The 2023 calendar’s official drop date is Tuesday, November 1, and if you pre-order now at Workman.com using the code: CALENDAR22 from now until December 31, you will receive 20% off.
A Year of Good Black Newsoffers fun Black facts about inventors, artists, entrepreneurs, musicians, comedians, historians, educators, athletes and entertainers.
We’re introducing new monthly categories for 2023 like “In The Paint: Black Artists,” and “Hit The Books: Black Authors,” along with established ones like “Lemme Break It Down: Black Lexicon,”“We Got Game: Black Trivia,”“Get The Knowledge: Black Museums and Landmarks” and “You Know We Did That, Right?: Black Inventors.”
Here’s a sneak peek inside:
Although I’m biased because I wrote it, the A Year of Good Black News calendar is an awesome way to get inspired every day by the good things Black people do (and have done) for centuries, but haven’t always been widely known or shared.
It’s also a great gift for family members, friends, teachers, children and loved ones. Did I mention if you use the code: CALENDAR22 at Workman.com, you get 20% off?
Or, if you prefer, you can also order from the retailers below:
Today, GBN celebrates revolutionary and insightful comedian, writer and actor Richard Pryor as we highlight a joke from his 1983 comedy concert film Here and Now, which is as relevant now as it was almost 40 years ago.
To read about Pryor, read on. To hear about him, press PLAY:
[You can subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or listen every day here on the main page. Full transcript below]:
Hey, this is Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Wednesday, April 27th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
It’s in the category for Black Comedians we call “Yeah, You Funny” and it’s a quote of a joke from groundbreaking and innovative comedian Richard Pryor, taken from his self-directed 1983 concert film/documentary entitled Here and Now:
“I went to Zimbabwe. I know how white people feel in America now: relaxed! ‘Cause when I heard the police car, I knew they weren’t coming after me!”
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor, Sr. was born in Peoria, Illinois in 1940 and by his early 20s was a working comedian in nightclubs around the country, performing material that was funny but ultimately considered middlebrow and safe.
Pyror was about to perform another standard set in 1967 when, as he shared in his 1995 autobiography Pryor Convictions, he had an epiphany and walked away.
When he returned to comedy the next year, what he did was nothing short of revolutionary. Not only did he use profanity, he tackled social issues, racial issues and told real life stories as well as created characters to tell stories and delivery laser sharp satire and commentary on the human condition.
Pryor recorded several critically and commercially successful Grammy award winning comedy albums in the 1970s, starred in television specials, his own short-lived television series, several movies like Uptown Saturday Night, Which Way Is Up?, Bingo Long and the Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, Silver Streak and Stir Crazy, as well as his wildly popular comedy concert films, 1979’s Richard Pryor: Live In Concert, 1982’s Richard Pryor: Live on The SunsetStrip and 1983’s Here and Now, which he also directed and where today’s quote is from.
Pryor’s difficult childhood and troubles with substance abuse informed his comedy as well – making his searing observations all the more poignant and intimate when he chose to turn his commentary inward.
Pryor had health challenges from the mid-1980s until his passing in 2005, but worked whenever he could, and remained acknowledged and respected for his contributions to the evolution of stand-up comedy as an art form.
Known as “the comedian’s comedian,” in 1998, Pryor was the first comedian to receive the now-coveted Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Arts, and in 2006 was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2015, a life-size bronze statue of Pryor was unveiled in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois with the title “Richard Pryor: More Than Just a Comedian.”
You can also watch the 2013 documentary Richard Pyror: Omit the Logic, now on Hulu, the 2019 documentary I Am Richard Pryor, or the 2021 episode of ABC.com’s Superstarseries dedicated to Pryor.
There are also several DVD collections available of his feature films and his filmed concerts, and of course, his comedy albums. Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episodes full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, written, produced and hosted by me, Lori Lakin Hutcherson.
Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, follow us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):
SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, this Lori Lakin Hutcherson, founder and editor in chief of goodblacknews.org, here to share with you a daily drop of Good Black News for Saturday, March 19th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing. It’s in the category for Black Comedians we call, “Yeah, You Funny”:
Jackie “Moms” Mabley was the first woman comedian in the U.S. to have a long-lasting and successful career. Born #onthisday in 1894, in Brevard, North Carolina, Mabley got her start performing on vaudeville’s “chitlin’ circuit” for years before becoming widely known from the 1940s to the 1970s for her movie appearances, hit comedy albums, variety show guest spots, and as a headlining stand-up act at venues such as the Apollo Theater, where she appeared more than any other performer in history.
Mabley mostly played the character of an older woman in a housedress who offered subtle commentary on politics, racism, sexism… all while musing on her desire for younger men.
Today we share one of Mabley’s clever quips of the latter variety, which juxtaposed so greatly with her presentation and still feels contemporary:
“There ain’t nothin’ an old man can do for me but bring me a message from a young one.”
All albums are available to stream on Apple Music and some of them are also on Spotify. You can also check out Wanda Sykes’ Emmy-nominated portrayal of Moms Mabley in the Amazon original series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Links to these sources and more are provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.
This has been a daily drop of Good Black News, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022,” published by Workman Publishing. Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.
If you like these Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a rating or review, share links to your favorite episodes, or go old school and tell a friend.
For more Good Black News, check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.
And today, in honor of Moms Mabley’s birthday, we’re closing with a snippet of her version of “Abraham, Martin and John,” written by Dick Holler:
A Year of Good Black News, written by yours truly, is filled with facts, history, bios, quotes, jokes and trivia in easy-to-read entries delivered on the daily.
The calendar’s official drop date is Tuesday, October 12, and if you pre-order at Workman.com using the code: GOODBLACKNEWS from now until December 31, you will receive 20% off.
A Year of Good Black Newsoffers fun Black facts about inventors, entrepreneurs, musicians, comedians, historians, educators, athletes and entertainers, as well as info shared in fun fact categories like “Lemme Break It Down: Black Lexicon,” “We Got Game: Black Trivia,” “Get The Knowledge: Black Museums and Landmarks” and “You Know We Did That, Right?: Black Inventors.”
Here’s a sneak peek inside:
Although I’m biased because I wrote it, the A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day 2022 calendar is an awesome way to get inspired every day by the good things Black people do (and have done) for centuries, but haven’t always been widely known or shared.
Well, no more! If this site is for you, this calendar is, too!
It’s also a great gift for family members, friends, teachers, kids and loved ones. Did I mention if you use the code: GOODBLACKNEWS at Workman.com, you get 20% off?
Or, if you prefer, you can also order from the retailers below:
The fact that some of the best political and cultural commentary in the U.S. is coming out of from late-evening comedy shows (e.g. The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver, The Amber Ruffin Show) instead of news or current affairs programs is a reality we’ll attempt to unpack another time.
Today, please take seven and a half minutes to watch Amber Ruffin brilliantly (and amusingly) break down in her “How Culture Wars and White Supremacy Go Together Like ‘Green Eggs and Ham'” segment why “culture wars” serve as a smokescreen for many politicians to avoid real issues and create policies to empower the few over the many in our Video of the Week:
Oh, and in case you missed it, John Oliver and his team pretty much hit it out of the park on the history of discrimination towards Black hair and hairstyles in the U.S:
“Saturday Night Live” star and writer Michael Che has turned his grief into action to help others.
After his grandmother died from the coronavirus this month, on Instagram Wednesday Che offered to pay rent for all the residents in the apartment complex where she lived.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_BRjZXpkMd/
Che’s grandmother Martha died April 5 after contracting COVID-19. “I’m obviously very hurt and angry that she had to go through all that pain alone,” Che wrote at the time. “But I’m also happy that she’s not in pain anymore.”
During “SNL’s” home edition last weekend, Che paid tribute by signing off “Weekend Update” as “Martha’s grandbaby.”
The Hutchins Center for African and African American Research honors eight distinguished people with the W.E.B. Du Bois Medal. Honorees include Colin Kaepernick, Dave Chappelle, Kenneth I. Chenault, Shirley Ann Jackson, Pamela J. Joyner, Florence C. Ladd, Bryan Stevenson, and Kehinde Wiley. (Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer)
With powerful, poignant speeches from presenters and honorees alike, this year’s W.E.B. Du Bois Medal awards felt more like a gospel church service-cum-rock concert than an academic award ceremony.
