article by Borys Kit via hollywoodreporter.com
Don Cheadle has acquired the film and TV rights to “Prince of Darkness: The Untold Story of Jeremiah G. Hamilton, Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire” by Shane White, with plans to adapt the 2015 book as a starring vehicle. Steven Baigelman, who worked with Cheadle on the Miles Davis biopic “Miles Ahead,” is reteaming with the actor and will write the script for the drama.
Cheadle will produce and star. “Prince of Darkness” sheds light on the obscure story of Hamilton, who was mentioned in an obituary for Cornelius Vanderbilt as the tycoon’s true rival. White’s book details the rise of Hamilton as he is chased out of Haiti and becomes a broker and land agent in 19th century New York, his success prickling both white and black society.
He broke many taboos of the times, including marrying a white woman and owning stock in rail companies on whose trains he wasn’t legally allowed to ride. When Hamilton died, obituaries at the time called him the richest black man in America. The book has been awarded the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic’s best book prize and the 2016 New York City Book Award.
To read more, go to: Don Cheadle Tackling Story of Wall Street’s First Black Millionaire (Exclusive) | Hollywood Reporter
Posts published in “Non-Fiction”
article by Sameer Rao via colorlines.com
Following the literary and film success of “Hidden Figures,” author Margot Lee Shetterly will turn her attention to two little-known but prominent Black families in Baltimore. Viking Books announced today (April 10) that it has acquired the rights to Shetterly’s next two books.
The first will focus on the mid 20th-century achievements of the Murphys, a publishing family, and the entrepreneurial Adams family. As described by PBS, formerly enslaved patriarch John Henry Murphy founded the The Afro-American newspaper and turned it, with his children, into one of the country’s most widely-read Black titles.
The paper tackled Jim Crow, the lack of Black representation in Baltimore government and other racial justice issues throughout its existence. The Murphys used this influence to successfully advocate local change, including desegregating the University of Maryland‘s law school.
A 2011 Baltimore Sun obituary for Adams family leader William “Little Willie” Adams notes that he and his schoolteacher-turned-politician wife Victorine spun wealth generated in the Great Depression-era underground economy into systematic venture capital and philanthropy. Their investments and donations sustained Black business development, employment and political clout for decades in Baltimore.
According to a Viking press statement about the not-yet titled book, “Shetterly will bring the history of Baltimore to life through the success stories of the Adamses and the Murphys, also showing the contrasting challenges faced by those left behind by redlining, lack of economic opportunity, and urban decay.”
The second book lacks a fixed topic but will also uncover the history of hidden Black figures.
Source: ‘Hidden Figures’ Author to Introduce Readers to Unsung Black Families In Baltimore | Colorlines
Afros: A Celebration Of Natural Hair
Being natural is a gift, and in this book, author Michael July explore the progression of natural hair into mainstream culture and media.
article by Alexis Webb via essence.com
These are the perfect conversation starters for your house guests.
What happens when you combine your love for literature with an interest for beauty and hair? Well, tons of fun and interesting home décor that can inspire your daily routine!
Coffee table reads don’t always have to be mundane. They can often also offer some lighthearted relief, much needed pick-me-up or an education while chatting with friends and family over the latest “tea.”
To see full article, go to: Beauty and Hair Coffee Table Books | Essence.com
article by Katherine Brooks via huffingtonpost.com
As a kid, Kaya Thomas enjoyed reading. “No matter how old I was, what I was going through, how I felt in any moment, a book was always a means of escape” she wrote in a blog post in 2015. “A way to dive into a new world and become a new character.”As a self-professed “nerdy black girl in high school,” Thomas’ love of books, and the escapism they afforded, only grew. She’d read three or four a week, seeking solace in their pages when she “felt very different than most of my peers.”
Something changed in those high school years, though. As a mature reader, she began to pay more attention to how the characters in her favorite books were described ― namely, how they were meant to look. “When I was a teenager I began to realize that a lot of the books I read didn’t have characters that looked like me,” she’s since admitted. “Realizing that made me feel invisible.”
