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John Hope Franklin 1915-2009
John Hope Franklin, one of the most prolific and well-respected chroniclers of America’s torturous racial odyssey, died of congestive heart failure yesterday at the age of 94 in a Durham, N.C., hospital. It was more than Franklin’s voluminous writings that cemented his reputation among academics, politicians and civil rights figures as an inestimable historian. It…
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A Singer's Chorus
PHILADELPHIA Both ladies move about rather gingerly. It’s all the years behind them. It’s the long struggle on behalf of their Marian. Blanche Burton-Lyles and Phyllis Sims are fiddling with the coffee maker in Marian Anderson’s kitchen. “Marian had this whole kitchen put in — even the bars around the windows — and it’s still…
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Long Before 'Thriller,' Jackson Shattered Racial Barriers
In 1972, when the movie “Ben” premiered and sent that falsetto voice of little Michael Jackson soaring across movie screens, the joy inside black America was palpable. It wasn’t just that the song raced to No. 1 on the charts, it was that it flowed from the magic of film. And black America, long kept…
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Seeing Black and Seeing Red
I loved living in Cambridge, Mass., except when I didn’t. And when I didn’t was when I had left my apartment late at night to walk to the all-night corner grocery store with just that $10 bill stuffed into my pocket, having left my wallet on the bookcase in the hallway. Then, strolling along, soon…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