Athlete and social activist Colin Kaepernick set the tone before an exhilarated crowd that included some 150 local high school students, declaring that people in positions of privilege and power have a “responsibility” to speak up for the powerless.
“People live with this every single day and we expect them to thrive in situations where they’re just trying to survive,” said the NFL free agent who famously took a knee during pregame national anthems to protest racial injustice in America. “If we don’t, we become complicit. It is our duty to fight for them.”
Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, dedicated his award to the “people who did so much more with so much less.” (Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer)
Kaepernick was one of the eight laureates who received medals at Sanders Theatre on Thursday night. Others were comedian Dave Chappelle; writer and social critic Florence C. Ladd; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson; renowned artist Kehinde Wiley; General Catalyst chairman and CEO Kenneth I. Chenault; philanthropist and Avid Partners founder Pamela J. Joyner; and human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson.
The awards are bestowed by the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research for contributions to African and African-American history and culture. Ladd, the former director of the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe, donned her medal, then pumped her fist in the air and told the cheering crowd: “A takeaway must be protest, protest, protest.”
Pamela J. Joyner and Dave Chappelle enjoy hearing parts of Chappelle’s famous skit “The Racial Draft” being recited by incoming Dean of Social Science Lawrence D. Bobo. (Jon Chase/Harvard Staff Photographer)
Stevenson, M.P.P. ’85, J.D. ’85, L.L.D. ’15, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, dedicated his award to “people who did so much more with so much less” and asked the audience to think of hope as “your superpower.” To the students, he made a more pointed request: “You’ve got to be willing to do uncomfortable things. You’ve got to be willing to do inconvenient things. Don’t ever think that your grades are a measure of your capacity.” Stevenson himself won a historic Supreme Court ruling that declared that mandatory sentences of life without parole for children 17 or younger are unconstitutional.
Moments of humor punctuated the call to resistance, particularly when presenter and incoming Dean of Social Science Lawrence D. Bobo recited parts of Chappelle’s famous skit “The Racial Draft.“ He called the comedian a “teller of uncomfortable truths.”
Chappelle, for his part, praised his parents, especially his mother, a professor of African-American studies. “She raised me well. I am not an uninformed person,” he said.
Chappelle said he was humbled to be on stage with his fellow honorees: “You all make me want to be better,” he said. He promised another comedy special and ended his speech with a quote from favorite writer James Baldwin’s book “The Fire Next Time.”
“God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water. The fire next time.”
Hutchins Center director Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor, reflected on the critical nature of the honorees’ work in the fight for racial and social justice.
“When we recall the dramatic progress we’ve made in this country’s struggle for civil rights, it’s tempting to remember only our long arc of progress. But we find ourselves in a new nadir in our country’s race relations,” he said, quoting Du Bois, the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard.
“Agitation is a necessary evil to tell of the ills of the suffering. Without it, many a nation has been lulled to false security and preened itself with virtues it did not possess.”
According to Variety.com, all four winners in the guest actor categories were black for the first time in Television Academy Awards history.
Presented tonight at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards ceremony, Tiffany Haddish won best guest actress in a comedy for hosting “Saturday Night Live,”Samira Wiley won best guest actress in a drama for “The Handmaid’s Tale,”Ron Cephas Jones won best guest actor in a drama for “This Is Us,” and Katt Williams won best guest actor in a comedy for “Atlanta.”
Comedians Williams and Haddish won in their first year being nominated, while both Jones and Wiley had been nominated previously.
As Variety noted when this year’s Emmy nominees were announced, 36 actors of color were nominated this for the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards, up 20% from the year before, amid a larger push in the entertainment industry for diversity and inclusion in television, in front of and behind the camera.
Kenya Barris has become the newest big-ticket addition to Netflix’s lineup of television producers.
