Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan, AI Black History, RIP Kiki Shepard
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What I’m Reading
I’m sure you already know this by now, but Michael B. Jordan won the Oscar for Best Actor for playing twins in Ryan Coogler’s hit film “Sinners.” I wanted to share stories with you about the Oscars written by Black journalists.
For Refinery29, Taryn Finley wrote about how the film doesn’t need the Oscars to prove its cultural and artistic significance…
For Playboy, Gerrick Kennedy wrote about Michael B. Jordan’s long game of a career…
For TIME, Taylor Crumpton explored how Hollywood still struggles to recognize the full power of Black storytelling…
Njera Perkins was at the Oscars, and asked director Paul Thomas Anderson about the criticism over how “One Battle After Another” portrays Black women — and he finally gave an answer.
Alabama almost executed Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton. His daughter tells her story, The Marshall Project
Carolyn Amanda Shavers, the daughter of Charles ‘Sonny’ Burton, penned an essay about how the day Alabama’s governor spared her father’s life was the happiest day of her life, and how she is still pushing for his release.
The AI Myth of Solomon Fairfax, the “Grim Reaper” of Charleston, Scalawag Magazine
A video about a formerly enslaved man named Solomon Fairfax has gone viral on parts of the internet. He apparently spent years killing slaveholders, earning him the nickname the “Grim Reaper” of Charleston. There’s just one problem: Solomon Fairfax doesn’t exist.
Act Black: posters of Black Americans on stage and screen – in pictures, The Guardian
The Guardian’s Briana Ellis-Gibbs curated a list of posters from a new exhibit at New York’s Poster House celebrating the work of Black performers on stage and screen from the 1880s to the 1940s. Many of the films displayed no longer exist.
What’s In The News
Across America
Alabama: Ruling in the case of the Black pastor who was arrested while watering his neighbor’s flowers, the state Supreme Court said police can demand to see ID during a stop if they don’t like a person’s verbal answers…
California: Danyel Smith profiled artist Lauren Halsey and her new sculpture park in Los Angeles…
District of Columbia: A farmers market at Anacostia High School is addressing the lack of fresh food and grocery options east of the river…
Georgia: It was going to be Magic City night for an Atlanta Hawks game. Then the NBA stepped in to cancel it…
Illinois: “Two Black women ran in Illinois’ Senate primary — and Juliana Stratton’s victory shows the growing power of Black women in American politics,” Higher Heights for America President Glynda C. Carr writes in an op-ed for Word In Black…
Louisiana: The New York Times reported on Super Sunday, the colorful celebration of Black Masking Indians in New Orleans…
Maryland: The residents of East Towson in Baltimore County, founded in the 1850s by formerly enslaved people, are fighting off new development pressures…
Massachusetts: The life expectancy gap between Black residents and other Bostonians has doubled over the past decade…
Mississippi: The state leads the nation in gun deaths among pregnant and postpartum women…
North Carolina: Elizabeth City State University received a transformational $42 million donation from MacKenzie Scott…
What’s Happening
Growing up, I went on many field trips to Detroit’s Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. It is a special place, and near and dear to many Detroiters. I had a lot of fun writing about the museum and how the 60-year-old institution is reaching a new audience through its social media series…However, the financial climate has been challenging for The Wright, which is seeking $11 million in city government funding…
The Senate began debate on the SAVE America Act this week. Capital B’s Brandon Tensley wrote about how civil rights leaders are sounding the alarm…
For the Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia University professor Jafari Sinclaire Allen shared his thoughts on how we should respond to the erasure of Black Studies…
Kenneth Windley, who spent 19 years in prison for a $550 robbery he didn’t commit, was exonerated and freed…
Howard University student Paris Holsey wrote a story about one woman’s breast cancer fight and navigating the healthcare system in Albany, Georgia…
A judge ruled that Uncle Nearest founder Fawn Weaver was not authorized to file for bankruptcy as the whiskey company is under the control of a receiver…
The Museum of African American History is fighting to preserve Boston’s Black history amid the Trump administration’s executive orders...
Black women are disproportionately impacted by paid sick day preemption laws, according to a new report…
A judge has temporarily blocked an order from the Trump administration “insisting that colleges across the country prove they don’t consider race in their admissions process”...
The Morehouse School of Medicine has received nearly $1 million in federal funding for a new research building…
Top Black leaders in higher education gathered virtually for a summit focusing on the “health and well-being” of HBCUs...
Entertainment News
Jay Z and Erykah Badu are headliners for the Roots Picnic on May 30, the festival announced…
Paramount is acquiring Tyler Perry’s minority ownership stake in BET, and BET is shutting down BET+...
Afroman won a defamation lawsuit filed by police officers who sued him over the videos in which he used home security footage to mock their failed raid of his home…
Boxing world champion Thomas ‘The Hitman’ Hearns is currently in a guardianship court battle…
Tayari Jones, author of “Kin,” is the first guest in the new video series, The Reader’s Digest Escalator Interview…
LaTanya Richardson Jackson spoke with ESSENCE about showing up as her authentic self, Spelman, her career and much more…
Philadelphia Inquirer’s Elizabeth Wellington went to the New Edition Way Tour, where she says the iconic group finally struck magic with help from Boyz II Men…
Mystikal pleaded guilty to raping a woman at his Louisiana home, according to court records…
“Tamron Hall” has been renewed for another season as her competitors in televison thin…
Teyana Taylor is set to serve as the chief curator for the 2026 ESSENCE Fest…
Tank and Tyrese will participate in a Verzuz battle on March 26…
Learn about the biggest convention for Black nerds from the perspective of Capital B’s Rayonna Burton-Jernigan and Janae Barnes of the Washingtonian…
Quincy Jones’ estate has sold his “select music and non-music assets” to investment firm HarbourView…
As the number 3 pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, Chris Washburn was supposed to be a star. In a new memoir, he opens up about ‘addiction, homelessness and redemption in his new memoir that revisits basketball’s cocaine era’…
The New Yorker took a look back at the 90s to examine how Arsenio Hall shook up late night television…
Beverly Buchanan’s unique art form, representational sculptures of “shacks”, had never received a solo exhibition in Athens, Georgia, until recently. You can see one featured at the Georgia Museum of Art through June 28…
Obituaries
John Perkins, a pioneering pastor and civil rights leader who forgave the police officers who brutalized him, has died. He was 95…
Judy Pace, a trailblazing actress who showed America that Black women could play more than one-dimensional characters on the screen, has died. She was 83…
Lord Sear, a veteran radio personality and key member of the “Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show,” has died. He was 53…
Alvin M. Greene, an unemployed Army vet who stunned Democrats by winning the party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate in 2010 without even making a speech, has died. He was 48…
Don’t Miss
Can you beat my time on Black Crossword? 43 seconds!...
The Williams-Franklin Foundation is offering twenty $5,000 scholarships to undergraduate students at HBCUs. Learn more here…
Scholars Nala K. Williams and Pyar Seth will be exploring the archives and scholarship of Black feminist anthropologists Zora Neale Hurston and Eslanda Goode Robeson on March 23. Sign up for the virtual event here…
The Washington Association of Black Journalists is partnering with the DC Public Library for a book talk with Geoff Bennett and Darryl M. Bell on March 25…
The 2nd annual HBCU Film Festival is approaching, and Jasmine Guy is attending as a special guest. It will be held at Emory University in Atlanta on April 10…