I 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.
Read MoreOn Monday, PBS’s documentary series Frontline aired Women in Blue, a documentary about the Minneapolis Police Department. In May 2020, actions by a male policeman from this department led to the death of George Floyd, triggering peaceful Black Lives Matter protests nationwide, including in Mississippi.
Read MoreIn spring 2020, respected documentarian Pamela Mason Wagner was in the field in Richmond, Virginia, working on a new piece for the Smithsonian Channel’s series, America’s Hidden Stories. Wagner already had produced a program for the series that aired in January 2021, called Madam President, about First Lady Edith Wilson, who took over the White House behind the scenes after President Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke.
Read MoreIn New York City, Jelani Cobb and Calvin Trillin had talked to each other at a dinner party given by The New Yorker’s current editor.
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