So as a student at Dartmouth College, Thomas decided to do something about her sense of invisibility. Not only did she search the internet, compiling her own list of books written by authors of color that put characters of color in primary storylines, she learned to code so that she could share her database with other young readers. After taking part in a Black Girls Code hackathon, and learning the ins and outs of iOs during an internship, Thomas devised an iPhone app that functioned as a directory of 300 books showcasing characters of color.
“Young people should be able to see themselves represented in literature, so they know that their stories are important and that there are authors who […] celebrate their background and show the real lives of people like them,” Thomas wrote in an email to The Huffington Post. She cited books like Nalo Hopkinson’s The Chaos and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus as influential titles in her own life.
“When young people don’t see themselves represented positively in books, TV, movies and other forms of media, that erasure really harms self-image and how you perceive yourself as you grow up,” she added. Thomas’ app ― We Read Too ― launched in 2014 and has since grown to include over 600 relevant books. It’s also amassed over 15,000 iPhone users, who’ve downloaded the free app and suggested 1,600 other titles be added to the database.
And Thomas wants to meet their demands.Her skills as an iOS developer have grown throughout the course of her various internships and engagement with online development communities. She recently launched an Indiegogo campaign with the hopes of updating her app, quickly surpassing her goal of raising $10,000. Now with a stretch goal of $25,000, she has a few more objectives in mind: hire someone to review the books users suggest and grow the database to include 1,000 titles, create an Android version of We Read Too and initiate a UI redesign, and create a website version of her directory.
To read more, go to: College Student Creates A Mobile Directory Of 600 Books That Prioritize Diversity | The Huffington Post
article by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)
Exhibition to Feature Artist Kadir Nelson and Poet Saul Williams.
HBO recently announced the official launch of “The HeLa Project,” a culturally-grounded, multi-media exhibition inspired by the highly-anticipated HBO film, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne, which will premiere on April 22. Directed by George C. Wolfe, the film is based on Rebecca Skloot’s critically acclaimed New York Times bestseller of the same name.
The film tells the true story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American woman whose cells were used to create the first immortal human cell line that ultimately led to unprecedented medical breakthroughs, changing countless lives and the face of medicine forever.
“The HeLa Project” is designed to celebrate Henrietta Lacks, the woman – to give her a voice and to humanize and recognize her. The exhibition features an original portrait by two-time Caldecott Honor Award winning artist Kadir Nelson and an original poem by Saul Williams. Additional art, curated by Lewis Long of Long Gallery Harlem, includes works by Derrick Adams, Zoe Buckman, Madeleine Hunt Ehrlich, Doreen Garner, and Tomashi Jackson. The product of these elements, plus an educational, sculptural installation about the HeLa cells, all converge in this engaging experience.
The exhibition debuted last week in Baltimore at the Reginald Lewis Museum, and will run April 7th – April 9th in SoHo, New York (465 W. Broadway, Fri – Sat, 11am – 7pm, Sun 12pm – 5pm).
“The HeLa Project” will be making additional stops in Atlanta, GA on April 13th – April 16th at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.
article via jbhe.com
The winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards were recently announced in New York City. The National Book Critics Circle awards are given each March and honor the best literature published in the United States in six categories—autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. This year, two of the six winners are Black scholars with current affiliations at academic institutions in the United States.
Carol Anderson, the Charles Howard Candler Professor and chair of African American studies at Emory University in Atlanta won the National Book Critics Circle Award in the criticism category. She was honored for her book White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (Bloomsbury, 2016). Professor Anderson holds bachelor’s and master’s degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She earned a Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University.
Dr. Anderson joined the faculty at Emory in 2009 after teaching at the University of Missouri. She is also the author of Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Ishion Hutchinson, an assistant professor of English at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for his collection House of Lords and Commons (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016). Dr. Hutchinson is a native of Jamaica and a graduate of the University of the West Indies. He holds a master of fine arts degree from New York University and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. His first collection of poetry, Far District: Poems, was published in 2010 by Peepal Tree Press.
