Good Black News
(Photo from “Bruised” via TIFF)
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.
The Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies has a nice ring to it. As of September 4, it’s the name the University of Maryland‘s Women’s Studies department will bear.
New UMD President Darryll J. Pines hailed the change in a letter to the campus community:
[This is] the first honorific naming of an academic department at UMD, the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. It is fitting that this heroic Marylander is now honored at the state’s flagship university.
The department is widely acclaimed for its unique concentration in Black feminist thought and intersectionality, and it is the only department in the nation that offers a Black women’s studies minor, jointly with the Department of African American Studies.
Historically, Black women have played a brave and critical role in social justice. Harriet Tubman’s life and her dedication to freedom and equality speaks directly to the department’s mission, now and in the years ahead.
Bonnie Thornton Dill, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Maryland said to WTOP News she hopes the name change helps to bring awareness to Tubman’s contributions locally and nationally.
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.
Watch below… and share!
The Compton Cowboys (Photo credit: Drew A. Kelley/Getty Images)
by Marlon West (FB: marlon.west1 Twitter: @marlonw IG: stlmarlonwest Spotify: marlonwest)
Last year, Lil Nas X‘s “Old Town Road” renewed to debate over what is and isn’t country music. For all its beauty, honesty and diversity, American country music has the reputation and claim as “white people music.”
In reality, country music owes its most profound roots to Black musicians and artists. The banjo even has its roots in West Africa.
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Artists like Charley Pride, Aaron Neville, Ray Charles and even Tina Turner are among the list of Black artists who have crossed over into country music.
But there’s DeFord Bailey, Stoney Edward and Linda Martell among several artists whose names only ring familiar among the most ardent of country fans.
In the past decade however, since the major country chart solo success of former Hootie and the Blowfish front man Darius Rucker, there has been a whole new crop of current Black country artists on the rise.
That list includes Valerie June, Mickey Guyton, Cowboy Troy, Miko Marks, Kane Brown and others who have been the favorites of both fans and critics since they stepped on the scene.
Hope you enjoy this freewheeling collection of Black country music.
Stay safe, sane, and kind.
See ya next Monday!
by Jeff Meier (FB: Jeff.Meier.90)
As we head into Labor Day Weekend, the unofficial end of Summer, it’s one more chance to relax a little amidst such a stressful year for so many of us.
We’ve had such a great reaction here at Good Black News to so many of our Spotify playlists, including our decade-spanning slow jam playlists that we made for the ‘70s (Ultimate ‘70s Slow Jam Summer) and the ‘80s (Ultimate ‘80s Champagne Slow Jams).
So it only made sense, in time for the long weekend, to unveil our playlist of slow jam faves from the ‘90s – entitled Ultimate ‘90s Sunset Slow Jams, available at this link here, and of course you can listen to or access below. All you ‘90s soul music fans, it’s time to favorite this playlist and represent!
[spotifyplaybutton play=”spotify:playlist:43oaIWo1oj8UlZSqX3Oix1″/]
R&B music in the ‘90s underwent a true sea change that had been slowly building up through the prior decade. If ‘80s slow jams were the sound of lushly-produced, upscale elegance via superstar duets from well-dressed veteran singers, the ‘90s tossed a lot of that in the rearview mirror.
[Dr. Namandjé Bumpus (photo via Johns Hopkins University)]
According to jbhe.com, Dr. Namandjé Bumpus was appointed chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD.
Dr. Bumpus is the first African-American woman to chair an academic department at the highly-rated medical school and the only Black woman currently chairing a pharmacology department at any medical school in the nation, according to Johns Hopkins.
Teyana Taylor dropped a stunning and powerful music video today for “Still” from her third LP, THE ALBUM, which came out on Juneteenth of this year via G.O.O.D. Music/Def Jam Recordings.
The video, produced by Teyana’s all-female led production company “The Aunties” and directed by Taylor under her pseudonym Spike Tey, highlights footage of important moments in America’s ongoing fight for social justice, with Teyana blending herself into the iconic imagery of Malcolm X (see photo above), Huey P. Newton and Breonna Taylor by donning their clothes and assuming their poses.
The video also includes words and footage of Malcolm X, footage of Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Angela Davis, the Black Panthers, Civil Rights Movement protesters, Black Lives Matter protesters and several victims of hate crimes and police brutality including Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, Tamir Rice and George Floyd, to name a few. It is, in a word, gripping. Watch below:
According to Variety.com, AMC Theatres will pay tribute to beloved actor and Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, who died last week of colon cancer at 43, by screening 42, Boseman’s leading man debut as Major League Baseball barrier breaker and icon Jackie Robinson. (To read GBN’s review of 42, click here.)
Warner Bros. and Legendary, the studios behind the 2013 film, have teamed up with the theater chain to make “42” viewable in more than 300 locations. That’s nearly every AMC venue that’s open as coronavirus closures start to lift. Tickets for 42 will only be $5 and will go on sale by the end of Tuesday.
[Jacob Blake III’s father Jacob Blake Jr, left and Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., right; photo courtesy SCLC]
Dr. Charles Steele, Jr., president and CEO of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the organization co-founded and first led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., announced today that the Atlanta-based civil rights organization will lead a campaign to help the family of Jacob Blake secure support for his long term recovery and care.
Dr. Steele made the announcement after a meeting with Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Jr., and other family members at a location in Wauwatosa, a city just west of Milwaukee, where the younger Blake is in a hospital receiving treatment.
Family members have traveled to the Milwaukee area from other regions of the country after receiving news last Sunday of Jacob Blake III being shot in the back seven times by a police officer in Kenosha, a city of approximately 100,000 residents about one hour south of Milwaukee.
Blake, 29, is African American and the unjustified shooting has left him paralyzed. The officer has been placed on leave from the department. The shooting has led to numerous protests around the nation. Blake’s father said the family is receiving overwhelming support from Americans to get them from day to day, but now the family is concerned about his son’s long-term recovery after his release from the hospital.
“As the president and CEO of the SCLC, and in the spirit of our founder, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I am here with Mr. Blake to let him and his family know that the SCLC will lead a campaign to secure support for your son’s long term care,” said Dr. Steele during the Saturday afternoon meeting with the father and family.
After a telephone conversation earlier in the week, Dr. Steele said he traveled to the Milwaukee area to personally meet with the father to determine the son’s needs.