Category: Articles

  • Anne Brown, Soprano Who Was Gershwin’s Bess, Is Dead at 96 The New York Times 2009-03-16 Douglas Martin Anne Brown, a penetratingly pure soprano who literally put the Bess in “Porgy and Bess” by inspiring George Gershwin to expand the character’s part in a folk opera that was originally to be called “Porgy,” died Friday…

  • ‘I don’t believe in Negro symphony conductors’ On An Overgrown Path 2011-07-25 John McLaughlin Williams ‘Oh, come in, young man. I’m reading these reviews. They are out of this world. You really have something. But I might as well tell you, right now, I don’t believe in Negro symphony conductors. No, you may play solo…

  • Why Affirmative Action Remains Essential in the Age of Obama Campbell Law Review Volume 31, Issue 3 (2009) pages 503-533 Reginald T. Shuford, Senior Staff Attorney, Racial Justice Program American Civil Liberties Union Foundation With the election of Barack Obama to the most powerful position in the world, the presidency of the United States of…

  • Brendon Ayanbadejo, Baltimore Ravens Linebacker, Talks Gay Marriage And LGBT Rights The Huffington Post 2012-09-12 Michelangelo Signorile Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is going “full steam ahead” after his battle with Maryland legislator C. Emmett Burns Jr., who last week wrote a letter calling on the team’s owner to silence Ayanbadejo regarding his public advocacy…

  • Standing Up at an Early Age The New York Times 2012-09-14 Adam Himmelsbach Views on Gay Rights of Ravens’ Ayanbadejo Are Rooted in Upbringing In recent weeks, Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo has been praised in many quarters for supporting the legalization of same-sex marriage. His stance is not new, but it reached a wider…

  • Young Barry Wins The New York Review of Books 2012-08-16 Darryl Pinckney Barack Obama: The Story. By David Maraniss. Simon and Schuster, 641 pp. A white friend told me recently that he heard someone complain that he’d voted for the black guy last time around, did he have to do it again—as if Obama’s election…

  • Mosley Wotta releases new album The Bulletin Bend, Oregon 2012-09-14 Ben Salmon Bend hip-hop artist performs in Bend tonight Anyone who knows local artist, musician and educator Jason Graham—aka MOsley WOtta, leader of the hip-hop band of the same name—knows that his relocation to Bend at age 9 from Chicago’s north side has had a…

  • ‘Thrall’ by Natasha Trethewey, the poet laureate of the United States The Washington Post 2012-09-13 Elizabeth Lund Thrall. By Natasha Trethewey. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 84 pp. Natasha Trethewey’s “Thrall” is a must-read collection that equals the power and quality of her third book, “Native Guard,” which won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize . “Thrall” also demonstrates…

  • The Third Musketeer The New York Times 2012-09-14   Leo Damrosch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature, Emeritus Harvard University The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal,and the Real Count of Monte Cristo. By Tom Reiss, 432 pp. Crown Publishers. Hardback ISBN: 978-0-307-38246-7. In the 1790s, the son of an aristocratic white father and a black slave…

  • Lawsuit Challenging Obama’s Qualifications Is Tossed Out In Federal Court AlaskaPublic.org 2012-09-12 Matt Miller, KTOO – Juneau An Alaska-based federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama’s qualifications to appear as a candidate on the November general election ballot. Gordon Warren Epperly of Juneau claims that Obama does not have the political…