Tag: African American
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Nation & World
Panel of experts addresses Lincoln’s legacy
On Monday (Feb. 9), a team of experts assembled at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) to examine the history and profound impact of the tall, awkward, self-taught man from rural Kentucky who is credited with bringing about an end to slavery and saving the nation’s cherished founding principle of democratic rule.
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Nation & World
Du Bois Institute gives Houghton Library Masonic certificate
The W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University recently gave a Masonic membership certificate signed by Prince Hall, a minister, abolitionist, and civil rights activist known as the father of Black Freemasonry in the United States, to Houghton Library.
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Nation & World
Achebe celebrates African literature with poetry
Chinua Achebe, the esteemed Nigerian novelist and poet, delivered this year’s Distinguished African Studies Lecture at the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS). Greeting the standing-room-only crowd in Tsai Auditorium earlier this week (Nov. 17), Achebe surprised the group by announcing that he had an unusual program in mind.
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Nation & World
Marla Frederick talks about faith, God, and money
Not long ago, Harvard cultural anthropologist Marla Frederick sat on a wooden bench in a slum of Kingston, Jamaica. She was interviewing local churchgoers about the Christian “prosperity gospel” often promoted by American televangelists. It offers up a simple (and controversial) idea: The more you give, the more you receive.
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Nation & World
Cooper: Doctor-patient relations cause health disparities
In the United States, a black man can expect to die, on average, 10 years earlier than his white counterpart. For black women, that racial gap in life expectancy is five years.
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Nation & World
Radcliffe Fellow, poet Elizabeth Alexander reads
It was show and tell for poet Elizabeth Alexander this week. The Yale University professor of African American studies, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, used a May 5 reading to show the depth and musicality of her poems, short stories, and penetrating essays — and to tell the story of inspiration’s multiple avenues.
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Nation & World
‘Baby College’ and beyond
Geoffrey Canada — author, educator, psychologist, motivator, poet, black belt, sometime comedian, and founder of the Harlem Children’s Zone — spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of about 300 in the packed Ames Courtroom in Austin Hall last week (March 12).
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Nation & World
African American National Biography launched
From Aaron, a former slave without a last name, through Paul Burgess Zuber, a 20th century lawyer and professor, the recently published African American National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) is the most extensive and inclusive collection of biographical information about African American lives ever published. The African American National Biography (AANB), co-edited by Henry…
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Nation & World
Black Students Association honors pair for activism, service
The Harvard Black Students Association honored Robert Lewis Jr., vice president for program at the Boston Foundation, and critically acclaimed actress Gabrielle Union with its Crimson and Black Leadership awards on Feb. 29. Crimson and Black is an annual event at the University designed to showcase the achievements of Harvard’s past black students while addressing…
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Nation & World
The first civil rights movement
Most of us think of the Civil Rights movement as something that took place in the transitional 1950s and the tumultuous 1960s. It’s seen as a cultural artifact squeezed between the defiance of Rosa Parks (1955) and the demise of Martin Luther King Jr. (1968).
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Nation & World
Exploring tangled legacy of slavery
Certain adages exist about historical repetition: those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it, for example, or history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme. Walter Johnson doesn’t necessary believe in these old chestnuts, but he does see how the past and the present can illuminate one another in order to provide…
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Nation & World
Chute on graphic narratives — they’re not just comic books anymore
The title of Hillary Chute’s Nov. 29 lecture, “Out of the Gutter: Contemporary Graphic Novels by Women,” has a double meaning. It refers to the elevation of graphic narratives — comics — from the lowest, most disreputable level of artistic expression to a form worthy of New York Times best-sellerdom, literary prizes, and academic attention.
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Nation & World
Bearden Foundation honors Henry Louis Gates Jr. , Derek Walcott
This past September, the Romare Bearden Foundation honored Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. along with Nobel laureate Derek Walcott for their contributions and commitment to the literary and artistic canon.
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Nation & World
Newsmakers
Renowned Egyptian activist Nawal El Saadawi has been selected by the Harvard Committee on African Studies to deliver its annual Distinguished Harvard African Studies Lecture. Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics Eric Mazur and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor, were recently named Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) Visiting Scholars for the 2007-08 academic…
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Nation & World
Former staff, prestigious artist Crite dies at 97
Allan Rohan Crite, a renowned painter and Harvard Extension School alumnus, passed away on Sept. 6. He was 97.
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Nation & World
Bercovitch wins Bode-Pearson Prize
Sacvan Bercovitch, the Powell M. Cabot Professor of American Literature Emeritus, has won the Bode-Pearson Prize for outstanding contributions to American studies.
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Nation & World
Bobo, Morgan return to Harvard
Marcyliena Morgan, a noted linguistic anthropologist, and Lawrence D. Bobo, a renowned sociologist, have been appointed professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Both will join the Department of African and African American Studies (AAAS); Bobo will have a joint appointment in sociology. Morgan and Bobo, who are husband and wife, were members of…
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Nation & World
From the borderline
Under a big tent set for lunch in breezy Radcliffe Yard on Friday (June 8), Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison offered a gathering of 950 graduates, fellows, and friends a brief meditation on the oblique efficacy of the humanities. She said these “creative, imaginative arts” counsel, goad, and interrogate American culture from its own borders.
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Nation & World
Harvard Foundation honors Ruby Dee
Ruby Dee — civil rights activist, star of stage and screen, and the surviving half of a pair who, for much of the 20th century, reigned as the first couple of African-American theater — made it to Harvard this week.
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Nation & World
Albert Einstein, Civil Rights activist
Einstein’s response to the racism and segregation he found in Princeton was to cultivate relationships in the town’s African-American community. Jerome and Taylor interviewed members of that community who still remember the white-haired, disheveled figure of Einstein strolling through their streets, stopping to chat with the inhabitants, and handing out candy to local children.
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Nation & World
S. Allen Counter, Deval Patrick to receive leadership award
Concerned Black Men of Massachusetts (CBMM) will recognize Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and Harvard University’s S. Allen Counter with the Paul Robeson Leadership Award for their “leadership and community service” at CBMM’s 2007 Andrew J. Davis Jr. Unity Breakfast.
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Nation & World
Notorious U.S. Supreme Court decision is revisited
Dred Scott. You don’t have to be a lawyer or historian to have that name conjure up feelings of horror and injustice.
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Nation & World
BMF to honor actress Allen as Woman of the Year
The Harvard Black Men’s Forum (BMF) will present the 2007 Woman of the Year award to acclaimed actress, producer, director, and choreographer Debbie Allen. The presentation of the 2007 award — scheduled for March 10 at the Boston Fairmount Copley Hotel — will be the highlight of the 13th annual “Celebration of Black Women: Honoring…
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Nation & World
Jackson raps abundance of ‘experts’
In 1973, Shirley Ann Jackson became the first black woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Decades – and 38 honorary degrees – later, Jackson is the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York. Her resume includes time as a university researcher (in theoretical elementary particle physics);…
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Nation & World
Fishburne feted at Cultural Rhythms
The phrase “rich ethnic and cultural diversity” seemed like an understatement at last Saturday’s (Feb. 24) Cultural Rhythms extravaganza. This year’s event was energized by the appearance of the Artist of the Year Laurence Fishburne, the mightily accomplished actor, director, producer, and humanitarian.