Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 256

"A Concerto Is a Conversation": What My Grandfather Taught Me About Courage

'Kris Bowers is one of Hollywood’s rising young composers. At 29, he scored the Oscar-winning film Green Book (2018), and in 2020 he premiered a new violin concerto, “For a Younger Self,” at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. For all that success, though, he says that as a Black composer, “I’ve been wondering whether or not I’m supposed to be in the spaces that I’m in.” In Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers's "A Concerto Is a Conversation," Bowers traces the process of breaking into new spaces through generations of sacrifice that came before him, focusing on the story of his grandfather Horace Bowers. As a young man, he left his home in the Jim Crow South, eventually ending up in Los Angeles. Encountering discrimination at every turn, he and his wife, Alice, nevertheless made a life as business owners. Today, their legacy lives on through their family and community in South Los Angeles, where a stretch of Central Avenue was recently designated Bowers Retail Square — in case any question remained about whether it’s a place they belong.' -- The New York Times

'Black Radical' Traces The Life And Legacy Of Activist William Monroe Trotter

'William Monroe Trotter was a Black newspaper editor in the early 20th century who advocated for civil rights by organizing mass protests. Historian Kerri Greenidge tells his story in her new book, Black Radical' Traces The Life And Legacy Of Activist William Monroe Trotter. --  Fresh Air

Misty Copeland’s ‘Bunheads’ is an Ode to Friendship in the Dance Studio

"Bunheads," the new children’s book by ballet star Misty Copeland, is filled with direct nods to real people in her life who have encouraged her talent over the years, but also the more universal ways that dance friends become sources of inspiration for one other.' -- PBS NewsHour

Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham in Conversation with Eve L. Ewing on Black Futures

'When Kimberly Drew (This Is What I Know About Art) and Jenna Wortham (New York Times Magazine staff writer and Still Processing podcast host) set out to collaborate, they were guided by a central question: “What does it mean to be Black and alive right now?” The resulting work, Black Futures, brings together diverse contributors across multiple formats—images, essays, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to capture and preserve flourishing Black creativity and art in our digital world. Join Drew and Wortham along with Black Futures contributor Chicago sociologist and writer Eve L. Ewing, for a conversation about the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today.' -- Chicago Humanities Festival

‘MLK/FBI’ Director Sam Pollard on the ‘Need to Have a Reckoning About Race’

Sam Pollard's "MLK/FBI" reveals how J. Edgar Hoover used the FBI to wage a surveillance campaign against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Pollard talks with Variety about the film and the need for a "reckoning about race."

Left of Black S11 · E10 | Black Image Makers with Shawn Michelle Smith

Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Shawn Michelle Smith as she discusses her latest publication, Photographic Returns: Racial Justice and the Time of Photography, which explores cutting edge Black image makers who have created new work by repurposing photography done in the past in attempts to express the complexity of Black life. Shawn Michelle Smith is Professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Filmmaker RaMell Ross on the Black Experience in Documentary Film

'The documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, about a community in the Alabama Black Belt, received an Academy Award nomination for best documentary in 2019. RaMell Ross spent more than five years making the film, exploring the South as a Black American from the North. He offers his brief but spectacular take on the Black experience in documentary film.'

IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit: 'Time' Director Garrett Bradley

'Filmmaker Garrett Bradley takes IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit inside the creation of her poetic cinematic process in making, Time,  a film about love, family, and incarceration.'

ÌFÉ Honors the Ancestors in Futuristic Yoruba Prayer Songs

'Afrofuturism and electronics meet ancient Yoruba rituals and spiritual practice in the music of the Puerto Rican band ÌFÉ, headed by producer and percussionist Otura Mun. ÌFÉ honors the ancestors through futuristic interpretations of traditional ceremonial Lucumi (Yoruban Diaspora) prayer songs, featuring trap beats, electronic triggers, and Autotune. All power to the ancestors.' 

From the Pulpit to Politics: Yolanda Pierce on the Future of the Religious Left

'Reverend Raphael Warnock made history after winning one of two Senate runoff elections in Georgia. The senior pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rev. Warnock will become the first Black Senator from the state, after a heated race against Republican Kelly Loeffler. The other Democratic Senate candidate—Jon Ossoff—was also declared the winner of his race, making him the first Jewish Senator from Georgia.  Rev. Warnock won’t be the first ordained member of the clergy to be in Congress. From Adam Clayton Powell Jr. to the late John Lewis, he joins a long legacy of people moving from behind the pulpit to the halls of the Capitol.  For more on the intersection of faith and progressive politics, The Takeaway spoke to Yolanda Pierce, the dean of the Howard University School of Divinity.'