Fifty Songs Featuring Cities and Urban Life
For almost every metropolis—and even a few towns—with streets, neighborhoods, and businesses there is a song with melody, harmony, and a beat.
By Gerald Early
Ninety-eight Years Ago on January 27, India’s Most Famous Film Star Was Born
His screen tests bowled over Korda, Flaherty, and everyone connected with the film. He was absolutely the most winning child they had ever encountered. He was, well, utterly gorgeous, not just his looks, but his manner, his air, his aura. Selar Shalik, who would come to be known simply as "Sabu," did not speak a word of English.
The Flame and the Arrow
All the Young Men became my equivalent of Burt Lancaster’s The Flame and the Arrow, the Black boy’s fantasy movie about an impossibly heroic person, an impossibly competent person, who fights for king and country. Poitier’s character made me proud to be an American, made me feel as if I was an American without any hesitation or crippling doubt.
Twelfth Night Blues
For Black Americans, the questions might be asked, what does Christmas mean to us? And how can we make Christmas something usable for us? If, as Frederick Douglass argues, Christmas was tainted by the power politics of slavery, as the stories in Collier-Thomas’s collection make clear, it was equally tainted by Jim Crow and segregation.
Jungle Boogie: Some Reflections on Nick Stewart, Victor Millan and the “Minority” Actor
Millan had some of the same challenges as Black actor in dealing with certain types of “minority” roles, but he also had some advantages in getting more roles. Latino actors were often all-purpose “minority” actors, playing East Indians, Native Americans, Spaniards, Mexicans, any of a wide swath of so-called “people of color.”
Earning the Faith
I was so stunned the first time I heard “And the Glory of the Lord” that I thought I would faint. My heart pounded like a runaway train. It was for me at that young age the most beautiful thing I ever heard in my life. And I heard it that day and thought, “If I could be a Christian as beautiful as that music; if I could, as a Christian, help make the world as beautiful as that music, that would be something!”
Goldfinger and How James Bond Becomes a Cultural Behemoth
As all the commentators have noted, "Goldfinger" provided the template for future Bond movies. First, a title song played over the opening credits. Second, a pre-credits action sequence which has become the sine qua non of the Bond movie. Third, "Goldfinger" made technological and mechanical gadgets a permanent aspect of the Bond film effect.
Remembering bell hooks, and How Intros Can Really Hang You Up the Most
I was not conversant with bell hooks’s works and I thought, as hooks was such an important feminist, that probably a woman should do this. But I was pressed into service despite my misgivings.
The Moondog DJ and His Empire of Rhythm and Blues
Alan Freed became one of a handful of White DJs who pushed rhythm and blues on his show, becoming such a force in the industry that he could almost make or break records with his airplay and he could influence how the independent record companies who produced R & B, rockabilly, and rock and roll, dealt with their artists by recommending performers to certain labels. His influence was monumental.
“We Just Changed, Got a Brand-New Funky President”¹: Teacher Shirley Chisholm Takes the Nation to School in 1972
Reading Shirley Chisholm’s 1973 book “The Good Fight” was something of a revelation for my students, as it offered not just an insider’s view of Black political thinking and organizing in the early 1970s but also a look at how a major institution like the Democratic Party operates and how difficult it is to mount what was in Chisholm’s case a true insurgent candidacy.
Thanksgiving or the Ritual of Gratitude
Giving thanks, as Melanie Kirkpatrick reminds us, is an American preoccupation, a powerful religious and civic expression of our nation. Kirkpatrick’s fear is that the left’s attempt to banish gratitude unravels our country by denying it any dimension of humanity except its quest for power.
E Pluribus Unum? Or Out of Many, Many More
Some might be inclined to think that F. H. Buckley, a Trump supporter and conservative, must be a bit tongue-in-cheek with this. But he is not. He makes a plausible case that the country can separate, despite the Civil War which seemed to cement the states for good, and that it really ought to.