Every year on March 18, Good Black News celebrates the day of its founding. We continue that tradition today, fourteen years after GBN’s inception.
Even though the last two years have been challenging (details here), and changes in how people consume content (eg. TikTok, IG, IG Stories, Reels) have led to way fewer postings on the main goodblacknews.org site, we are still exceedingly proud of all we’ve offered and accomplished over the years, even as we continue to find our footing as we attempt to evolve and forge ahead into the future.
We are slowly sharing more content on GBN’s Instagram, Facebook, Threads and BlueSky profiles, figuring out what we can offer on TikTok, and every month we are still happy to offer new and/or updated Music Monday playlists from our incredible music contributors Marlon West and Jeff Meier.
I also want to acknowledge 2023’s other volunteer contributors in alphabetical order: Julie Bibb, Gina Fattore, Julie Fishman, Michael Giltz, Warren Hutcherson, Fred Johnson, Epiphany Jordan, Brenda Lakin,Joyce Lakin, John Levinson, Dena Loverde, Catherine Metcalf,Flynn Richardson,Maeve Richardson, Becky Schonbrun, and Teddy Tenenbaum.
You are all deeply, greatly appreciated.
But what truly keeps me, my co-editor Lesa Lakin and all of GBN’s wonderful volunteer contributors going is the appreciation you’ve shown us over the years and still show via follows, likes, comments, shares, reblogs, DMs and e-mails (even when we are overwhelmed and can’t respond to them all).
Your support means the world, and inspires me as Editor-in-Chief to keep working to find ways to keep GBN alive here on the main page as well as on Pinterest,Tumblr,YouTube, RSS feed, LinkedIn and Flipboard, and yeah, our sometime-y GBN newsletter you may get via email.
We are looking into switching over from a newsletter to a GBN Substack, so if you are interested in that, please consider joining our e-mail list via our “Contact Us” tab on goodblacknews.org. We will only use this list for GBN. And, of course, you may opt out whenever you like.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News on as many platforms as we can in the coming months and beyond!
I’m back with another collection in my “Afro” playlist series — “AfroBeatles.”
Earlier this month the first new Beatles song “Now And Then” dropped with the help of master filmmaker, Peter Jackson, and the surviving members. It is the first new release from the group in 45 years.
The Beatles are rightly known for the unmatched songwriting partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Towards their later years, George Harrison and Ringo Starr also pitched in with originals. Together, the group created a body of work that inspired no shortage of covers.
Few songwriters have been so thoroughly covered as Lennon/McCartney, and the diversity of Beatles covers is a tribute to their indelible mark on pop music. Here at Good Black News, we are going to focus on the covers by Black artists around the world.
The Beatles (and The Rolling Stones) cut their teeth opening for Little Richard; both bands came away forever altered by his singing style and stage presence.
Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger have made no secret of biting his vocal stylings and dance moves. When it came to doing covers they overt about acknowledging it.
On their first five albums of 1963-1965, almost all of the covers were originally recorded by Black soul artists, including Arthur Alexander’s “Anna (Go To Him)”, The Cookies’ “Chains”, The Shirelles’ “Boys” & “Baby It’s You”, The Top Notes’ “Twist & Shout”, The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman”, The Miracles’ “You Really Got A Hold On Me”, The Donays’ “Devil In Her Heart”, Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” and Larry Williams’ “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.”
They are all included here, including their versions of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and other greats of Soul giants, though the lion’s share of the collection is devoted to R&B, reggae, ska, and jazz covers of Beatles songs.
Here are hours of Beatles music by Stevie Wonder, Bill Withers, Nina Simone, Marica Griffiths, Gary Clark, Jr., and so many others. Please enjoy AfroBeatles!!
Here’s hoping that you, your loved ones, colleagues and friends are partaking of only the best during this year’s Easter celebration – enjoy your blessings and the day!
Every year on March 18, Good Black News celebrates the day of its founding. We continue that tradition today, thirteen years after GBN’s inception.
Even though this past year has been particularly challenging (details here), and led to way fewer postings on the main goodblacknews.org site as well as the cessation of the GBN Daily Drop Podcast, we are still exceedingly proud of all we’ve offered and accomplished over the years, even as we continue to search for our new footing as we forge ahead into the future.
