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Civil rights icon stresses kids’ social engagement

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By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

Drawing on his own inspiring life as an example of how one young person can make a difference, legendary civil rights leader Hollis Watkins, 66, spoke to a group of Boston teachers at Old South Meeting House last Saturday about how to engage today’s youth in pressing social issues.

When he was 19 years old, Watkins became the first student in Mississippi to become a voting rights activist for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He spent most of the 1960s being arrested and jailed for organizing African Americans in the South to vote.

“We must emphasize to our youth today that the civil rights movement was run by the youth,” Watkins said. “When I joined SNCC, I was among the older members at the age of 19. It is up to the young people today to keep the momentum going.”

Read the full article here.

Traces of the Trade

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By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the U.S. abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, a bicentennial that has some blacks and whites trying to reconcile their respective places in American society.

Katrina Browne is one of them.
The filmmaker, who is white, thought that because her family was from Rhode Island, there was no way that her ancestors could have been involved in slavery. But when she read a book given to her by her grandmother, Browne learned that her family was not only involved, but were the largest slave trading family in the United States.

Read the full article here.

American caravan seeks to improve U.S.-Cuban relations

By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

Where the United States government sees danger, some American activists see opportunity.

For nearly the last five decades, the relationship between Cuba and America has been contentious. But now that an ailing Fidel Castro has ceded power to his brother Raúl, American activists say they want to change the dynamic between the two countries, largely by denouncing what they believe to be outdated U.S. policies toward the communist-aligned nation.

Read the full article here.

Zimbabwe’s Bongo Love, out of Africa and into Boston

By Talia Whyte

The Bay State Banner

Thanks to the instant, worldwide connections made possible by the new frontier of online social networking, more musicians than ever are finding audiences in far-flung places.

Case in point: the Zimbabwean quartet Bongo Love, who are now traveling the U.S. on a tour that has featured a number of Boston-area stops, including a date this coming Tuesday at the South End nightspot 28 Degrees. The tour is the result in part of a growing fanbase that used a combination of new technology and old-fashioned word of mouth to get them here.

Read the complete article here.

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