Culture

Event Boosts Magazine, Raises Millions for New Orleans “The 20th annual ESSENCE Festival attracted a record-breaking 550,000 attendees from around the world to New Orleans this Fourth of July weekend, earning the distinction of being the largest gathering in the event’s history,” Essence Communications announced on Monday. New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said Friday that…

Did Colonists Fear England’s Moves Against Black Bondage? A professor of history and African American studies has written a book that challenges the conventional narrative about American independence and should broaden the discussion of the July 4 holiday. But based on the limited attention it has received, likely won’t. Gerald Horne, who holds the John…

Race-Studies Scholars Share Their Responses to the Haters Journalists of color are often accused by their readers, viewers, listeners — and sometimes editors — of devoting too much attention to race, even when race isn’t their subject. Not surprisingly, a similar dynamic takes place in academia, but also includes white professors who think race is…

$20,000 in Ads, Social Media Helped GOP Senator An African American political action group that helped Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., eke out a nail-biting runoff victory Tuesday against a tea party opponent who spent “somewhere in the area of about $20,000” in media targeting black people, the organizer of the PAC told Journal-isms on Wednesday.…

President El-Sissi Declares He Won’t Interfere With Ruling “Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said Tuesday he will not interfere in court rulings, a day after three Al-Jazeera journalists were sentenced to seven years in prison in a verdict that prompted an international outcry,” the Associated Press reported from Cairo. “The ruling, on terrorism-related charges, stunned their…

Six Outlets for Sale at “Nominal” Price to Diverse Buyers In light of new government restrictions on owning more than one television station in the same market, Atlanta-based Gray Television, Inc., is seeking to sell six stations at bargain prices to buyers that qualify as “socially disadvantaged enterprises, such as a business controlled by a…

Joint Center’s Interim President Working for Free “The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, esteemed as America’s foremost think tank for Black political and economic research, is struggling with financial problems so serious that its political arm has been gutted and its interim president is working for free,” Hazel Trice Edney reported for her…

Final Jet Magazine Never Reached Some Shelves Distributor Shuts Down, Frustrating Many on East Coast Souvenir hunters looking for the last print edition of Jet magazine have found it hard to come by on parts of the East Coast — and maybe elsewhere — because the nation’s second largest magazine distributor suddenly went out of…

In Appearance, Coates Also Makes a Case for Journalism “The Case for Reparations,” Ta-Nehisi Coates’ brief in the Atlantic for why African Americans are owed a debt for the racial penalties paid for since slavery, “has brought more visitors to the Atlantic [website] in a single day than any single piece we’ve ever published,” Atlantic…

After a Year, Only Half of Promised Settlement Paid More than a year after the National Writers Union and representatives of Heart & Soul magazine agreed that a dozen freelance writers and editors would collect more than $125,000 in unpaid fees, the health and wellness magazine has paid only about half of what it promised,…