ATLANTA (AP) — Hank Aaron, who endured racist threats with stoic dignity during his pursuit of Babe Ruth’s home run record and gracefully left his mark as one of baseball’s greatest all-around players, died Friday. He was 86. The Atlanta Braves, Aaron’s longtime team, said he died peacefully in his sleep. No cause was given. […]
NEW YORK (AP) — The country has a new president and may well have a new literary star. In one of the inauguration’s most talked about moments, poet Amanda Gorman summoned images dire and triumphant Wednesday as she called out to the world “even as we grieved, we grew.” The 22-year-old Gorman referenced everything from […]
DETROIT (AP) — The resiliency, culture and heroism of Black Americans and the African diaspora will be the central theme of a virtual event that will celebrate the nation’s diversity on the eve of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is slated to speak at Tuesday’s event, “We Are One,” which will also […]
BOSTON (AP) — A major memorial honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King is moving forward in Boston, where they met and studied in the 1950s. King Boston, the privately funded organization coordinating the estimated $9.5 million project, said this week that fabrication of a roughly 22-foot-high bronze sculpture depicting four arms embracing […]
NEW YORK (AP) — At age 22, poet Amanda Gorman, chosen to read at the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, already has a history of writing for official occasions. “I have kind of stumbled upon this genre. It’s been something I find a lot of emotional reward in, writing something I can make people feel […]
ATLANTA (AP) — Stacey Abrams spent years crisscrossing Georgia, working to convince Democratic leaders, donors and prospective candidates that a vast, untapped well of potential voters could upend Republican domination in the state. There was no national media spotlight or constant praise from national political players to ease the slog. That’s over now. After […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Eric Jerome Dickey, the bestselling novelist who blended crime, romance and eroticism in “Sister, Sister,” “Waking With Enemies” and dozens of other stories about contemporary Black life, has died at age 59. Dickey’s publicist at Penguin Random House, Emily Canders, told The Associated Press that the author died of cancer Sunday […]
DETROIT (AP) — As a barrier-breaking year draws to a close, there’s one undeniable fact: the strength of Black political power. Black voters were a critical part of the coalition that clinched President-elect Joe Biden’s White House bid. The nation will swear in its first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent as […]
NEW YORK (AP) — Like many of those involved in the making of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” it’s not easy for Viola Davis to summarize what playwright August Wilson has meant to her except to answer, “Everything.” Davis’ first stage role was in Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.” She made her Broadway debut in […]
President-elect Joe Biden says he had chosen North Carolina regulator Michael S. Regan as his nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency and New Mexico Rep. Deb Haaland as his pick for interior secretary. Biden said Thursday that the selections round out what he said would be an experienced climate team ready from their first […]