{"id":43113,"date":"2015-10-06T15:20:51","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T15:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=43113"},"modified":"2016-11-08T23:17:18","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T23:17:18","slug":"something-old-something-new","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=43113","title":{"rendered":"Something Old, Something New"},"content":{"rendered":"

Something Old, Something New<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

BBC Radio 4<\/a>
\n2015-10-06<\/p>\n

Johny Pitts<\/a><\/strong>, Host<\/p>\n

Peter Meanwell<\/strong><\/a>, Producer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nRecorded & mixed! Finished @BBCRadio4<\/a> (Engineer Steve Hellier<\/a> with Johny Pitts) Source: Peter Meanwell<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

From Sheffield to South Carolina, Johny Pitts explores alternative Black British identity.<\/em><\/p>\n

What happens when your Dad’s an African-American soul star [Richie Pitts<\/a>] and your Mum’s a music-loving girl from working class Sheffield<\/a>? Are your roots on the terraces at a Sheffield United<\/a> match, or in the stylings of a Spike Lee<\/a> film? For writer and photographer Johny Pitts, whose parents met in the heyday of Northern Soul<\/a>, on the dance floor of the legendary King Mojo club<\/a>, how he navigates his black roots has always been an issue. Not being directly connected to the Caribbean<\/a> or West African diaspora<\/a> culture, all he was told at school was that his ancestors were slaves, so for BBC Radio 4, he heads off to the USA<\/a>, to trace his father’s musical migration, and tell an alternative story of Black British identity.<\/p>\n

From Pitsmore<\/a> in Sheffield, to Bedford Stuyvesant<\/a> in New York<\/a>, and all the way down to South Carolina<\/a>, where his grandmother picked cotton<\/a>, Johny Pitts heads off on a journey of self-discovery. On the way he meets author Caryl Phillips<\/a>, Kadija, a half sister he never knew, and historian Bernard Powers<\/a>. He visits the Concorde Baptist Church<\/a> in Brooklyn, New York<\/a>, and the Bush River Missionary Baptist Church<\/a>, in Newberry, South Carolina<\/a>. He tracks down a whole host of long-lost cousins, and talks to Pulitzer winning writer Isabel Wilkerson<\/a>. On the way he shines a light on the shadows of his ancestry, and finds stories and culture that deliver him to a new understanding of his own mixed race identity and history.<\/p>\n

Listen to the story here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Something Old, Something New BBC Radio 4 2015-10-06 Johny Pitts, Host Peter Meanwell, Producer Recorded & mixed! Finished @BBCRadio4 (Engineer Steve Hellier with Johny Pitts) Source: Peter Meanwell From Sheffield to South Carolina, Johny Pitts explores alternative Black British identity. What happens when your Dad’s an African-American soul star [Richie Pitts] and your Mum’s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,2850,395,1245,459,8,820,6940,10,20],"tags":[20921,21318,6675,3324,8757,81,21319,8893,17264,21321,1392,2711,21315,21316,21320,21317,1449],"class_list":["post-43113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-audio","category-autobiography","category-biography","category-history","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-slavery","category-uk","category-usa","tag-bbc-radio-4","tag-bernard-powers","tag-brooklyn","tag-caryl-phillips","tag-charleston","tag-england","tag-great-migration","tag-isabel-wilkerson","tag-johny-pitts","tag-kadija-pitts","tag-music","tag-new-york","tag-northern-soul","tag-peter-meanwell","tag-richie-pitts","tag-sheffield","tag-south-carolina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43113"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43115,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43113\/revisions\/43115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}