Feb 19 Watch 6:23 Wynton Marsalis meets the moment with jazz and a focus on the nation’s founding principles By Jeffrey Brown, Anne Azzi Davenport Trumpet player, composer and jazz ambassador Wynton Marsalis is one of the country’s leading cultural figures. He is again meeting the moment with music, writing and recording his new composition "The Democracy! Suite" amid the pandemic. Jeffrey Brown has the… Continue watching
Feb 19 Kim Kardashian files to divorce from Kanye West By Andrew Dalton, Associated Press The move brings an impending end to one of the most followed celebrity unions of the 21st century — the marriage of a reality TV superstar and a hip-hop and fashion phenomenon with four kids, a vast fortune to split… Continue reading
Feb 19 How this artist visualized the scale of human loss to COVID-19 By Maea Lenei Buhre When visualizing the scope of the mass loss to the coronavirus pandemic, Maryland artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg said to "not lose sight of the value of the individual."… Continue reading
Feb 17 Watch 4:08 The musical duo Black Violin’s Brief But Spectacular take on defying stereotypes When Kev Marcus and Wil B met in a high school music class they shared their desire to disrupt people's impressions of what classical music should be. Together they formed a group called Black Violin, which we featured on the… Continue watching
Feb 16 Watch 7:42 Universities look to the past to understand their relationships with race By Jeffrey Brown, Lena I. Jackson, Tommy Walters In the aftermath of the killings by police of George Floyd and other black men and women, American institutions of all kinds have looked to their past and present to understand their relationships to race and racism. That reckoning continues… Continue watching
Feb 16 For author Charles Yu, ‘non-writing time can also be productive’ By Courtney Vinopal “What I do is try to frame a question or idea in a useful or interesting way, set my subconscious to work on it, and then check back later to see if there’s been progress,” author Charles Yu told the… Continue reading
Feb 15 Watch 6:43 Henry Louis Gates Jr. on his new series ‘The Black Church’ By Jeffrey Brown, Leah Nagy A new four-part series, “The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This is Our Song," premieres Tuesday on PBS. It’s a sweeping history of religion, politics and culture led by Henry Louis Gates Jr., the noted Harvard scholar and host… Continue watching
Feb 14 Watch 3:49 A new sculpture in the ‘heart’ of New York City symbolizes hope, nods to this past year By Ivette Feliciano, Sam Weber In the middle of New York City's Times Square, a new interactive sculpture was unveiled earlier this week as part of an annual Valentine's Day-themed design competition. But this year, in the middle of a pandemic, with so many communal,… Continue watching
Feb 12 Black women were vital to the Black church. Here are 2 stories By Christina Turner While the “backbone of the church has been Black women almost from the very beginning,” historian Henry Louis Gates Jr. said, their roles have both been suppressed within the church and forgotten when recounting its history. Continue reading
Feb 12 Justin Timberlake apologizes to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson for past behavior By Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press In a lengthy social media post, Justin Timberlake says that he wants to apologize to Britney Spears and Janet Jackson “because I care for and respect these women and I know I failed.”… Continue reading