By Talia Whyte
The Bay State Banner
Veteran political journalist and Boston media alum Gwen Ifill was in town last Thursday to receive the 2009 Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award, presented by the Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University. The award is given out each year to individuals and organizations that promote the right to free expression.
Read the full article here.
By Talia Whyte
The Bay State Banner
Paul Breeden feels the touch of the divine in every bar he spits, in every stab of a scratch needle on wax, in every boom-bap bass burst. They always say God moves in mysterious ways, but there’s no mystery here: For him, hip-hop is church.
Under the moniker of MC Holy Ghost, Breeden has spent the last 20 years throwing down lyrics inspired, he said, by a higher being.
“I don’t call myself Holy Ghost; God gave me that name,” he said. “We all have the Holy Ghost in us, and through that, I believe no one can diss me.”
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Mary Frances Berry, historian and former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, was in Boston February 19 to discuss her latest book, as well as her career in Washington.
Highlights:
Berry on Eric Holder’s “nation of cowards” speech: “It was a gutsy thing for him to do.”
Berry on NY Post cartoon depicting Obama/chimpanzee : “I can agree that it’s racist, but they have a right to say that.”
The original conversation is about an hour long, so I cut it into 7 10-minute segments. It is well worth worth watching the whole conversation if you can.
By Talia Whyte
The Bay State Banner
Many books and films over the last 150 years have explored the social impact that slavery has had on race relations in America. In “Sugar of the Crop: My Journey to Find the Children of Slaves,” author Sana Butler makes an important contribution to the topic by looking at how the lives of the last surviving children born to slaves evolved after the abolition of slavery.
The recently released book chronicles Butler’s 10-year journey to conduct interviews with these survivors and record their stories. Most were in their 90s at the time of their interviews. All have since passed away.
Read the full article here.