Judith Giesberg’s “Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families” explores the devastating practice of slave-owners separating families, while Martha S. Jones’ “The Trouble of Color” delves into the journey of untangling her own family’s history and identity.
emancipation
Posted inEntertainment
Goodman Theatre Gem of the Ocean, though set in 1904, its journey is not complete
It is eerily emblematic that the official opening night of August Wilson’s epic ‘Gem of the Ocean’ occurred on the eve of Black History Month, when 17 Historically Black Colleges across several states were forced to close down due to bomb threats. Wilson’s masterpiece is set in 1904, where the chains of slavery still echo disturbingly in the minds of the inhabitants of Aunt Ester’s boarding house in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. The Civil War, Emancipation, the Underground Railroad and the failed charade of Reconstruction are all as present-day to its denizens as the spirits conjured by Aunt Ester (a mesmerizing Lisa Gaye Dixon, who is a veteran of Goodman’s A Christmas Carol). Myth and redemptive hallucination, bordering on a Timothy Leary mind-trip, dominate this soul-searching drama that borders on the Shakespearean.
Posted in#NNPA BlackPress, Black Experience, Black History, Commentary, Community, Economy, Featured, Julianne Malveaux, Law, National, News, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, Politics
COMMENTARY: Reparations Rising with Robin Rue Simmons
NNPA NEWSWIRE — With a Senate dominated by conservative Democrats and obstructionist Republicans, when HR 40 passes in Congress, it is unlikely to pass in the Senate. However, it is essential to acknowledge the enormous progress the reparations movement has experienced since Conyers first introduced HR 40.
Posted in#NNPA BlackPress, Black Experience, Black History, Commentary, Community, Education, Featured, HBCU, Lifestyle, Movies and Film, National, News, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, Press Room
PRESS ROOM: TWENTY PEARLS Documentary Film about First Black-Greek Letter Organization Now Available Nationwide
NNPA NEWSWIRE — Narrated by Phylicia Rashād, TWENTY PEARLS journeys through 113 provocative years. Only 40 years past the emancipation of enslaved African Americans, nine Black college women enrolled at Howard University where they organized and built a sisterhood in 1908.
Posted in#NNPA BlackPress, Black History, Business, Commentary, Community, Featured, Lifestyle, National, News, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, Nsenga K. Burton
‘Twenty Pearls’ AKA Documentary Shows the Vision and Impact of Black College Women
NNPA NEWSWIRE — Executive Producer and Alpha Kappa Alpha member Kimberly Esmond Adams believes anytime is the right time to tell this type of American story. “This story talks about the role that a group of college women, who were still finding their way in the world, yet were intelligent enough to understand that the world was bigger than them and they could do something concrete to make it better for everyone.”
Posted in#NNPA BlackPress, Black History, Community, Featured, National, News, NNPA, NNPA Newswire, racism, Stacy Brown
Slavery Part IV: The Economic Engine of the New Nation
NNPA NEWSWIRE — “Slavery may have ended in 1865, but a slaveholder mentality persisted, shaping the contours of American life for decades to come. This legacy of slavery is very much what African Americans have been fighting against from the moment of emancipation through the present.”
