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Unedited “Eyes on the Prize” Interviews with John Lewis and C.T. Vivian Available to Stream at American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WATCH)

Unedited “Eyes on the Prize” Interviews with John Lewis and C.T. Vivian Available to Stream at American Archive of Public Broadcasting (WATCH)

By goodblacknews on July 18, 2020

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) has made John Lewis’ unedited interview for Eyes on the Prize (1987) and for Eyes on the Prize: They Loved You Madly (1979), available to stream on its website, along with Rev. C.T. Vivian’s unedited interview for Eyes on the Prize. 

Lewis’ discussions center on the voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, his friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the relationship between Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), his view on the philosophy of nonviolence and his involvement in the March on Washington.

Vivian and his interviewer discuss in detail over the course of an hour the Nashville sit-in campaign, the Freedom Rides, the Selma campaign and more.

Eyes on the Prize is the groundbreaking 1987 PBS documentary series that tells the definitive story of the civil rights movement.

These interviews are part of a collection of 127 raw interviews from Eyes on the Prize available to stream via AAPB due to a collaboration between Boston public media producer WGBH and the Library of Congress to preserve and make accessible culturally significant public media from across the country.

The AAPB also contains a two-part raw interview conducted with Vivian in 2011 from American Experience’s Freedom Riders. Part 1, Part 2.

“Amazing Grace”: Playlist in Honor of Civil Rights Heroes John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian (LISTEN)

“Amazing Grace”: Playlist in Honor of Civil Rights Heroes John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on July 18, 2020

by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

With the passing of two Civil Rights Movement titans, the Reverend C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis, I was inclined to honor them with a playlist.

After some poking around, I read that Rep. Lewis was a big fan of Aretha Franklin and saw her sing more times than he could count.

As a teenager, Franklin traveled the country on tour with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesse Jackson and Harry Belafonte. As she became a musical icon, lending her voice in support of equal rights, Franklin was present with Lewis and Vivian, in person or in song, for some of the Civil Rights Movement’s most pivotal moments.

John Lewis and C.T. Vivian (photo: Getty Images)

“If it hadn’t been for Aretha — and others, but particularly Aretha — the Civil Rights Movement would have been a bird without wings,” Lewis said. “She lifted us and she inspired us.”

Here is a playlist featuring her and other artists who lent their voices to the struggle.

As always, stay safe, sane, and kind.

[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:35W6wbr2umUcRcaY1UdeC5″/]

Marlon West (photo courtesy Marlon West)

R.I.P. John Lewis, 80, U.S Representative and Civil Rights Movement Icon

By goodblacknews on July 18, 2020
John Lewis (photo by Rick Diamond / Getty Images)

Rep. John Lewis, an iconic pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement and Freedom Rider who literally shed his blood in the fight for Black voting rights and went on to become a 17-term Democratic member of Congress, died yesterday from pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.

One of the last surviving leaders of the 1960s Civil Rights era and members of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s inner circle, (the Rev. C.T. Vivian passed yesterday as well), Lewis was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in December.

Regardless of his health issues, Lewis took to the streets again in early June to join protests for racial justice near the White House that were in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Rayshard Brooks, among others.

Lewis was born in Troy, Alabama and attended segregated schools before earning his college degree at Fisk University in Nashville.

While a student there, Lewis organized his first sit-in demonstration at a lunch counter and was soon arrested for what he started to call “good trouble, necessary trouble.”

R.I.P. Rev. C.T. Vivian, 95, Civil Rights Movement Activist and MLK Adviser

By goodblacknews on July 17, 2020
Rev. C.T. Vivian receives 2013 Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama (photo: commons.wikipedia.org)

According to nytimes. com, the Rev. C.T. Vivian, a civil rights organizer and adviser for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in the struggle for racial justice a half-century ago, died at the age of 95 today at his home in Atlanta. Kira Vivian and Denise Morse, two of Vivian’s daughters, confirmed his passing.

C.T. Vivian was a Baptist minister and member of MLK’s inner circle of advisers, alongside the Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, the Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy and other civil rights luminaries such as Julian Bond and Rev. Jesse Jackson.

To quote nytimes.com:

Vivian was the national director of some 85 local affiliate chapters of the S.C.L.C. from 1963 to 1966, directing protest activities and training in nonviolence as well as coordinating voter registration and community development projects.

In Selma and Birmingham, Ala.; St. Augustine, Fla.; Jackson, Miss.; and other segregated cities, Mr. Vivian led sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts of businesses, and marches that continued for weeks or months, raising tensions that often led to mass arrests and harsh repression.

Televised scenes of marchers attacked by police officers and firefighters with cattle prods, snarling dogs, fire hoses and nightsticks shocked the national conscience, legitimized the civil rights movement and led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

“Nonviolence is the only honorable way of dealing with social change, because if we are wrong, nobody gets hurt but us,” Mr. Vivian said in an address to civil rights workers, as recounted in “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68” (2006), by Taylor Branch. “And if we are right, more people will participate in determining their own destinies than ever before.”