And although it’s no longer weekly, every month we are happy to offer new and/or updated Music Monday playlists from our incredible music contributors Marlon West and Jeff Meier.
I also want to acknowledge 2022’s other volunteer contributors in alphabetical order: Julie Bibb, Gina Fattore, Julie Fishman, Michael Giltz, Warren Hutcherson, Fred Johnson, Epiphany Jordan, Brenda Lakin,Joyce Lakin, John Levinson, Dena Loverde, Catherine Metcalf,Flynn Richardson,Maeve Richardson, Becky Schonbrun, and Teddy Tenenbaum.
You are all deeply, greatly appreciated.
But what truly keeps me, my co-editor Lesa Lakin and all of GBN’s wonderful volunteer contributors going is the appreciation you’ve shown us over the years and still show via follows, likes, comments, shares, reblogs, DMs and e-mails (even when we are overwhelmed and can’t respond to them all).
Your support means the world, and inspires me as Editor-in-Chief to keep working to find ways to improve GBN on the main page as well as on Pinterest,Tumblr,YouTube, RSS feed, LinkedIn and Flipboard, and yeah, our sometime-y GBN newsletter you can get via email.
Please continue to help us spread GBN by sharing, liking, re-tweeting and commenting, and consider following GBN on the main page, as well as wherever you are on social media.
Please also consider joining our e-mail list via our “Contact Us” tab on goodblacknews.org. We will only use this list to keep you updated on GBN and send you our e-newsletter from time to time. And, of course, you may opt out whenever you like.
Thank you again for your support, and we look forward to providing you with more Good Black News in the coming months and beyond!
by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, GBN founder and Editor-in-Chief
Well, here we are, once again. Forty seven years after February was officially recognized by the U.S. government as Black History Month, and ninety seven years after Negro History Weekwas founded by Carter G. Woodson, “The Father of Black History.”
We are also, once again, deeply distressed by the murder of a young Black person (Tyre Nichols) at the hands of police officers. The fact that the officers and the police chief are Black this time around doesn’t complicate but instead amplifies the grotesque, stark, ironically colorblind reality of systemic racism — it is a pernicious construct of power and oppression that can be upheld or enforced by anyone of any color or gender or creed.
So, how do we reconcile the two — the celebration of Black people and their achievements while constantly experiencing injustice, inequity and increasingly, erasure?
As Editor-in-Chief of Good Black News, a site which for over a decade has literally been dedicated year-round to the celebration of Black people and their achievements, I have been wrestling with this question for a while, particularly in the last eight months.
After the murder of 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, NY by a white supremacist in May 2022 and the continued downplaying of racially-based domestic terrorism, I felt depleted and bereft. Of hope, of faith, of purpose. It didn’t seem to matter how much Black people achieved or prospered or protested or suffered in America — we couldn’t even buy our groceries in peace.
And once again, the narrative of the “lone, mentally unstable shooter” was trotted out. One person was (rightfully) punished, but the racist political and economic system he embraced in its most violent extreme? It remained (and remains) steadfastly in place. As did the onus remain on the shoulders of Black people to be seen as worthy of basic human rights.
America quickly got back to the business of forgetting and moving on, even after experiencing only two years before what seemed like a watershed moment of racial reckoning after the police murder of George Floyd.
But here were are again today, literally TODAY, with civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump saying during his call to action during Tyre Nichols’ funeral: “Why couldn’t they see the humanity in Tyre?… We have to make sure they see us as human beings worthy of respect and justice!”
We do?
I’ll admit in many ways, I understand where Crump is coming from. “Show the humanity” has essentially been the GBN operating philosophy since 2010 — to create a site and space where we can see and celebrate our humanity, while offering access to anyone else who wants to take a gander.
But now, in 2023, I must push myself to dig deeper and firmly challenge why it should it ever be the responsibility of any human being to convince any other human being of their humanity. To state the obvious, once, and for all:
BLACK PEOPLE ARE HUMAN BEINGS.
If the words above are not inherently understood to be true, why is that? Why does this have to be shown? Proven? Over and over and over again?
My answer, also obvious, is that they don’t. Not ever.
