L to r: Vergie Hamer, Robin Hamilton, Rev. Ed King, Dorie Ladner, Dr. Leslie McLemore. Photo courtesy of Robin Hamilton The first time I met Dorie Ladner was at the March on Washington Film Festival in 2017 in the Metropolitan AME Church in Washington, D.C. She was part of a panel of movement stalwarts I’d…
That’s how Dr. Ilyasah Shabazz describes her upbringing with her siblings by their mother, Dr. Betty Shabazz, after the death of their father, Malcolm X. I had the privilege of interviewing her recently at the Shabazz Center, created as a memorial to his legacy in 2005, resurrected from the bones of the old Audubon Ballroom…
It was the 1960s, and AM radio provided the soundtrack that got the party started in parks, beaches, front stoops and backyards across the country. African American DJs, with their melodic voices and big personalities were the griots, broadcasting critical cultural and political messages to the masses. Their importance was never more evident than in…
The recent documentary, Lowndes County and the Road to Black Power, chronicled the riveting grassroots effort by the people of Lowndes to organize, register, and vote African Americans into key local offices in the late 1960s. While they were eventually successful at the ballot box, they soon learned that the vote was just the beginning. Being elected…
The Bus She is nationally famous for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated Alabama bus and sparking the yearlong Montgomery Bus Boycott. A seamstress returning home from a hard day’s work, the reason given was that she was tired. In the last decade, we have discovered that it was much more than…
Before you answer, let’s take a moment to acknowledge those not joining us in this new year. Many have made their transitions in 2022, plunging us into the ministry of death, and flooding us with feelings of sadness and fear. The passing of personal loved ones and those in the public eye can be jolting…
Several years ago, at a private dinner during the March on Washington Film Festival, I heard Dr. Clarence Jones, personal attorney, and advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. tell this story. Jones, Harry Belafonte, and Stanley Levison were among King’s closest advisors, helping to plan strategy, write speeches, organize events and raise funds. They…
Two recent events taking place a world apart, have propelled my thoughts back several decades. They speak to the interconnection of art, culture, and politics. What links them are a film festival and the synchronicity of time. One is the publication of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker’s diaries, Gathering Blossoms Under Fire. The other is…
Painting and protest. Art and activism. Singular style; multidisciplinary approach. The exhibit at the New Museum of works by Faith Ringgold heralds all of this and more. It encompasses three floors and six decades of her paintings, multimedia story quilts, and craft-based soft sculptures. That it is the first full retrospective of the 90-year old…
She was crazy. Until very recently, that was all most of us knew about Louise Little, mother of Malcolm Little, aka Malcolm X and later, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X, written with Alex Haley, we learned that she suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to a mental institution after her…