The High Holy Days, the most sacred days in Judaism’s calendar, began at the end of September. In New York, the largest Jewish community in the world, everything stops. In Mississippi, there have never been many Jews, and recently, Jewish communities have been dwindling.
Read MoreI first heard Sweet Honey in the Rock’s rousing song, Fannie Lou Hamer, on a car radio a summer day in 1994 when Nelson Mandela addressed the United Nations General Assembly. The song and the moment were very powerful, but not as strong as Hamer’s own voice, raised in song or to protest conditions for Black Mississippians in the 1960s and 1970s.
Read MoreIf you don’t know much about Black history, or not as much as you’d like, all you have to do is watch two documentaries in February, Black History Month. Women with distinguished civil rights forebears made these both documentaries, and both films use innovative techniques.
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