So, while I absolutely respect and still intend to celebrate the legacies of people such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier and the like, going forward I also need for GBN’s Black History Month and GBN in general to engage more actively in the interrogation and disempowering any systems, institutions or public policies that do not recognize or uphold this truth and all the basic rights that should flow from it (e.g. respect, freedom, safety, equality).
Maybe I’m not giving enough credit to GBN in its past and present form — I acknowledge that GBN has been helpful and appreciated by many for the way we offer information via the lens of celebration and positivity.
What I’m aiming to add to our existing ethos is more critical thinking and opinion about cultural topics and cultural content, boosting political, economic and social policies that are truly about protecting, serving and uplifting Black people, and working to upend those that don’t.
The College Board creates and administers the AP program. Join us in demanding that they:
Reject the narrow interpretation of Florida law that contradicts principles of academic freedom and autonomy in determining what to teach in classrooms.
Take swift action to make sure Florida does not modify the curriculum of the proposed AP African-American Studies course designed with the help of respected Black scholars, but rather, maintains the integrity of the proposed curriculum.
Florida’s current agenda of political interference in the AP African American studies curriculum directly conflicts with the values of equity, fairness, and justice. Our students deserve better.
Additionally, I want to highlight Nikole Hannah-Jones’ The 1619 Projectseries now streaming on Hulu as well as promote the excellent “Intersectionality Matters” podcast by law professor Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw whose name is among the writers expunged from the AP African American studies curriculum.
I also want to give props to Beyoncéfor officially announcing her 2023 Renaissance World Tour! A definite bright spot on this first day of Black History Month, the efforts Beyoncé and her team are making via the Verified Fan system and its tiers of engagement (first priority given to the BeyHive!) to ensure real fans get access to tickets over usurious resale entities is for sure worth a shout out.
Frankly, I am tired of us being caught out there, and I want GBN to do more, offer more, share more and speak out more. In our tweets, reels, stories, posts, playlists, comments — however.
Maybe I’ll get it wrong sometimes, but with deep love for this community as my true north, may my faith, purpose and hope never again be broken.
For many of us 2022 was a time of recovering from lockdown. It was a return to normalcy for many of us. I am wishing you all safe and wonderful Holiday Season.
I am more than delighted to share this week’s playlist, Groove Christmas 2022, just in time to share and gather with friends and family.
As usual this is freewheeling and “afroclectic” collection season tunes from several genres. Soul, Jazz, Gospel, Reggae, and many other styles are on hand for the Christmastime collection. You know, Nat King Cole, Marvin Gaye, Eartha Kitt, Donny Hathaway, Sharon Jones and other Christmas standard-bearers are on hand.
Though there are artist like Aloe Blacc, Vika & Linda, Kontawa, and DRAM with recent releases.
Whether you are staying home, or traveling, please have a wonderful, and peaceful, holiday season.
It has been an honor and delight to share music with you all here on Good Black News for another trip around the sun. I’ll see you back here in January with a round-up of this year.
We hope that all of you in the Good Black News family are enjoying the holiday season and all the prep that goes along with it.
As many longtime readers know, Good Black News couldn’t survive the holidays without our Spotify Christmas music mixes playing in the background.
So, today, we’ve updated one of our most popular playlists ever to share with you again, and offer you the chance to deep dive into holiday music that is a little different than the rotation of 20 Andy Williams, Burl Ives and Bing Crosby tunes you might hear on the regular radio.
While you’re wrapping, decorating, baking, or just sipping eggnog by the fireplace, our playlist is a go-to that can last all season long.
Of course you can set it on shuffle and never know what’s coming next, or just let it play through. We’ve carefully planned it out so that if you just let it play, you’ll get a mix of tempos and artists and soulful styles singing songs you know by heart mixed in with forgotten coulda-been classics and brand new originals that are classics in the making.
As a reminder, musically we’ve set out to create our own ‘radio’-like Christmas playlist, but as only GBN could, comprised entirely of songs performed by Black artists (or in the rare case of Robin Thicke, artists singing in a soulful tradition).
Of course, we’ve got Donny Hathaway, The Jackson 5, The Temptations‘ “Silent Night,” and plenty of Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Johnny Mathis, and yes, Mariah Carey.
