ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — In 1959, Ronald Erwin McNair walked into a South Carolina library. The 9-year-old aspiring astronaut wanted to check out a calculus book, but a librarian threatened to call the police if he didn’t leave. McNair was black. Years later, McNair was selected to become only the second African American to travel […]
Katherine Johnson, a mathematician who calculated rocket trajectories and earth orbits for NASA’s early space missions and was later portrayed in the 2016 hit film “Hidden Figures,” about pioneering black female aerospace workers, has died. She was 101. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said on Twitter that she died Monday morning. No cause was given. Bridenstine […]
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — For James Felder, the question of which presidential candidate to support in the South Carolina primary has never been terribly complicated. The 80-year-old civil rights activist has always backed Joe Biden, appreciative of the eight years he spent as the No. 2 to the first black president. But when Felder opened […]
CHICAGO (AP) — Imagine being so close to Martin Luther King Jr. as he gives one of the world’s most famous speeches that you notice the creases in his face and then realize the late civil rights leader is looking you square in the eye. That’s the intense personal moment organizers are striving for with […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden has for weeks looked to the black voters of South Carolina to hand a win to his flagging campaign. On Saturday, they delivered. Biden won 61% of the votes cast by non-white voters, dominating a crowded Democratic field among a group that made up more than half of […]
HOUSTON (AP) — Martha Whiting-Goddard believes there’s power in voting — she’s seen it firsthand. Her great-grandfather, the Rev. John Henry “Jack” Yates, was one of a handful of freed slaves who founded Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in 1866, Houston’s oldest African American Baptist church. The church has historically helped shape the city’s political discourse, […]
TUCSON, Arizona (AP) — When Oprah Winfrey chose the novel “American Dirt” for her book club, she imagined engaging in an impassioned television dialog about the narrative, which follows a Mexican mother and her son fleeing to the United States. Instead, Winfrey ended up organizing a show that put the book, author Jeanine Cummins and […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Authors James Patterson and Kwame Alexander are teaming up on a book for young people about Muhammad Ali. “Becoming Muhammad Ali” is being called a “biographical novel” by the rival imprints JIMMY Paterson Books and HMH Books for Young Readers, which will jointly publish the book and announced it Monday. “Becoming […]
NEW YORK (AP) — The spreading coronavirus canceled several touring performances from A-list musical artists, but those acts have found a new venue to sing: their living rooms. John Legend, Bono, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Pink, John Mayer, Keith Urban and more have held virtual concerts from their homes as the world continues to practice social […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Madam C.J. Walker may be one of America’s most successful “pull yourself up by your own bootstrap” stories, but many have never heard of her. However, that’s changing, thanks to the recent release of a Netflix limited series starring Octavia Spencer. “Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker,” […]