Queen Bey’s “Black Parade” continues. And heading into July, she brings us the King.
Black Is King, written, directed and executive produced by 24-time Grammy® Award-winner Beyoncé, will premiere globally on Disney+ on July 31, 2020 and will arrive on the heels of the one-year anniversary of the release of Disney’s global phenomenon The Lion King.
This visual album from Beyoncé reimagines the lessons of The Lion King for today’s young kings and queens in search of their own crowns. The film was in production for one year with a cast and crew that represent diversity and connectivity.
The film is based on the music of “The Lion King: The Gift,” released last year in conjunction with the Disney pic, and stars the album’s featured artists and some special guest appearances.
The album features Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell, 070 Shake, Tierra Whack, Jay-Z, Blue Ivy Carter and Jessie Reyez, as well as African artists including Wizkid, Shatta Wale, Burna Boy, Mr Eazi, Tiwa Savage, Tekno, Yemi Alade, Busiswa and Salatiel.
According to an exclusive Variety.com report, Magnolia Pictures will premiere “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a new documentary about the Civil Rights icon and longtime congress member, in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Juneteenth.
The film, which Magnolia and Participant are distributing, will screen at Circle Cinema, a non-profit organization that operates from a theater that traces back to 1928.
The screenings will be free (theaters will be at 25% capacity) and are intended to serve as counter-programing to Donald Trump’s political rally on Saturday. That rally ignited a firestorm of backlash and condemnation because it was originally scheduled to take place on Juneteenth, a holiday stemming from Texas that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S.
Tulsa was the site of a race massacre in 1921 that has been called “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” Trump later moved the date of the rally back by a day.
“Our city is searching for ideas and ways to do peaceful protest of Trump,” Chuck Foxen, film programmer at Circle Cinema, told Variety. “This feels like a powerful way to celebrate the spirit and meaning of Juneteenth.”
Last week, Warner Bros. made Just Mercy, the 2019 feature film about attorney Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx free to view online all June.
HBO has done the same: True Justice: Bryan Stevenson’s Fight for Equality, which recently won a 2020 Peabody Award, is available for free online.
True Justice profiles Stevenson and his work at EJI seeking justice for the incarcerated poor and death row inmates in Alabama and the South, offers a searing indictment of the court system, and helps viewers see how the U.S. Supreme Court is historically and directly accountable for sustaining racial violence, white supremacy, and the exploitation of black people through the trajectory of decisions that leads from enslavement to lynching to the death penalty.
The documentary follows 30 years of EJI’s work on behalf of the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. Told primarily in his own words, True Justice shares Bryan Stevenson’s experience with a criminal justice system that “treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.”
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
So many generations have grown up listening to Stevie Wonder that people often refer to his music as “the soundtrack” to their lives.
Though his songs have appeared in countless movies over the decades, Stevie has also done literal soundtrack work during his career, contributing tracks and sometimes full albums worth of original music to over half a dozen movies.
Wonder even won an Original Song Academy Award for “I Just Called To Say I Love You,” his chart-topping hit from the 1984 movie “The Woman in Red.”
As Good Black News continues its month-long tribute to Stevie Wonder as he turns 70, Marlon West has compiled a new Spotify playlist celebrating Wonder’s unique contributions to cinema.
In Marlon’s words:
“STEVIE AT THE MOVIES is another playlist devoted to the talent and impact of Stevie Wonder his birthday month of May.
My love of moviemaking and Stevie Wonder’s music resulted in the playlist of his work for films. He’s written and contributed to songs for many movies including “The Outsiders,” “The Last Dragon,” “The Adventures Of Pinocchio” and “Rent.”
He has written and produced motion picture soundtracks for “The Secret Life of Plants,” (the full album title is “Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants”) “The Woman in Red” and “Jungle Fever.”
I have included a few Stevie Wonder “needle drops” from films like “Glory Road,” “Poetic Justice,” “The Thing,” “Dead Presidents,” “Almost Famous,” “High Fidelity,” and others.
I couldn’t resist including “Gangsta’s Paradise” from the Michelle Pfeiffer-starring film “Dangerous Minds,” which of course contains a sample of “Pastime Paradise” from 1976’s “Songs In The Key Of Life.”
As always, stay, sane, safe, and kind. Take care.”
Of course, it would take a superstar group of powerful Black women to sell and make a movie about The Clark Sisters, the pioneering Detroit siblings who are now in their fifth decade of rocking the gospel music world.
Tonight’s “The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel” (airing on Lifetime at 8PM) comes from executive producers Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige and Missy Elliott, co-executive producer Holly Davis Carter, writer Camille Tucker and director Christine Swanson.
I had my own Clark Sisters experience while working as an executive at TV One back in 2007-08, where The Clark Sisters were the subjects of one of the very first episodes of network’s successful biography series “UnSung,” a show I developed and initially oversaw.
At the time, I generally knew enough about The Clark Sisters to recognize their breakthroughs in transforming the gospel music sound – and I felt that the world had not generally afforded them enough credit for that. But I didn’t know much else about their personal story and ended up fascinated by the conflicts and struggle, and of course, all the music. It’s not a surprise to me that producer Carter said she’s been trying to make this movie for 15 years – it is a worthy story to tell.
In honor of this movie accomplishment, Good Black News offers a career-spanning Spotify playlist below to allow you to keep enjoying the patented Clark Sister Sound all weekend long.
The Clark Sisters Playlist was crafted to include most of the key hits from The Clark Sisters – as well as highlights from the solo careers of Karen Clark Sheard, Dorinda Clark-Cole, Twinkie Clark, and even from next generation Clark family gospel superstar Kierra Sheard (who plays her mom Karen in the movie). For good measure, there’s also a rare solo track from Jacky Clark-Chisholm (a duet with movie exec producer Blige), and a coda from Dr. Mattie Moss Clark herself.