Source: Two Black Scholars Win National Book Critics Circle Awards : The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
article by Justin Kroll and Brent Lang via variety.com
Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and the Weinstein Company are partnering on an ambitious series of film and television projects about Trayvon Martin. The indie label and the rap icon won a heated bidding war for the rights to two books — “Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It” and “Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin.” The 2012 shooting of the 17 year-old Martin sparked a national debate about racial profiling and inequities of the criminal justice system that brought about the Black Lives Matter movement.
The African-American high school student was killed by George Zimmerman, 28, who was a member of the neighborhood watch in his Florida community. He claimed he shot Martin, who was unarmed, in self defense after the two became involved in a physical altercation. Zimmerman’s acquittal on a second-degree murder charge inspired protests around the country.
“Suspicion Nation” is by Lisa Bloom and recounts her experience covering the trial for NBC. She looks at the mistakes made by prosecutors that caused them to lose what she describes as a “winnable case.” “Rest in Power” is by Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. It tells a more personal story, looking at Martin’s childhood and the aftermath of his death.
The plan is to make a six-part docu-series with Jay Z producing as part of a first-look deal he signed with the studio last September. The indie studio will also develop a narrative feature film. The Weinstein Company earned critical raves for “Fruitvale Station,” another true story, about the death of Oscar Grant, an unarmed black man who was killed in 2009 by a BART police officer.
To read more: Jay Z to Make Trayvon Martin Film and Documentary Series | Variety
article by Alexandra Alter via nytimes.com
Penguin Random House will publish coming books by former President Barack Obama and the former first lady Michelle Obama, the publishing company announced Tuesday night, concluding a heated auction among multiple publishers. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but publishing industry executives with knowledge of the bidding process said it probably stretched well into eight figures.
Robert B. Barnett and Deneen C. Howell of Williams & Connolly represented the Obamas. Penguin Random House acquired world rights to the books, and worldwide sales could be substantial. No decision has been made yet as to which of the company’s major imprints — which include Random House, Doubleday, Alfred A. Knopf and Crown — will publish the books.
Mr. Obama’s previous books were published by Crown, which also published Mrs. Obama’s book “American Green,” about the White House garden. A spokeswoman for Penguin Random House would not say whether the books would be memoirs and referred questions to representatives of the Obamas. Speculation about the Obamas’ books and how much they would sell for have been circulating in the industry in recent weeks, as executives at the top publishing houses met separately with the former president and first lady.
Some publishing executives who followed the bidding process said that the opening offers for Mr. Obama’s book alone were in the $18 million to $20 million range. The publisher plans to donate one million books in the Obama family’s name to First Book, a nonprofit organization that provides books to disadvantaged children, and Open eBooks, the Washington-based partner for the 2016 White House digital education initiative. The Obamas also plan to donate part of their advances to charity, including the Obama Foundation.
To read more, go to: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/business/media/obama-book-deal-penguin-random-house.html?_r=0
article via jbhe.com
Alondra Nelson, a professor of sociology and dean of social science at Columbia University in New York City, will be the next president of the Social Science Research Council. Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council is an independent, international, nonprofit organization which supports research and development of social scientists. Professor Nelson will serve a five-year term as president of the organization, beginning September 1.
Professor Nelson joined the faculty at Columbia University in 2009 after teaching at Yale University. She is the author of the award-winning book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination (University of Minnesota Press, 2011) and a co-editor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History (Rutgers University Press, 2012) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (New York University Press, 2001). Her most recent book is The Social Life of DNA: Race, Reparations, and Reconciliation After the Genome (Beacon Press, 2016).
Professor Nelson is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of California at San Diego, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She holds a doctoral degree in American studies from New York University.
article by MaryAnn Yin via adweek.com
Zero Gravity Management has optioned A’Lelia Bundles’ 2001 nonfiction book, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker. Bundles is actually the great great granddaughter of Walker.
According to Deadline, Octavia Spencer intends to star and produce a limited series based on Bundles’ biography. Nicole Asher will write the script. Kasi Lemmons has agreed to serve as the director.
Here’s more from The New York Times: “Acutely aware of the lack of diversity in Hollywood on both sides of the camera, Ms. Spencer is determined to make a correction. She has begun optioning books, including one about Madam C. J. Walker, considered the first self-made African-American female millionaire.” (via Shadow and Act)