The “Black-ish” creator has signed a three-year overall deal with the streaming service that will see him produce series exclusively for Netflix. According to a source with knowledge of the negotiations, the deal, which carries an option for an additional two years, is valued at roughly $100 million — putting Barris in the same ballpark as recent Netflix recruits Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy.
Barris’ departure from ABC Studios, where he was under an overall deal, became official last month. But according to insiders, his release from his ABC deal had been secured several months ago, and the basics of his new Netflix agreement had also been in place for some time.
Barris’ relationship with ABC began to show signs of strain in March when Variety reported that the network had indefinitely shelved an episode of “Black-ish” that he wrote and directed, titled “Please, Baby, Please,” which touched on current events, including controversy over athletes kneeling during performances of the national anthem. Barris told Variety at the time, “Given our creative differences, neither ABC nor I were happy with the direction of the episode and mutually agreed not to air it.”
According to a source with knowledge of the situation, Disney-owned ABC’s concerns were related to comments that characters made in the episode about President Donald Trump, not to the football storyline.
A month later, reports surfaced that Barris was being courted by Netflix for an overall deal. But his ability to pursue a Netflix deal was complicated by the renewal of his ABC agreement that he signed last year, and which ran through 2021. Barris had to secure an exit from ABC before moving to Netflix.
With his departure from ABC Studios last month, Barris stepped away from his post as co-showrunner of “Black-ish,” but will continue to serve as executive producer. Barris also has “Black-ish” spinoff “Grown-ish” at Disney cable channel Freeform, where he will continue to be an EP.
“Black-ish” has been a rarity among broadcast comedies in recent years — drawing solid ratings and robust critical praise, particularly for episodes addressing complex social issues. It also, when it premiered in 2014, was the first broadcast comedy in years to feature an African-American family. It has been nominated for 12 Primetime Emmy Awards over its run, and this year received its third Emmy nomination for outstanding comedy series. It received a Peabody Award in 2016, and a Golden Globe Award in 2017 for actress Tracee Ellis Ross.
“Kenya Barris is one of our great modern storytellers,” said Cindy Holland, vice president, original content at Netflix. “Kenya uses his voice to make audiences more aware of the world around them, while simultaneously making them laugh. His honesty, comedic brilliance and singular point of view, combined with the creative freedom he will enjoy at Netflix, promises to create powerful new stories for all our members around the world.”
Barris added, “When my agents reached out to me about this little garage start-up called Netflix, I wasn’t sure what to think. But after I talked to Ted and Cindy, I started to believe that maybe this mom-and-pop shop with only 130 million subscribers might just be something… so I decided to take a swing… a leap of faith if you will, and take a chance with the new kids on the block.”
With his new agreement, Barris joins the ranks of television’s highest paid creators. In the last year, Netflix has signed Rhimes and Murphy to nine-figure deals as it continues to grow its original-programming volume in an increasingly robust challenge to the traditional pay-TV business. The streaming service last month revealed an initial programming slate from Rhimes that includes eight new series projects.
According to Variety.com, New Line Cinema has purchased “The Come Up,” an original comedy screenplay pitch from “Sorry to Bother You” co-star Jermaine Fowler. Fowler, who also starred in the CBS series “Superior Donuts,” will star and also serve as executive producer.
The project will also feature Lil Rel Howery (“Get Out,” “Uncle Drew” and the upcoming Fox series “Rel”) and brothers Keith Lucas and Kenneth Lucas as co-stars. The screenplay will be written by Michael Starrbury (“The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete” and “Central Park Five”).
“I am excited to be collaborating with New Line Cinema, Wrigley Pictures and our screenwriter Michael Starburry on ‘The Come Up’ – a project I have been passionate about for years now,” Fowler said in a statement. “Since bringing the concept to them it’s been nothing but synergy and raw excitement. As an actor, it is a dream come true to be working opposite my comedy brothers, Lil Rel Howery and The Lucas Brothers. I am grateful they’ve come on board to tell this hilarious and inspiring story with me.”
When he returned to comedy the next year, what he did was nothing short of revolutionary. Not only did he use profanity, he tackled social issues, racial issues and told real life stories as well as created characters to tell stories and delivery laser sharp satire and commentary on the human condition.
