Once-thriving black communities were deteriorating. And Ida B. Wells was witnessing it. The South’s counterrevolution, the fading importance of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and the 1893 economic depression turned booming postbellum neighborhoods into ghettos and reignited racial hostility that motivated hundreds of lynchings. Wells burst into this scene during the 1890s with industrious investigative journalism covering lynchings in Memphis, Tennessee, in...
Culture
“Power, soul, passion”: Radke schools the Big Band
Fred Radke has lived his whole life on stage, with Gina Funes, his scatin’ soprano spouse, and his two favorite trumpets at his side. So he knows what a good performance takes: “Power. Soul. Passion.” Radke’s lifelong tour dropped him off at the Howard Music Hall last week after he accepted an invite from his good friend Larry Arnn,...
King Cole croons his way into history
When Nat King Cole moved into a rich, predominantly white neighborhood in Los Angeles in 1948, he received many housewarming gifts—including a burning cross in his front yard from the Ku Klux Klan. As recounted in a biography of the famous jazz composer Nelson Riddle, the local property owners association told Cole they didn’t want any “undesirables” living in their...
‘This is Us’ celebrates life and family
The pilot opens with a repetitive melody: fast-paced finger-picking on an acoustic guitar. Somehow it feels comforting. Familiar, even. The show is called “This is Us,” and the song is “Death with Dignity” by Sufjan Stevens. It’s perfectly fitting for a story about life and death—but mostly life. The first shot is a glimpse into the Pearson home. There...