Cordy Tindell Vivian was born in Boonville, Mo., on July 30, 1924, the only child of Robert and Euzetta Tindell Vivian. His family moved to Macomb, Ill., when he was 6, and he later graduated from Macomb High School in 1942. He studied history at Western Illinois University in Macomb, but he dropped out and became a recreation worker in Peoria, Ill., where he joined his first protest, in 1947, helping to desegregate a cafeteria.

In 1945, Mr. Vivian married Jane Teague, who worked at a hardware store, and they had one daughter, Jo Anna Walker, who survives him. The couple separated amicably in the late 1940s and divorced later so that Mr. Vivian could marry Octavia Geans, in 1952. She was the author of “Coretta” (1970), the first biography of Dr. King’s wife, Coretta Scott King. She died in 2011.

In addition to his daughters Kira, Denise and Jo Anna, Mr. Vivian is survived by another daughter, Anita Charisse Thornton; two sons, Mark Evans Vivian and Albert Louis Vivian; nine grandchildren; 10 great-grandchildren; 28 great-great-grandchildren; and two great-great-great-grandchildren. Another son, Cordy Jr., died in 2010.

To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/us/ct-vivian-dead.html

Oprah Winfrey and Lionsgate Join Forces With Journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times to Adapt the 1619 Project Into Films, Television Programming & Other Content

By goodblacknews on July 8, 2020
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.

#AAMAM: “Black and Proud” – Celebrating Black LGBT Musical Pioneers (LISTEN)

#AAMAM: “Black and Proud” – Celebrating Black LGBT Musical Pioneers (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on June 28, 2020

by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)

As June is both African-American Music Appreciation Month and Pride Month, and today is the anniversary of the beginning of the landmark Stonewall Riots marking the unofficial launch of the gay rights movement, Good Black News today brings you a musical playlist celebrating some of the Black LGBT musical pioneers of the contemporary music era.

Just last year, rapper Lil Nas X made history in multiple ways when his genre-bending country/rap tune, the infectious ‘Old Town Road’ (which, in remixed form, included country star Billy Ray Cyrus), launched on TikTok and headed straight to #1, where it stayed for 19 weeks.

In the process, the 1:53 minute song (which was the shortest song to hit #1 since the mid-1960s), literally became the longest running #1 in chart history, outlasting the 16 week #1 runs of  Mariah  Carey & Boyz II Men’s ‘One Sweet Day’ and Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee/Justin Bieber’s ‘Despacito’.

One year ago during Pride Month, in the middle of the song’s #1 run on the charts, Lil Nas X revealed himself to be gay and joined what has become a burgeoning scene of LGBTQ artists among the Gen Z crowd, many of them African-American. Frank Ocean, Kehlani, Brittany Howard, Azealia Banks, Janelle Monae, and Big Freedia are just some of the other artists that have broken through the pack in recent years, publicly claiming their respective LGBTQ identities even as their careers were still on the rise. 

And musically-talented TV personalities such as one-time reality star Todrick Hall, the now notorious, but nevertheless pioneering ‘Empire’ star Jussie Smollett, ‘Glee’ co-star Alex Newell and ‘The Flash’ co-star Keiynan Lonsdale have also helped pave the way, bringing Black, openly LGBT faces into millions of homes.  

Hopping around Spotify in the search for Black LGBT artists now leads to not just these artists, but dozens of other openly LGBT independent artists making it happen in rap, dance, soul, and pop.

It wasn’t always this way, however. So in today’s playlist, we are celebrating 15 significant, pioneering LGBT artists who got their starts between the late 1950s (when the contemporary pop/rock music era began) and the end of the 20th century. The truth is that we’ve always been watching and listening to LGBT artists – the general public just may not have known it at the time.

[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:4yKQ0sDG4PrmMLcjYVDPl6″/]

Some of these artists we’re celebrating in our list were loud and proud right from the start. With others, we didn’t publicly know they were part of the LGBT community until after they passed away.  

The goal with this list is not to stir up controversy, but rather celebration and re-interpretation – so we’re steering away from the numerous popular artists about whom there are simply rumors.  Perhaps time and the history books will reveal more about the stories of many other artists from an era of music in which most prominent artists remained in the closet.  

For now, it’s interesting to look back at these 15 Black artists and see the array of musical and personal journeys, and examine them anew. We present the artists in roughly chronological order of their career prominence, and feature five songs from each – trying to include early work, a big hit or two and something recent if they are still making music.  

We hope this playlist will both introduce you to some talented but unheralded artists, and help you re-evaluate some artists you may already know and love – and can now see in a new light.  

