February is Black History Month! Although this site is very white (and I’m white also), you might find some of this interesting. PBS has lots of special programming, and I’m especially looking forward to one show in particular:
The Magic of Spirituals
Glimpse behind the curtain at opera legends Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman’s famed concert at Carnegie Hall on March 18, 1990, featuring performance clips and new interviews with opera star Angel Blue, Met Opera General Manager Peter Gelb and more. Airs 2/24/23 on PBS, and will be available on-demand.
Note: I’ve heard Kathleen Battle, Jesseye Norman, and Angel Blue sing at the Met. Norman and Blue are nice ladies, but Battle has a reputation for being a brat! She would throw tantrums and not show up for rehearsals, and was eventually fired. (They did bring her back eventually.)
It’s also women in horror month. This is a podcast hosted by a black woman, “ Nightlight: A Horror Fiction Podcast “. The host is Tonia Ransom and every story and voice actor/actress is also black. They have some pretty good content if you like short story narration. I think every Halloween they do a few full audio dramas.
In 1850s South Carolina, an enslaved woman named Rose faced a crisis: the imminent sale of her daughter Ashley. She hastily packed a cotton bag for her with a few items, and, soon after, the
little girl was taken from her mother, put on the auction block, and and sold. The sack remained in the family. Decades later, Ashley’s granddaughter Ruth embroidered this family history on the sack:
My great grandmother Rose mother of Ashley gave her this sack when she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina it held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my Love always She never saw her again Ashley is my grandmother
Did you see Jordan Peele’s sci-fi horror film Nope ? It’s very good, about a Black family and their horse ranch. What’s more, the horses were humanely treated, their tack fit, etc. The killer chimp was cg.
There is also a YouTube channel called SyFy Sistas where “Four Black women, who are O.G. and Gen X Trekkies, discuss Black science fiction in tv, films, graphic novels, books and conventions.”
Speaking of Black women, here’s a shout-out to Nichelle Nichols, the groundbreaking Black actress who played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, a communications officer, on the original Star Trek series in the sixties. Before Star Trek, Blacks were portrayed only as gardeners , cooks, etc.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was a Star Trek fan, and when Nichols wanted to leave the show, he contacted her and persuaded her to stay. Before Star Trek, Black people were not part of anyone’s vision of the future.
I always go to podcasts through the iTunes podcast app that was on my iPhone. But it pops up when searching her name on google to other podcast bases.
Yeah I watched Nope at the theaters. I think I’ve seen all of his films. I’ve seen 4 of them anyways and watched his Twilight Zone tv series. Nope was really good. I enjoyed the “ lost episode creepypasta “ scenes of Gordy. I liked Get Out too. I thought Us was ok.
A chorus of extraordinary voices tells the epic story of the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present—edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire.
During the transatlantic slave trade, Charleston, South Carolina was one of the largest slave ports in the United States. But at the height of the Civil War, Charleston’s waterfront was the backdrop of one enslaved man’s daring escape. Here is the story of Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship and sailed to freedom.