The way MO-HAM-Id rolls off O’Connor’s lips is slightly aggravating, but I like the way Malcolm handles this panel. I can envision the TV viewers who were alarmed beyond all recognition when this originally aired in 1963.
Sometimes, while reporting, it seems necessary to have the forced cordiality that Malcolm has with the folks aiming for his dome in this clip.
For more old Malcolm TV, check out this clip.
Adventure Cycling Association and the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Minority Health hooked up several years ago to give us the Underground Railroad bicycle tour. You don’t have to be Harriet Tubman to travel from Mobile, Alabama to Owen Sound, Ontario. The 2,100 mile route follows the historic “Follow the Drinking Gourd” meme as a guide. FTDG was used to encode escape instructions with reference to the Big Dipper.
It looks easier than editing B-Roll.
Video via
I’ll come right out and admit that I’m the kind of cat who needs schooling. But look at this video above. There’s no science to journalism, hardly any formula. Listen to the reporter and you’ll see what I mean.
As I’ve mentioned before we’ve switched our focus from BK to BX. One of my first pieces is on one of my favorite subjects: Black folks who happen to be Latino (or vice versa). This story found me and it’s been told 10 different ways by people with a keen eye on New York’s subcultures. I’ll soon post a piece from the Bronxink.org explaining what this is all about.
I guess my photo teacher Mel was right. Just carry your camera because you never know when you’re going to get a shot of something cool. The “Tom Cat” sign is what I liked about this shot. I got off the bus to hit up a Saturday morning class and this was the scene near the entrance to school. A big ass box truck with a black cat and a cab driver probably pissed his mid-morning was shot. They both had a bit of explaining to do on their respective cell phones. On a side note: blackened, dirty, weeks-old snow is really some of the ugliest stuff in the world.
Strong Black woman. Man, I have so many memories of grade school and Black History Month; the little posters taped to the classroom walls for a month, the book reports and the coating of sugar on the legacies of dozens of fighters for justice. It was all entrenched in a message that freedom is good, slavery and oppression: bad. All my grade school teachers were Italian, I think. Or Polish. Definitely white.
I wonder why whenever they taught us about Harriet Tubman none of them offered to us impressionable youngsters something to the effect: “This was a strong Black woman, guys.”
I’m not sure we understood it via the passages in our Houghton Mifflin textbooks, or the TV documentaries.
So, I offer you here, the strong Black Woman that was Harriet Tubman. This ancestor’s spirit continues to inspire the oppressed and she wasn’t only a voice for Black folks, but for women, period. Listen to Maya Angelou, in her authoritative baritone read about the woman who helped free slaves via the Underground Railroad with a bounty on her head.
Via The National Women’s History Project:
Fugitive Slave, Rescuer of Slaves
Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland. In 1849, she fled to Philadelphia but returned to Maryland the next year to begin the first of many Underground Railroad trips to lead family and friends to freedom using caution, skill, and subterfuge. Some passengers she escorted to Canada. In the Civil War, Tubman was a spy and scout for the Union in the Sea Islands. In 1896, she spoke at the convention of the American National Woman Suffrage Association convention.
For the pop culture treatment of Tubman’s legacy, check these out:
channibalsmith.com 