NASA’s Headquarters to be Renamed in Honor of its 1st Black Woman Engineer, “Hidden Figure” Mary W. Jackson

NASA’s Headquarters to be Renamed in Honor of its 1st Black Woman Engineer, “Hidden Figure” Mary W. Jackson

By goodblacknews on June 24, 2020

NASA announced Wednesday the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.

Jackson started her NASA career in the segregated West Area Computing Unit of the agency’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Jackson, a mathematician and aerospace engineer, went on to lead programs influencing the hiring and promotion of women in NASA’s science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers. In 2019, she was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

“Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space. Mary never accepted the status quo, she helped break barriers and open opportunities for African Americans and women in the field of engineering and technology,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

“Today, we proudly announce the Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building. It appropriately sits on ‘Hidden Figures Way,’ a reminder that Mary is one of many incredible and talented professionals in NASA’s history who contributed to this agency’s success. Hidden no more, we will continue to recognize the contributions of women, African Americans, and people of all backgrounds who have made NASA’s successful history of exploration possible.”

Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters building in Washington, D.C (Credit: NASA)

The work of the West Area Computing Unit caught widespread national attention in the 2016 Margot Lee Shetterly book Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race. The book was made into a popular movie that same year and Jackson’s character was played by award-winning actress Janelle Monáe.

“We are honored that NASA continues to celebrate the legacy of our mother and grandmother Mary W. Jackson,” said, Carolyn Lewis, Mary’s daughter. “She was a scientist, humanitarian, wife, mother, and trailblazer who paved the way for thousands of others to succeed, not only at NASA, but throughout this nation.”

National Museum of African American History and Culture Explains the Legacy of Juneteenth

National Museum of African American History and Culture Explains the Legacy of Juneteenth

By goodblacknews on June 19, 2020

Happy Juneteenth 2020!

Today Good Black News wants to share the excellent online resources the National Museum of African American History and Culture has that explain and explore the legacy of Juneteenth, which is now in its 155th year. Click here for more and read below for an historical overview of Juneteenth:

On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect.

At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States.

But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.

As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.

The post-emancipation period known as Reconstruction (1865-1877) marked an era of great hope, uncertainty, and struggle for the nation as a whole. Formerly enslaved people immediately sought to reunify families, establish schools, run for political office, push radical legislation and even sue slaveholders for compensation. Given the 200+ years of enslavement, such changes were nothing short of amazing. Not even a generation out of slavery, African Americans were inspired and empowered to transform their lives and their country.

Juneteenth celebration in 1900 at Eastwoods Park. (Credit: Austin History Center)

Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Although it has long celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans.

The historical legacy of Juneteenth shows the value of never giving up hope in uncertain times. The National Museum of African American History and Culture is a community space where this spirit of hope lives on. A place where historical events like Juneteenth are shared and new stories with equal urgency are told.

To learn more: https://nmaahc.si.edu/sites/default/files/images/juneteenthresources_final.pdf

For Juneteenth online events: https://nmaahc.si.edu/event/juneteenth-celebration-resilience

National Museum of African American History and Culture Offers Free “Talking About Race” Web Portal

National Museum of African American History and Culture Offers Free “Talking About Race” Web Portal

By goodblacknews on June 18, 2020

Portal Helps People Explore Issues Of Race, Racism And Racial Identity

At the end of May, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture launched Talking About Race, a new online portal designed to help individuals, families, and communities talk about racism, racial identity and the way these forces shape every aspect of society, from the economy and politics to the broader American culture.

The online portal provides digital tools, online exercises, video instructions, scholarly articles and more than 100 multi-media resources tailored for educators, parents and caregivers—and individuals committed to racial equality.

A rash of racially charged incidents—from an altercation in Central Park to acts of police brutality resulting in the deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks and the protests they provoked in cities around the country—prompted the Museum to move up the release date of Talking About Race. The portal is free and does not require registration or sign-up to use.

Since opening the museum, the number one question we are asked is how to talk about race, especially with children. We recognize how difficult it is to start that conversation. But in a nation still struggling with the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow laws, and white supremacy, we must have these tough conversations if we have any hope of turning the page and healing. This new portal is a step in that direction.

Spencer Crew, interim director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Research shows that many people feel they do not have the information needed to discuss race in a way that is candid, safe and respectful of other viewpoints and experiences.

“The portal offers a wealth of resources to inform and guide discussions—videos, role-playing exercises, targeted questions and more, said Crew.” “We hope that people will use this site to become more comfortable about engaging in honest dialogue and self-reflection.”

“John Lewis: Good Trouble” Documentary to Screen for Free on Juneteenth in Tulsa as Trump Rally Counter-Programming

“John Lewis: Good Trouble” Documentary to Screen for Free on Juneteenth in Tulsa as Trump Rally Counter-Programming

By goodblacknews on June 17, 2020

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.”

Read more: https://variety.com/2020/film/news/john-lewis-documentary-juneteenth-trump-rally-tulsa-1234637951/