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.
Petter Eide, a member of Norway’s parliament, nominated Black Lives Matter for a Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of the movement’s continuous work towards manifesting racial justice in the U.S. and across the globe.
“To carry forward a movement of racial justice and to spread that to other countries is very, very important. Black Lives Matter is the strongest force today doing this, not only in the U.S. but also in Europe and in Asia,” Eide told USA TODAY.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 in recognition for his work and mission of non-violent protest during the Civil Rights Movement.
Albert Luthuli and Nelson Mandela won in 1960 and 1993, respectively, for their campaigns against racial discrimination and apartheid in South Africa.
Additionally, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has won Sweden’s Olof Palme human rights prize for 2020, for promoting “peaceful civil disobedience against police brutality and racial violence” according to the prize’s organizers.
Patrice Cullors, one of the original founders of Black Lives Matter, will accept the $100,000 on behalf of BLM during an online ceremony today.
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.
[Photo courtesy apple.com: Jared Bailey, a senior at Morehouse College, has integrated Apple’s coding and creativity curricula into his public health and community service work as part of the school’s partnership with Apple, a collaboration that is expanding further with the launch of the Propel Center.]
Today, Apple announced a set of major new projects as part of its $100 million Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) to help dismantle systemic barriers to opportunity and combat injustices faced by communities of color.
These efforts include the Propel Center, a first-of-its-kind global innovation and learning hub for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); an Apple Developer Academy to support coding and tech education for students in Detroit; and venture capital funding for Black and Brown entrepreneurs.
“We are all accountable to the urgent work of building a more just, more equitable world — and these new projects send a clear signal of Apple’s enduring commitment,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO.
“We’re launching REJI’s latest initiatives with partners across a broad range of industries and backgrounds — from students to teachers, developers to entrepreneurs, and community organizers to justice advocates — working together to empower communities that have borne the brunt of racism and discrimination for far too long. We are honored to help bring this vision to bear, and to match our words and actions to the values of equity and inclusion we have always prized at Apple.”
[Clockwise from top left: Earl Cole, Jolanda Jones, Sean Rector, Vecepia Towery | Screenshots: “Survivor” via CBS All Access]
According to Variety.com, CBS announced today it aims to be more inclusive with the casts of its unscripted shows by setting a target to make all such on-camera participants at least 50% Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
The network’s goal is to make the change beginning with the 2021-2022 broadcast season. CBS also has stated it will allocate at least a quarter of its annual unscripted development budget to projects created or co-created by BIPOC producers in that same time frame.
CBS also plans to develop more initiatives with its production partners to increase diversity across the board in the unscripted space, though those specific plans have not yet been detailed.
Author and award-winning journalist Farai Chideya has created and will host Our Body Politic, a weekly podcast debuting this weekend that is “unapologetically centered on reporting not just how women of color experience the major political events of today, but how they’re impacting those issues.”
Farai Chideya (photo: Twitter)
Our Body Politic will focus on women of color as a super-demographic in American politics and ask how we can save and improve our own lives and that of our nation. Episodes will feature in-depth conversations about the economy, healthcare, politics, the environment and education every Friday. To listen to the trailer below:
The podcast will be available through a host of sponsor stations including KCRW, KPCC, KQED and WITF among others. You can also subscribe by clicking here.
For anyone who want to call in with questions or to tell the show what’s on your mind, you can leave a message at the number Chideya is posting on Twitter: 929-353-7006.
On Monday, Netflix will debut A Love Song For Latasha, a short film by first-time filmmaker Sophia Nahli Allison that explores what life could have been like for 15 year-old Latasha Harlins had she not been fatally shot by a Korean convenience store owner in Los Angeles in 1991.
Harlins was shot in the back of the head by Soon Ja Du, then a 51-year-old Korean woman who suspected Latasha was trying to steal a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. Security footage later confirmed that Latasha had money in her hand and intended to pay for the beverage and Du was convicted of voluntary manslaughter.
Though the jury recommended a 16-year prison stint, Du was sentenced to time served, five years probation, community service, funeral expenses and $500 restitution. Harlins’ killing and the trial outcome were factors that served as a catalyst for the unrest that erupted in Los Angeles in 1992 after the police who brutalized Rodney King were acquitted.
A Love Song For Latasha explores the teenager’s life and dreams through accounts from her family and friends. Watch the trailer below:
“As an LA native, I’m really interested in what it means to interrogate and conjure and excavate stories of the community and stories of Black women and Black girls,” Allison told theGrio exclusively.
“Being a young girl during the riots, Latasha wasn’t a name I often heard. It was always Rodney King. It’s still a story people don’t talk about and her name is often forgotten. She played such an important and devastating role in that shift that happened in South Central and I wanted to see her story live in its fullness.”
