(photo credit: Keisha Eugene)
Greetings!
Here’s wishing you all the best during this holiday season…and let me suggest that you might want to check out the latest edition of the Biographers International Organization’s Podcast Series. In it, distinguished author Maryemma Graham talks about her biography of the award-winning poet, novelist, and educator Margaret Walker.
Click here to listen to Dr. Graham’s fascinating conversation with fellow biographer Kevin McGruder.
And if you’re searching for more listening options, the audiobook of my Word Warrior biography currently is on sale.
So as we quickly approach a new year, please stay safe and well, enjoy my listening suggestions, and I hope to see you 2024!
Did you know that the state of California had a history of slavery?
If you didn’t know – and most people see California as a long time bastion of liberalism and freedom – then please check out the video below. It was spearheaded by one of my good friends and the ACLU of Northern California’s communications director, Candice Francis. She enlisted a former star student of mine, Howard University alum Pendarvis Harshaw, to tell this story.
It’s eye opening.
About 25 years ago, in March 1998 to be exact, NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday aired a documentary I produced that explored how affirmative action policies in higher education admissions and hiring practices affected students, faculty and staff at a specific university from the 1960s through the 1990s.
The piece, Affirmative Action and Higher Education: An Aural History, actually was an aural case study in which I captured the opinions and experiences of various members of the University of Chicago community – including prominent faculty like historian John Hope Franklin and sociologist William Julius Wilson, the university’s vice president for research (and former Morehouse College president) Walter Massey, and former students Christopher Kang and novelist A.J. Verdelle.
The insights of those interviewees along with many others at this elite university, continue to resonate in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s current ruling against the affirmative action policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina – and its broader implications for higher ed.
To hear my piece, please click on the following link: Affirmative Action and Higher Education
In this year’s Pomegranate calendar edition, pioneering radio and TV dramatist, journalist and activist Richard Durham is being featured during the month of June. Check out this calendar entry, and here’s a sample (from my audiobook) of his creative radio drama magic. Enjoy!
