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MUSIC MONDAY: “Calypso” – a Collection in Celebration of Artist and Activist Harry Belafonte’s 95th Birthday (LISTEN)

MUSIC MONDAY: “Calypso” – a Collection in Celebration of Artist and Activist Harry Belafonte’s 95th Birthday (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2022

words by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson); art and music by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)

This week’s Music Monday share is in tribute to the one and only Harry Belafonte, who turned 95 on March 1st. We celebrate the renowned singer, actor and activist by sharing refreshed and updated list of Calypso music, a genre that Belafonte popularized worldwide with his recordings (his Calypso album from 1956 became the first by a solo performer to sell a million copies) and contributions to the style.

Not only is the refreshed playlist the creation of GBN contributor Marlon West (his original post on calypso can be read here), but he also created the artwork that honors Belafonte as the superhero and champion for civil rights and human rights that he has been for decades (which includes marching on Washington with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., funding the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, fighting against apartheid, organizing USA for Africa for famine relief and acting as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador) and still is.

Luminaries such as Spike Lee, Alicia Keys, Laurence Fishburne, Whoopi Goldberg and Cornel West turned out to celebrate Belafonte’s milestone last week at The Town Hall Theater in Manhattan for the first Harry Belafonte Social Justice Awards given by Sankofa.org, a social justice organization founded 10 years ago by Belafonte, his daughter Gina Belafonte and the music executive Raoul Roach.

You can celebrate Belafonte by listening to his own words about his life and activism by checking out the unabridged audiobook of his autobiography, My Song: A Memoir:

Also included in today’s post is a conversation with Belafonte from 2012 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. 

Sankofa.org is a social justice organization founded by Harry Belafonte that enlists the support of today’s most celebrated artists and influential individuals in collaboration with grassroots partners to elevate the voices of the disenfranchised and promote justice, peace, and equality.

University of Michigan Economist Susan M. Collins to Become President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

University of Michigan Economist Susan M. Collins to Become President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2022

University of Michigan economist and executive vice president of academic affairs Susan M. Collins will be the next president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, taking office on July 1.

Collins will be only the second Black president and first Black woman to head one of the 12 Federal Reserve banks in the century-plus history of the institution. Raphael Bostic, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta president, was the first Black person ever to lead a reserve bank.

“It is an honor and an inspiration to serve as the Boston Fed’s next president,” Professor Collins said. “Throughout my career, I have been driven by a commitment to leveraging research, education, and public service to improve lives. I look forward to helping the Bank and System pursue the Fed’s dual mandate from Congress – achieving price stability and maximum employment.”

Dr. Collins added that “I am also inspired by the portfolio of important and innovative work underway at the Boston Fed,” Collins said. “I am delighted with the opportunity to lead such a dynamic organization, engage with its talented staff, and work with its constituents – to understand their economic challenges and help explain the work of the Fed in the economy. It will also be a pleasure to return to Greater Boston and New England.”

GBN’s Daily Drop: Figure Skating Pioneer Mabel Fairbanks (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Figure Skating Pioneer Mabel Fairbanks (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Monday, March 7 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Mabel Fairbanks, a figure skater who was denied the opportunity to compete for the U.S. because of her skin color but found other ways to dedicate herself to the sport and became a coach to future national and world champions of color:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 Monday, March 7th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

Growing up in the 1920s, Mabel Fairbanks dreamed of becoming a champion figure skater, but she was denied entry to rinks because of her skin color. So, she learned in part by eavesdropping on white skating instructors. And when the U.S. Skating Team wouldn’t accept Black skaters, she showed off her skills by skating in entertaining ice shows instead.

Fairbanks later became a coach who worked with World Champion pairs team Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner, Olympic gold medalists Scott Hamilton and Kristi Yamaguchi, and Atoy Wilson, the first African American athlete to win a U.S. skating title.

Though she was never able to compete for her own prizes, Fairbanks was recognized as a pioneer of the sport when she became the first African American inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in 1997.

Fairbanks passed away at 85 years old in 2001, and her resting place at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles is marked by a plaque etched with a pair of figure skates and the words “Skatingly Yours,” the phrase she’d add whenever she signed autographs.

(via Atoy Wilson and the Mabel Fairbanks estate)

To learn more about Fairbanks, check out the recent NPR Code Switch podcast episode (embedded above) about her story and legacy, the 2019 children’s book Ice Breaker: How Mabel Fairbanks Changed Figure Skating (She Made History) written by Rose Viña and illustrated by Claire Almon, and the U.S. Figure Skating Mabel Fairbanks Skatingly Yours Fund set up to support the training and development of promising young figure skaters of color.

Links to these and other sources 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. You can give a positive 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.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Dred Scott, Harriet Scott and the Worst Supreme Court Decision in U.S. History (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Dred Scott, Harriet Scott and the Worst Supreme Court Decision in U.S. History (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 6, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is a bonus episode for Sunday, March 6 and based on the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 format.