Jacky, Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen were the five daughters of Mattie Moss Clark, a pioneering gospel music figure herself, who while raising her daughters also served as a minister of music for the Church of God In Christ, first at the local level in Michigan, but eventually at the national level.
From “The Color Purple” (photo courtesy J2 Communications)
This year, THE COLOR PURPLE, written by Alice Walker (screenplay by Menno Meyjes), produced by Quincy Jones and directed by Steven Spielberg, celebrates its 35th anniversary. In honor of the occasion, Fathom Events and TCM are presenting this indelible film in theaters for one special day only: tomorrow, Sunday February 23, 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. (local time) on more than 600 U.S. movie screens.
Based on Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel*, THE COLOR PURPLEintroduced movie audiences to Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey, both of whom, along with Margaret Avery, were Oscar nominated for their performances.
Their nods were three of the 11 Academy Award nominations for the film, which was also named 1985’s best film at the NAACP Image Awards and by the National Board of Review.
The movie also stars Danny Glover, Adolph Ceasar, Akosua Busia and Rae Dawn Chong in supporting roles.
This presentation is part of the yearlong TCM Big Screen Classics series, and tickets are available now at the Fathom Events website or at participating theater box offices.
According to deadline.com, writer/director Merawi Gerima’s Residue won the Audience Award at the 2020 Slamdance Film Festival, as well as receiving an Honorable Mention for the Grand Jury Prize.
First-time feature director Gerima is the son of acclaimed independent filmmaker Haile Gerima (Sanfoka). Merawi Gerima also produced and directed Residue, and his cast includes Obinna Nwachukwu, Dennis Lindsey, Taline Stewart, Jacari Dye, Julian Selman, Melody Tally, Ramon Thompson, and Derron Scott.
Check out the trailer below:
Residue tells the story of Jay, a young man who arrives home to find his neighborhood gentrified beyond recognition. Demetrius, his childhood best friend, is missing, but none of the remaining black folks trust Jay enough to provide any answers. Jay’s frustration compounds as he also finds himself alienated in the city at large, attacked from all sides. Jay visits his last friend Dion in prison, but leaves feeling powerless and infuriated. One final, chance confrontation results in Jay succumbing to the same forces as did his friends.
According to jbhe.com and deadline.com, Howard University and Amazon Studios have announced the launch of Howard Entertainment, a program designed to diversify the entertainment industry by creating a pipeline for African-American students and other under-represented populations to train and study with entertainment executives.
The Howard Entertainment program will be an immersive two-semester experience located in Los Angeles, California, that offers Howard students the opportunity to take academic courses during the spring semester and participate in a fellowship in the entertainment industry during the summer semester.
The coursework will be applied toward the student’s graduation requirements and the fellowship provides much needed hands-on experience and an opportunity to make invaluable networking connections.
“The vision of Howard Entertainment is to offer a one-of-a-kind experience for students interested in all aspects of entertainment, from project greenlighting, to PR and marketing, to entertainment law and finance,” said Wayne A. I. Frederick, president of Howard University. “This relationship aligns with Howard’s strategic goals of enhancing academic excellence and inspiring new knowledge.
Collaborating with Amazon Studios will enable us to marry academia and industry efforts to build a robust workforce of diverse entertainment industry leaders. With Howard’s proven track record of developing some of Hollywood’s most notable actors, comedians and musicians, this next-level collaboration will enable us to have even greater impact.”
To qualify, students must be enrolled as a Howard University student, must be an upperclassman or graduate student and will have to complete an application and interview to be considered for the program.
Students will be taught by Howard faculty who will be supported by Amazon Studios employees and other industry professionals invited by Amazon. This will give students to work in projects that offer “real world” application and will help students develop “work ready” skills prior to graduating.
The new program is scheduled to begin with the Spring 2020 semester.
Filmmaker and entrepreneur Tyler Perry told Gayle King on CBS This Morning this week that his eponymous film studio in Atlanta will soon provide a safe haven for homeless women, displaced LGBTQ youth, and sex trafficking victims.
Perry is the first African American man to own a major movie studio, a 330-acre property that was once a Confederate Army base. But he is most excited about the aspect of helping those in need. “You know, the studio’s gonna be what it is,” Perry said.
“I’ll tell you what I’m most excited about next is pulling this next phase off, is building a compound for trafficked women, girls, homeless women, LGBTQ youth who are put out and displaced … somewhere on these 330 acres, where they’re trained in the business and they become self-sufficient.”
“They live in nice apartments. There’s day care. There’s all of these wonderful things that allows them to reenter society. And then pay it forward again,” Perry continued. “So that’s what I hope to do soon.”
The land for Tyler Perry Studios was acquired by Perry in 2015 and is located on the historic grounds of the former Fort McPherson army base in Atlanta, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“Think about the poetic justice in that,” Perry said. “The Confederate Army is fighting to keep Negroes enslaved in America, fighting, strategy, planning on this very ground. And now this very ground is owned by me.”
The major motion picture studio includes 40 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places, 12 purpose-built sound stages named after African-American luminaries such as Oprah Winfrey, Diahann Carroll, and Harry Belafonte, 200 acres of green space, and a diverse backlot.
True Justice profiles Stevenson and his work at EJI seeking justice for the incarcerated poor and death row inmates in Alabama and the South, offers a searing indictment of the court system, and helps viewers see how the U.S. Supreme Court is historically and directly accountable for sustaining racial violence, white supremacy, and the exploitation of black people through the trajectory of decisions that leads from enslavement to lynching to the death penalty.
Their nods were three of the 11 Academy Award nominations for the film, which was also named 1985’s best film at the NAACP Image Awards and by the National Board of Review.