Tupac Shakur immortalized Latasha’s story in several of his hits, including “Keep Ya Head Up,” which he dedicated to the slain teen. He referenced her in other tracks like “Something 2 Die 4,” “Thugz Mansion,” and “I Wonder if Heaven Got a Ghetto” and Ice Cube included a song about her on his album, Death Certificate, entitled ”Black Korea.”
“Latasha could have been a family member, or one of my friends. Latasha could have been me,” said Allison. “I wanted to make sure this archive, this story, and this memory existed for Latasha and that there was this evidence of her outside of just the trauma. Her story needed to exist beyond what we have seen.”
Director and Academy Award-winning writer John Ridley (12 Years A Slave) also devoted a section of his 2017 documentary Let It Fall: Los Angeles 1982-1992 to Harlins, her tragic killing and the relative lack of justice her killer faced. Let It Fall can also be found on Netflix.
We know where you were last night. Millions of fans of a certain age were enjoying the stay-at-home celebration dubbed by the internet as “AuntieChella,” as Gladys Knight and Patti Labelle ‘battled’ it out on Instagram/Apple Music‘s “Verzuz” series.
Verzuz was created a few months ago by hitmaking producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz as a way for music fans to honor their greats while relaxing at home during these quarantine times.
For those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, the sessions are not truly a ‘battle’ – but rather an occasion for two legends to get together (whether in real life like last night, or virtually) and banter about their careers while having a listening party of the greatest hits of each artist.
The battle was epic, with both ladies, now in their late ’70s, decked out in stylish pantsuits, and sharing their love for each other amidst career stories, lots of live singing, and plenty of chair grooving.
Michelle Obama, Oprah, and Queen Latifah were tuned in to hear such hits as “Midnight Train to Georgia,” “Over the Rainbow,” “You Are My Friend” and ‘The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.”
Gladys honored all phases of her career, delving back into her early doo-wop hit “Every Beat of My Heart,” her Motown Pips years with “Friendship Train,” her ’80s hits like “Love Overboard” and the Bond theme “License to Kill.”
Patti focused on her material from her solo years, mixing ballad favorites like “Somebody Loves You Baby” and “If Only You Knew” with uptempo hits like “The Right Kinda Lover” and “Feels Like Another One.”
The evening was capped off when Dionne Warwick surprised the audience with a special appearance to end the show, as they joined her to sing “That’s What Friends Are For” and their hit version of “Superwoman.”
The three of them had previously worked together on a special called “Sisters in the Name of Love” that Gladys had produced for HBO in the late ’80s (there are some fan posts of it on YouTube that offer some thrilling harmonies).
Gladys, Dionne, Patti
Of course with these vets, even a couple of hours of hits doesn’t come close to diving into their full careers. So in case you were ready for more, we’ve done that work for you – pairing up additional Patti and Gladys hits and deep tracks from the rest of their six decade careers for GBN’s latest playlist: “Gladys Knight Verzuz Patti Labelle – The Best of the Rest.”
We’ve gone beyond the biggest hits, and focused solely on extensive additional material they did not cover during last night’s show.
While Patti and Gladys both hit the charts for the first time in the very early ’60s – their careers have actually taken very divergent paths before, in more recent years, they’ve ended up as favorite Aunties to the Black community.
According to Variety.com, Academy Award-winning actress Halle Berry landed a $20 million distribution deal from Netflix for her directorial debut of “Bruised.”
Berry’s “Bruised,” still in the process of completion, is screening on Saturday at the Toronto Film Festival (virtually, of course). Berry also stars in the dramatic feature about “a washed-up MMA fighter struggling for redemption as both an athlete and a mother.”
The film was written by Michelle Rosenfarb. Producers on the project include Basil Iwanyk, Brad Feinstein, Guymon Casady, Erica Lee, Paris Kassidokostas-Latsis, Terry Dougas, Linda Gottlieb and Gillian Hormel.
As of yet there is no set release date for when the movie will appear on the streaming service.
In today’s “Power Shot,” TEDx speaker,Power Lab performance coach and GBN’s “This Way Forward” contributor Dena Crowder explains so clearly and succinctly in three simple steps exactly how and why mobilizing to vote is so crucial this November, Good Black News is adding a fourth step:
WATCH and SHARE Dena’s video everywhere so anyone who is on the fence about voting can hop on over into the right side of history and utilize their power to affect significant change.
To quote just some of Dena’s insightful guidance:
There is no perfect, uncorrupted, ideal candidate, do not get caught up in that… Whoever wins this election is going to set the tone for the direction that we take on every single issue facing Black Americans.
We’re talking prison, we’re talking police, we’re talking human rights, we’re talking civil rights, we are talking healthcare and housing. So prioritize what really matters and vote the bigger picture.