It’s about an enslaved couple, Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who sued for their freedom in federal court, which lead to the U.S. Supreme Court’s infamous and atrocious 1857 Dred Scott decision:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 bonus daily drop of Good Black News for Sunday, March 6th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

So, I had a few different ideas for this bonus episode, like doing a drop about innovative jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery, the “supreme” Mary Wilson, NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal or “King of Comedy” D.L. Hughley, who all claim March 6th as their birthday. And shout outs to them.

They may all get drops in the future, but when I learned March 6 is also the day that the infamous U.S. Supreme Court Dred Scott decision was made 165 years ago and considered to be one of the worst Supreme Court rulings in history, I wanted to drop in on that.

On March 6, 1857, Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney oversaw a 7-2 vote against the enslaved spouses Dred Scott and Harriet Scott, who were petitioning for their freedom based on the fact that they had worked and lived in free states with or for their owners.

But as agreed to in the Missouri Compromise, this gave the Scotts the right to be free. However, in the majority opinion, Chief Justice Taney stated that all people of African descent, free or enslaved, weren’t U.S. citizens and therefore did not have the right to sue in federal court, on top of arguing that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, as well as the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote from Contemporary Artist Betye Saar, 95, on Art, Beauty and Activism (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Quote from Contemporary Artist Betye Saar, 95, on Art, Beauty and Activism (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 5, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Saturday, March 5 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from contemporary artist and Black Arts Movement figure Betye Saar on her goals as an artist and activist:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

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 Saturday, March 5th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s a quote from contemporary artist and member of the Black Arts Movement Betye Saar, best known for her assemblage style and her 1972 work titled The Liberation of Aunt Jemima. Here’s the quote:

“It is my goal as an artist to create works that expose injustice and reveal beauty. The rainbow is literally a spectrum of color while spiritually a symbol of hope and promise.”

To learn more about 95 year-old Southern California native Betye Saar and her work, check out the Museum of Modern Art aka MoMA website, the 2019 book Betye Saar: Black Girl’s Window edited by Christopher Cherix, the upcoming 2022 release Betye Saar: Serious Moonlight edited by Stephanie Seidel, and the CBS Good Morning feature on her from 2020.

Links to all of 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. You can give a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

(paid links)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner – Inventor of the Sanitary Belt (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner – Inventor of the Sanitary Belt (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 4, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Friday, March 4 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022, about inventor Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner who, along with the sanitary belt, patented her creations of a serving tray attachment for walkers, a wall-mountable back washer and an accessible toilet paper holder:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

 

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

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 Friday, March 4th, 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 Inventors we call “You Know We Did That, Right?”

Mary Beatrice Davidson Kenner was determined to help women everywhere when she invented and patented an adjustable sanitary belt with an in-built, moisture-proof napkin pocket in 1956. When a company showed interest in licensing her design, they quickly reversed course after discovering that Kenner was Black.

Then once Kenner’s patent expired, her design became public domain and she never got paid for it. But still determined to make a difference, Mary and her sister Mildred, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, invented a serving tray attachment for walkers, a mountable back washer, and an accessible toilet tissue holder – earning four more patents for her life-enhancing creations.

To learn more about Kenner, check out Marc Lamont Hill’s video segment on BNC News about her as well as links to other sources 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. You can give a positive rating or review, share [links to your favorite episodes] on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

James Earl Jones Honored with Renaming of Cort Theatre on Broadway to James Earl Jones Theatre

James Earl Jones Honored with Renaming of Cort Theatre on Broadway to James Earl Jones Theatre

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2022

The Shubert Organization, Inc., today announced that the 110-year-old Cort Theatre on 48th Street will become the James Earl Jones Theatre, in recognition of Mr. Jones’s lifetime of immense contributions to Broadway and the entire artistic community.

Jones, who is 91, began his Broadway career in 1957, and in 1958 Mr. Jones played his first role at the Cort Theatre in Sunrise at Campobello. Over the following six-and-a-half decades Jones rose to star in countless stage and screen productions (including twenty-one Broadway shows).

Jones’s Tony awards include Best Actor in a Play for The Great White Hope (1969) where he portrayed turn-of-the-century boxing champion Jack Johnson, and the original production of Fences (1987) by playwright August Wilson, as well as a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

Jones has additionally won seven Drama Desk Awards and has been awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honor.

“The Shubert Organization is so incredibly honored to put James—an icon in the theatre community, the Black community, and the American community—forever in Broadway’s lights,” said Robert E. Wankel, Shubert CEO and board chair. “That James deserves to have his name immortalized on Broadway is without question.”

James Earl Jones (via Schubert.nyc)

“For me standing in this very building sixty-four years ago at the start of my Broadway career, it would have been inconceivable that my name would be on the building today,” said Mr. Jones of Shubert’s decision to rename the Cort Theatre in his honor. “Let my journey from then to now be an inspiration for all aspiring actors.”

