. Wells Society – news trade organization dedicated to increasing and retaining reporters and editors of color in the field of investigative reporting
Black Lives Matter – mission is to eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes
Reclaim The Block – organizes Minneapolis community and city council members to move money from the police department into other areas of the city’s budget
Black Visions Collective – Black, queer, and trans-led Minnesota nonprofit organizes campaigns to cut police budgets, invest in community-driven safety strategies, train activists, and celebrate Black joy
Campaign Zero – calls on lawmakers on every level to end police violence by implementing comprehensive research-based policy solutions
Know Your Rights Camp – aims to advance Black and Brown youth education and self-empowerment through events and campaigns
Black Youth Project 100 – dedicated to advancing the Black community’s economic, social, political, and educational freedoms, through a Black queer feminist lens
NAACP Legal Fund – legal organization fighting for racial justice
(photo of wrongfully convicted brothers Wiley Bridgeman and Kwame Ajamu via moguldom.com)
Earlier this month, the city of Cleveland agreed to pay a combined $18 million to Rickey Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman and his brother Kwame Ajamu, three men who spent decades in prison for a 1975 killing they did not commit, according to cleveland.com.
The trio reached this settlement during an 12-hour mediation held by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster, and will end the lawsuits each man filed for the time they spent behind bars.
The men, now in their 60s, were convicted of murder in 1975 for the shooting of money order collector Harold Franks at what was then the Fairmont Cut Rate Store on the city’s East Side. The trio maintained their innocence and were cleared in 2014.
Jackson had served 39 years in prison and was believed at the time to have served the longest amount of time behind bars of anyone wrongfully convicted of a crime.
Ajamu, with tears frequently streaming down his face, said they were accepting the settlement because “we now know that you have no other reason and no other recourse but to tell the world that you wronged three little black boys 45 years ago.”
While thanking his lawyers Terry Gilbert and Jacqueline Greene of Friedman & Gilbert, Ajamu expressed gratitude but did not downplay the long fight he, his brother and friend undertook to clear their names.
“Money cannot buy freedom and money certainly does not make innocence,” said Ajamu, who in addition to Gilbert and Greene was also represented by attorney David Mills.
A jury in August 1975 found Jackson, Bridgeman and Ajamu, then known as Ronnie Bridgeman, guilty of murdering Franks. They were also convicted of trying to kill store owner Anna Robinson. Cuyahoga County prosecutors relied on the eyewitness testimony of young Eddie Vernon to prove their case.
A judge sentenced the men to death, though the sentences were reduced to life in 1978 when the state enacted a short-lived moratorium on the death penalty.
Nearly 40 years later, Vernon recanted his testimony and judges overturned the men’s criminal convictions. Vernon, who was 12 years old when Franks was killed, said in 2014 that city detectives pressured him to lie on the witness stand, which included threats to jail his parents, and that police manipulated him.
Bridgeman, 65, and Jackson, 63, were released in 2014 with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project, which obtained Vernon’s recantation. Ajamu, 62, was paroled in 2003. The story of the murder and the work done to secure their freedom was chronicled in a book called “Good Kids, Bad City” written by Kyle Swenson, now a reporter for The Washington Post who covered the case for the alternative weekly Cleveland Scene.
It’s no secret how much the Good Black News team loves and reveres Stevie Wonder, as we have been celebrating him throughout May with various tributes, posts and playlists on the main page and across our social media.
But today, on May 13, Stevie Wonder’s actual birthday, we want to offer you links to all things Stevie, like his official website, Instagram (which is playing Stevie music live all day!) and Twitter, the biography written about him, as well as the Wikipedia and Biography entries that encapsulate the his life and career in words and video.
But really, to know Stevie all you have to do is listen to his music, especially the songs that comprise the majority of his offerings to this world – album tracks never released as singles – aka Stevie Wonder’s Deep Cuts.
Our newest playlist is comprised solely of these songs, and arguably they are as moving and meaningful as his tunes that topped the charts.
In fact, many of these songs (“You and I,” “Too High,” “Bird of Beauty,” “Love’s In Need of Love Today,” “Rocket Love”) are more popular with Stevie stans than many of his global hits.
They are sequenced in chronological order (like our companion playlist of chart releases and hits “The Age of Wonder”) so the listener can hear the evolution of Stevie Wonder’s writing, production and sound. Enjoy – and Happy Birthday, Stevie! We love you!
Jemisin’s most recent novel, 
In 
While Ms. Canedy has never worked for a publishing house, she has written a book: a memoir called 
According to 
Evaristo, the joint winner of last year’s Booker prize for her polyphonic novel 
“Money cannot buy freedom and money certainly does not make innocence,” said Ajamu, who in addition to Gilbert and Greene was also represented by attorney David Mills.
But today, on May 13, Stevie Wonder’s actual birthday, we want to offer you links to all things Stevie, like his