African-American Issues

Hemphill is the author of two books of poetry, "Earth Life" and "Conditions," and a collection of prose and poetry called "Ceremonies." He's also the editor of "Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men." He reads an excerpt from his poem "Vital Signs," published in the collection "Life Sentences: Writers, Artists, and AIDS," edited by Thomas Avena.

Writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote "Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X." The book explores the different sides of Malcolm X and how his influence is felt today. Dyson is also the author of "Reflecting Black," and a professor of Communications Studies at the University of North Carolina.

Wideman is the author of "Fatheralong: A Meditation on Fathers and Sons, Race and Society," which explores his relationship with both his father and his son. Wideman's earlier book, "Brothers and Keepers," tells of his relationship with his brother, who, like his son, was convicted of murder. He is also the author of novels and short stories, and is a professor of English literature.

Reporter Patrice Gaines was a teenage mother with a drug rap when she spent the summer of 1970 in jail. She is now a regular reporter for the "Washington Post," and has written a book about how she turned her life around. It's called "Laughing in the Dark: From Colored Girl to Woman of Color."

Feather, one of the world's most prominent jazz critics died of pneumonia, yesterday at the age of 80. He grew up in England and moved to America in 1940. His most important writing was his encylopedia of jazz, an essential reference work of musician bios. Feather spent his final months editing a new edition, which is scheduled for publication next year. Feather also produced about 200 recording sessions, composed for many of the musicians he worked with, and even played piano on some of their sessions.

Sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot has written a new book about the Black middle class, called "I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation." She follows the lives of six middle-aged, African American people on the "necessary losses" they paid for their privilege. Her book was written, in part, as a response to the 1957 book "Black Bourgeoisie," by the black sociologist Franklin Frazier.

Ladd is a 24-year-old writer who has just published an autobiography, "Out of the Madness." He writes about growing up in the Dallas housing projects with his mother, who was a heroin addict. Ladd describes how he struggled to educate himself and eventually became a writer. His book started out as an article, written when he was 20, and published in "Dallas Life." Ladd currently writes for the "Dallas Morning News," and attends college.

Writer Alexs Pate's first novel is called "Losing Absalom." It's a fictionalized tribute to his father that chronicles end of the title character's life as his family has gathered around his hospital bed. Writer John Willimas wrote, "Losing Absalom is a powerful yet sensitive embrace with black America today." Pate grew up in North Philadelphia and lives in Minneapolis.

Nelson Peery has just published his memoir, "Black Fire: The Making of an American Revolutionary," about coming of age against a background of racism, the Depression, and World War II. The book chronicles Peery's travels west during the Depression, and his experiences as a soldier fighting in World War II. He writes about his simultaneous love for America and hatred for the people who discriminated against African Americans, especially in the Army.

Josephine Humpreys and Ruthie Bolton. Humpreys is a fiction writer who won the Pen/Hemingway award in 1985 for "Dreams of Sleep." She recently transcribed and edited the life story of Bolton, who grew up in the same area of Charleston, South Carolina as Humphreys. The novel is called "Gal," and details Bolton's experiences growing up with an abusive grandfather in 1960's South Carolina.

Columnist, commentator and "mad economist" Julianne Malveaux. Her new book "Sex, Lies and Stereotypes: Perspectives of a Mad Economist" (Pines One Publishing) is a compilation of her newspaper columns. She's also a commentator on PBS and CNN. Malveaux says everything is economic from gender relations to job applications to toxic waste. The issues, she says, are issues of "who has and who doesn't, who will and who won't." Malveaux likes to incite, inspire and make people think.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Colored People."

Scholar and activist Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He's Professor of English and Chairman of Afro-American Studies at Harvard and one of Afro-American studies most visible and controversial proponents. Gates believes that Black studies should be a methodology, not an ideology, and that you don't have to be black to teach African-American literature.

Civil rights attorney and law professor Jack Greenberg. He was just out of law school--a white Jewish man from the Bronx when he joined the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Greenberg took over the helm of the LDF from his mentor Thurgood Marshall when Marshall was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeals. During Greenberg's tenure there, the LDF litigated some of the watershed cases of the civil rights struggle. He has just published a memoir of his 35 years at the LDF.

Author Melba Beals. Forty years ago today the United States Supreme Court ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional in "Brown v. Board of Education." Three years later, Beals and eight other black teenagers chose to attend the all white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the process Beals suffered a school year marked by unremitting violence and hatred. Danny, the soldier assigned to protect her, warned her that she too would have to become a soldier.

Filmmaker Haile Gerima. He was born in Ethiopia and now lives in America. His latest movie, "Sankofa," which he wrote and directed, is an epic about African-American slavery, from Africans' 18th century journey to America to their struggles for liberation, told for the first time from an African viewpoint. Gerima is a professor of film at Howard University in Washington, DC. Along with "Sankofa," two of his past features, "Harvest: 3,000 Years" and "Ashes and Embers" have won international awards.

Gary Orfield. He is a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Director of its Project on School Desegregation. His report, "The Growth of Segregation in American Schools: Changing Patterns of Separation and Poverty since 1968" was recently issued to the National School Board Association. In 1954 the United States Supreme Court found that the races in America's schools were segregated and the education was unequal. For awhile, integration was on the increase. But Orfield has found that today our schools have slipped backward.

Commentator Gayle Pemberton comments on Black History Month.

Doctor of Psychology and editorial writer for the New York Times, Brent Staples. His new memoir is "Parallel Time: Growing Up in Black & White" (Pantheon). In 1984, Staples' younger brother, a cocaine dealer, was murdered. Staples began a process of reconsideration of the major questions in his life: his distance from his family by graduate study at the University of Chicago; the demise and racial divisions of his industrial hometown in Pennsylvania. On missing his brother's memorial, Staples writes "Choose carefully the funerals you miss."

Reporter for The Washington Post Nathan McCall. He's written a new autobiography, "Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America." (Random House). When McCall was twenty years old he was sent to prison for armed robbery.