NEW YORK (AP) — At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions. “I have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It’s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel […]
BOSTON (AP) — A major memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is moving forward in Boston, where they met and studied in the 1950s. King Boston, the privately funded organization coordinating the estimated $9.5 million project, said this week that fabrication of a roughly 22-foot-high bronze sculpture depicting four arms embracing […]
DETROIT (AP) — The resiliency, culture and heroism of Black Americans and the African diaspora will be the central theme of a virtual event that will celebrate the nation’s diversity on the eve of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is slated to speak at Tuesday’s event, “We Are One,” which will also […]
NEW YORK (AP) — The country has a new president and may well have a new literary star. In one of the inauguration’s most talked about moments, poet Amanda Gorman summoned images dire and triumphant Wednesday as she called out to the world “even as we grieved, we grew.” The 22-year-old Gorman referenced everything from […]
ATLANTA (AP) — Hank Aaron, who endured racist threats with stoic dignity during his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record and gracefully left his mark as one of baseball’s greatest all-around players, died Friday. He was 86. The Atlanta Braves, Aaron’s longtime team, said he died peacefully in his sleep. No cause was given. […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Cicely Tyson, the pioneering Black actor who gained an Oscar nomination for her role as the sharecropper’s wife in “Sounder,” won a Tony Award in 2013 at age 88 and touched TV viewers’ hearts in “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” died Thursday at age 96. Tyson’s death was announced by […]
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A new museum two decades in the making is telling the interconnected story of Black musical genres through the lens of American history. The National Museum of African American Music, which opened with a virtual ribbon-cutting on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, is seated in the heart of Nashville’s musical tourism […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Amanda Gorman, the 22-year-old poet who stirred America at the inauguration of President Joe Biden last month, again commanded the spotlight on one of the country’s biggest stages, the Super Bowl. Gorman read an original poem Sunday during the pregame festivities in Tampa, Florida. The poem, titled “Chorus of the Captains,” […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Ta-Nehisi Coates, the acclaimed essayist and novelist who expanded the world of Wakanda for Marvel comics, will write the script for a new “Superman” film from Warner Bros. The studio announced Friday that Coates will pen the screenplay for an upcoming “Superman” film that’s early in development. J.J. Abrams will produce. […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Before a late night rehearsal in December, Terrence Floyd couldn’t remember the last time he squatted on a drum throne, sticks in hand and ready to perform. Surely, he said, it had not happened since his brother, George Floyd, died at the hands of police in Minneapolis last May, sparking a […]