Tag: New York Times

  • Theater; On Hearing Her Sing, Gershwin Made ‘Porgy’ ‘Porgy and Bess’ The New York Times 1998-03-29 Barry Singer In his tragically short life, George Gershwin knew only one Bess, and this bittersweet fact has framed Anne Wiggins Brown’s life. She was that Bess in the original production of Gershwin’s operatic masterwork based on Dorothy and…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • Stir Builds Over Actress to Portray Nina Simone The New York Times 2012-09-12 Tanzina Vega In the digital age Hollywood casting decisions leaked from behind closed doors can instantly become fodder for public debate. And when the decision involves race and celebrity, the debate can get very heated. The online media world has been abuzz…

  • When Family Trees Are Gnarled by Race The New York Times 2012-09-08 Brent Staples My paternal grandfather, Marshall Staples (1898-1969), was one of the millions of black Southerners who moved north in the Great Migration. Those of us in the family who were born Yankees in the years just after World War II were given…

  • Alexander Saxton, Historian and Novelist, Dies at 93 The New York Times 2012-09-01 Paul Vitello Alexander Saxton, who would go on to become a prominent historian of race in America, summed himself up in a blurb on the dust jacket of his first novel, “Grand Crossing,” published when he was 24. “At various times,” he…

  • People Can Claim One or More Races On Federal Forms The New York Times 1997-10-30 Steven A. Holmes The Clinton Administration today adopted new rules for listing racial and ethnic makeup on Federal forms, allowing people for the first time to identify themselves as members of more than one race. The change, which could affect…

  • Brazil Enacts Affirmative Action Law for Universities The New York Times 2012-08-30 Simon Romero, Brazil Bureau Chief RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s government has enacted one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws, requiring public universities to reserve half of their admission spots for the largely poor students in the nation’s public schools…

  • Hopes Spring Eternal: ‘Three Strong Women,’ by Marie NDiaye The New York Times 2012-08-10 Fernanda Eberstadt Americans have a curiously limited vision of France. We may be wild about Chanel sunglasses, Vuitton handbags, Champagne or Paris in the spring, but when it comes to the kinds of contemporary French culture that can’t be bought in…

  • Who Is Jamaica? The New York Times 2012-08-05 Carolyn Cooper, Professor of Literary and Cultural Studies University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica DURING last week’s independence festivities, I took out my prized commemorative plate. It was a gift from the mother of a long-ago boyfriend who, incomprehensibly, complained constantly that his mother loved me…