Most recently Jones portrayed Weller Martin across from Cicely Tyson’s Fonsia Dorsey in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Gin Game at Shubert’s John Golden Theatre.

The Cort Theatre opened in 1912, having been designed in the style of an Eighteenth-Century French palace by renowned theatre architect Thomas Lamb to house productions of theatre impresario John Cort. The building was sold to the Shubert brothers in 1927.

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Professor and Former Black Panther Kathleen Cleaver – Quote on Women Freedom Fighters (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Thursday, March 3 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 that features a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver about the lineage of women freedom fighters in America:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or create your own RSS Feed. Or just check it out every day here on the main website (transcript below):

SHOW TRANSCRIPT:

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 Thursday, March 3rd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s a quote from professor, author and former Black Panther Party member Kathleen Cleaver from her 1998 essay, “Women, Power and Revolution”:

“I think it is important to place the women who fought oppression as Black Panthers within the longer tradition of freedom fighters like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida Wells-Barnett, who took on an entirely oppressive world and insisted that their race, their gender, and their humanity be respected all at the same time.”

To learn more about Kathleen Cleaver and to read more of her work, check out the 2001 book Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party: A New Look at the Panthers and Their Legacy, Cleaver’s personal papers that now reside at Emory University, where she was once a law professor, and links to other sources 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, and available at workman.com, Amazon, Bookshop and other online retailers.

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. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Learn About Sojourner Truth – Orator, Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Advocate (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 2, 2022

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Wednesday,  March 2  entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 about Sojourner Truth, the formerly enslaved protestor and advocate for women’s rights, prison reform and the abolition of slavery:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

In 1827, while slavery was still legal in New York, Isabella Baumfree escaped to freedom with her baby daughter. She went to court to recover her son and two years later she became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man.

In 1843 Baumfree renamed herself Sojourner Truth and began advocating for the abolition of slavery, women’s voting rights, prison reform and the end of capital punishment across the entire United States.

The first Black woman in America to attain national fame for protesting, Truth was honored in 2009 with a bust in the U.S. Capitol Building, and in 2020 as part of the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument unveiled in New York’s Central Park.

Truth was also very recently honored when New York governor Kathy Hochul announced a new state park in Ulster that will be named the Sojourner Truth State Park, and it will open later this year.To learn more about Sojourner Truth, read her autobiography The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, the biography Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol by Nell Irvin Painter, and for children, there’s My Name is Truth: The Life of Sojourner Truth written by Ann Turner and illustrated by James Ransome.

Also, do yourself a favor and check out the Sojourner Truth Project online where they compare the original transcription by Marcus Robinson of Truth’s speech in 1851 with the version that became popularized 12 years later. Other sources are also provided in today’s show notes and in the episode’s full transcript posted on goodblacknews.org.

1851 Sojourner Truth Speech – excerpt read by ST:

“May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man.  I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if women have a pint and man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seem to be all in confusion…”

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, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

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. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodblacknews anywhere on social.

Sources:

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Intersectionality” Means (LISTEN)

GBN’s Daily Drop: Black Lexicon – What “Intersectionality” Means (LISTEN)

By goodblacknews on March 1, 2022

[Image Source: Intersectional Environmentalist via YouTube]

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is based on the Tuesday,  March 1 entry in the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022 to kick off Women’s History Month.

It’s in our Black Lexicon category called “Lemme Break It Down” and explains the term “Intersectionality”:

You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.com or 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 Tuesday, March 1st, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.

It’s in the category we call “Lemme Break It Down,” where we explore the origins and meanings of words and phrases rooted in the Black Lexicon and Black culture. Today’s phrase to kick off Women’s History Month? “Intersectionality.”

“Intersectionality” is the term coined by Columbia University Law School Professor and Black feminist scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in 1989 to describe how race and gender create a unique form of oppression for African American women.

The term gave name to a key perspective which of course had been discussed long before. 18th and 19th century writings by Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells and Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I A Woman?” speech address the same concept.

Twenty-first-century usage has expanded to include class, sexuality, ability, religion or nationality as identities that can intersect to shape discrimination as well as privilege.

To learn more about intersectionality, check out the paper Kimberlé Crenshaw published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum where she first publicly explained her theory, entitled “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex”, listen to Crenshaw’s current podcast on the subject, Intersectionality Matters, and check out other sources 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, and available at workman.com, Amazon,Bookshop and other online retailers.

Beats provided by freebeats.io and produced by White Hot.

If you like our Daily Drops, please consider following us on Apple, Google Podcasts, RSS.com, Amazon,Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You could give us a positive rating or review, share your favorite episodes on social media, or go old school and tell a friend.

For more Good Black News, you can check out goodblacknews.org or search and follow @goodb,lacknews anywhere on social.

Sources: