-
A Sweet Way to Take Your Cocktails to the Next Level
When life gave Forrest Butler lemons, he made lemon syrup. Butler, a former designer and architect, lost his job in 2008, and so he returned to bartending. An avid mixologist, he noticed that all of the syrups necessary for his increasingly popular cocktails were laden with preservatives. So one day he began making his own. …
-
Finding Your Roots Returns to PBS With New Episodes
The past always informs the future, and never more so these days than in Finding Your Roots, the PBS program hosted by renowned scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard professor and the founding director of Harvard’s Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is also chairman of The Root. “There is something…
-
Holiday Traditions Around the World: How We Celebrate the Season
Maybe it’s because Madison Avenue is in New York City, which, theoretically at least, is a place where December bristles with the chilly arrival of winter, and thus images of Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer have dominated our vision of the Christmas holiday. Yet Christmas is celebrated all over the world, though…
-
The Color Purple Broadway Review: A Story of Sisterhood That Never Gets Old
Sisterhood is powerful. That’s the theme that has carried The Color Purple in all of its incarnations: a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in 1982, an Oscar-nominated film in 1985, a Tony-winning musical in 2005, and now, its latest iteration, a revival, back on Broadway after a very successful stint in London in 2013. It’s a theme…
-
Broadway Revival Brings a Different Shade to The Color Purple
If, in 1982, shortly after Alice Walker’s landmark novel, The Color Purple, was published, someone had forecast that the book would be turned into a movie, then a Broadway musical, then revived in London and brought to Broadway again, that someone would have been carted away or at least had his or her crystal ball…
-
5 Wines That Will Make Thanksgiving Dinner Just Perfect
The first time sommelier DLynn Proctor fell head over heels for wine, it wasn’t when he was drinking it. Instead, it was while watching a somm, as they are typically called, in action, blind-tasting a deep, rich Italian red wine called Brunello. “I had never seen anything like it,” he said. “It was almost mystical…
-
Capturing the Vibrancy of Gullah and Geechee Culture
It is often said that great art is the result of suffering, but Leroy Campbell’s stellar work comes from striving. He has overcome disabilities, family drama and doubt to create a magnificent portfolio of work. His paintings are owned by the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Joyner, Terry McMillan and the estate of Maya…
-
BET Documentary Explores the Complexities of Being Black and Gay in the Church
“It’s about the fight for your soul,” says Clay Cane about his new documentary, Holler If You Hear Me: Black and Gay in the Church. “It’s about the struggle to be authentic, to honestly live your own life and have a spiritual space, too.” The battleground in the fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender…
-
Usher and Harry Belafonte Are United in Breaking the Chains of Social Injustice
On Friday evening in New York City, a line of young people snaked down Lexington Avenue in Manhattan and then curled around 91st Street all the way down to Third Avenue; the crowd was brimming with anticipation and excitement. They were en route to see Usher at the 92nd Street Y, which might be the…
-
After 35 Years, BET’s Bobby Jones Gospel Is Raising the Rafters for 1 Last Season
It had been rumored for a while, but when BET announced that this season of Bobby Jones Gospel—a show that premiered in 1980—would be its swan song, was the host sad? “Oh my goodness, it’s like losing a child,” said Jones by phone last week. Then he chuckled and the chuckle turned into a giggle,…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
