Musical icon Nina Simone lives on in ‘Nina’
Also posted on San Diego News Network, sdnn.com
Calvin Manson — writer and director of the musical “Nina” — saw Nina Simone perform while he was a student at UCSD in 1972.
When it came time for the outspoken icon to sing “To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” she asked all the black students in the large [...]
The last hour with Dr. King
Also published on allvoices.com
The San Diego County YMCA hosted its 25th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award breakfast Friday with more than 1,000 people in attendance.
The morning’s keynote speaker was Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, the last person alive who was with Dr. King an hour before an assassin fired a fatal bullet and [...]
1968 student strikes
Last year I was executive producer of a project to interview 40 people involved with student strikes at San Francisco State, the longest lasting in American history and a culmination of black, white, Asian Native American and Latino student organizations for the creation of a college of Ethnic Studies, among other demands.
We never made it [...]
Civil rights leader and congressman delivers sermon at Shiloh Baptist, a church founded by former slaves
On the Sunday ahead of Martin Luther King Day and Barack Obama’s inauguration, I went to Shiloh Baptist Church on 9th St in Washington. Today it’s a church of hundreds of people but it was founded by 21 former slaves in 1863.
The church is led by Rev. George Wallace Smith but Congressman John Lewis delivered [...]