But as we did last year, we’ve refreshed the playlist this year with a bunch of new tracks – titles that are freshly released in 2022, as well as older tunes that are new discoveries for us, and even some famous songs that had never before appeared on Spotify.
In the era of streaming music, new Christmas music is being released much differently than it used to be. There are still a few new full-length Christmas ‘albums’ being issued.
Among them are collections from Alicia Keys, Regina Belle, and recent Emmy groundbreaker Sheryl Lee Ralph (working with gospel producer/artist B. Slade on her new release entitled ‘Sleigh.’).
We’ve got songs from all of the new releases above (although currently Alicia Keys has only made one single from her album available on Spotify).
Today’s GBN Daily Drop podcast is all about… GBN! Good Black News was founded 12 years ago today, and I celebrate it and our volunteer contributors proudly in the Friday, March 18 entry from the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day®️ Calendar for 2022:
You can follow or subscribe to the Good Black News Daily Drop Podcast through Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, rss.comor 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 Friday, March 18th, 2022, based on the “A Year of Good Black News Page-A-Day Calendar” published by Workman Publishing.
On March 18, 2010, Good Black News was founded as a Facebook page. Within two years, it grew into goodblacknews.org –– a website dedicated to curating and creating posts focused on the good things Black people do, give, and receive all over the world. Reader support for the site across all forms of social media has led to the lovely calendar you are experiencing now, so thank you (or whoever gifted you) – and please continue to spread the word!
Okay, so what I just read was the calendar entry for this day, but I really have so much to add to it. Every year I write a post celebrating the date Good Black News was founded, reflecting on where Good Black News came from – and I’ll post a link to our origin story and how Good Black News was born from an off-hand conversation I had with Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Backbest-selling author and screenwriter Terry McMillan — and what we’ve most recently accomplished.
I’d say for this past year, seeing the “A Year of Good Black News” Page-A-Day Calendar for 2022 get published by Workman Publishing, and me starting this podcast based on it, are the biggest ways we’ve grown over the past 12 months. And I hope to grow even more and expand this podcast beyond the calendar when I have more time and opportunity to do so.
Good Black News also managed to get a little press in 2021 when we were featured in an abcnews10 pieceon positive news. Also, last month I officially resumed the Q&A column I started in 2020 entitled “Dear Lori”where I respond to questions about white privilege and race that I’ve been asked by readers over the years.
But what truly keeps me, my co-editor Lesa Lakin and all of GBN’s wonderful volunteer contributors going is the outpouring of appreciation you’ve shown us over the years via follows, likes, comments, shares, reblogs, DMs and e-mails (even when we are overwhelmed and can’t respond to them all) and now, listens.
Happy first Monday of 2022! Hope this young year has been treating you well so far.
Well, this collection is definitely a group effort. Last week I asked the readers of Good Black News and other friends and family to offer songs that have helped sustain them during these mercurial Covid times. Folks did not disappoint.
I have assembled a playlist of old and new music of many genres to enjoy during this fourth wave of The Vid.
I’M STILL HERE takes its title from a track by the immortal Sharon Jones. It was created for the documentary, Miss Sharon Jones!, about her tenacious battle with cancer. This collection contains songs offered by stalwart GBN music contributor, Jeff Meier, our Editor-in-Chief, Lori Lakin Hutcherson, and many readers and pals from all over.
Eighty-one year old Jazz legend Pharaoh Sanders is in the house with a record released during 2021. There are songs by folks like the emerging artist Yola too.
There are tracks considered by most as enduring classics, and others that will be well worth putting in the effort to “get to know.” Do enjoy more than 9 hours of music to fill your heart and soul. I hope this short missive finds you all safe and well.
Thanks for pitching in and enjoy. And as always, stay safe, sane, and kind. See ya soon.
On a day when so many family members, friends and loved ones may or may not have been able to come together to celebrate, GBN wishes you a Merry and safe Christmas, a blessed and bountiful Kwanzaa and Hopeful Holidays all around.
As we give to each other, let us always strive to remember what a gift we have in life, and to cherish and respect that spirit always for ourselves as well as others all year long.
