California Newsreel

12/05/2022

New Mexico voted a child care guarantee into its constitution. For one mom, it means her 8-year-old doesn't worry about money anymore | CNN

New Mexico ranks 50th in the nation in child well-being. To improve that sorry record, the state has become the very first to offer free childcare to most of its children. And last month 70% of New Mexico voters approved a ballot measure guaranteeing the right – and a funding source - in its state constitution.

A mom of three, Alicia Fout was going to college and working 30 hours a week but still often struggled to cover the cost of child care.

09/21/2022

Opinion | Mental Health Is Political

A very important and cogently argued op ed in the NY Times about how our current mental health crisis is being medicalized – surely with big profits to follow – at the expense of addressing the social and economic structures which sow chaos, despair and disrupt people’s lives. In other words: politics.

Many in power would prefer to kick questions like “What caused the mental health crisis?” and “Who benefits?” out of sight. Don’t let them.

09/01/2022

Affordable Paid Leave for All

A chance to take action! California’s paid leave laws cap benefits at 60% of workers’ wages (and is scheduled to drop to 55%). As a result, many low wage workers can’t afford to take the 40% pay cut and they miss out on critical bonding time with their babies, return to work too soon, and can’t care for their loved ones in times of need. But SB951 will change that, raising benefits for low wage workers! Please read and sign the attached letter to the Governor.

Sign the campaign here SB 951 would increase wage replacement rates to 90% for SDI + PFL benefits, a change that will be particularly beneficial to lower income workers, allowing them to spend critical bonding time with their loved ones in their times of need. This is also a racial and gender justic...

08/31/2022

U.S. Life Expectancy Falls Again in ‘Historic’ Setback

U.S. life expectancy fell precipitously, almost three years, in 2020 and 2021. And it’s not all Covid. Deaths from chronic heart disease, liver disease, accidental deaths and drug overdoses also rose. Native Americans and Alaska Natives were particularly hard hit, losing six and a half years of life, on average, since the beginning of Covid! Poverty, racism, and poor access to health care all contribute to premature deaths. As does the chronic stress of living without supports and uncertainty in our “you’re on your own” nation. Alas, the picture painted in Newsreel’s documentary series “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick” of the U.S. as an outlier among rich nations still applies, accentuated by Covid 19. More soon.

The decline during the pandemic is the sharpest in nearly 100 years, hitting American Indian and Native Alaskan communities particularly hard.

07/28/2022

In Memoriam, Mable Haddock | Black Public Media

Today we received the sad news that another trailblazer, Mable Haddock, has passed away. Mable was the founding director of the National Black Programming Consortium (now Black Public Media), which soon became a leading source of funding for independent African American filmmaking. Mable was instrumental to building critical support for UNNATURAL CAUSES from the Minority Consortia (now the National Multicultural Alliance) and fought for and cultivated many other transformative efforts to diversify public media with tenacity and courage . In 1990, the National Black Programming Consortium gave its top documentary prize to Marlon Riggs’ groundbreaking and controversial film about Black gay men, TONGUES UNTIED. Mable was stunned by the blowback, but she stood by the decision. We are forever grateful for her work and her counsel.

MABLE J. HADDOCK Founding President and CEO, National Black Programming Consortium (1948-2022) (L-R) Denise Greene, Mable Haddock, Kay Shaw, Sandy Rattley, and Michael Fequiere at the 2019 PitchBLACK Awards. (L-R) Dr. Joe Brewster, Mable Haddock, and Michele Stephenson Mable Haddock was the founding...

07/27/2022

Louisville community mourns loss of Adewale Troutman, former city health director - Louisville Business First

We just received the sad news that Dr. Adewale Troutman has passed away. Many of you know Dr. Troutman from our documentary series Unnatural Causes as the wise and gracious guide to the roots of health inequities in the city of Louisville, where he served as public health director. But he was much more than that. Health equity pioneer, past president of the American Public Health Association, professor, proud father and grandfather, mentor to many. We hope you’ll read the attached notice of his death (one of many) and celebrate his life by recommitting yourself to racial and social justice as he did.

He is best remembered for championing the local smoking ban and creating the Center for Health Equity.

03/21/2022

The McMillan-Stewart Fellowship: Flora Gomes - Harvard Film Archive

March 24-April 3 for people in the Boston area. The Harvard Film Archive will be hosting Flora Gomes, from Guinea-Bissau and showing all of his films. It's a rare opportunity.

Inspired by his early life under Portuguese colonial rule and by the thought and example of liberation leader Amilcar Cabral, pioneering Bissau-Guinean director Flora Gomes forged a powerful brand of revolutionary filmmaking that seeks to undo the imperialist ...

03/10/2022

Poet Sonia Sanchez Will Receive 2022 MacDowell Medal

Congratulations Sonia Sanchez

Poet/activist/educator Sonia Sanchez will receive the very prestigious Edward MacDowell Medal. Writer and MacDowell Fellow Walter Mosely will present the award to Sanchez at a ceremony on the MacDowell grounds in New Hampshire on July 10, 2022. Sanchez joins an august group of other recipients such as Robert Frost, Georgia O’Keefe, Leonard Bernstein, Louise Bourgeois, I.M. Pei, Sonny Rollins, Stephen Sondheim, Toni Morrison, Art Spiegelman, Charles Gaines and Rosanne Cash.
(https://www.macdowell.org/news/sonia-sanchez-poet-lecturer-activist-for-peace-and-racial-justice-will-receive-2022-macdowell-medal)
Sonia Sanchez is the subject of the award-winning documentary and California Newsreel release BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez

Poet Sonia Sanchez, the author of more than 17 internationally renowned volumes of verse, will receive the Edward MacDowell Medal at the MacDowell grounds on Sunday, July 10, 2022. The return of the public celebration, including introductory remarks by novelist and MacDowell Fellow Walter Mosley and...

02/10/2022

Vastly unequal US has world’s highest Covid death toll – it’s no coincidence

Those who have screened California Newsreel's documentary series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick? won't be surprised that the U.S., the most unequal of all industrialized countries, has by far the highest COVID death rate.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/06/us-covid-death-rate-vaccines

As the US passes 900,000 Covid deaths, much of the blame has fallen on individuals despite vast income inequality and vaccine accessibility issues

01/26/2022

The Many Visions of Lorraine Hansberry

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/24/the-many-visions-of-lorraine-hansberry?utm_source=onsite-share&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker

She’s been canonized as a hero of both mainstream literature and radical politics. Who was she really?

01/16/2022

2022 MLK Day Film Festival

https://cddrl.fsi.stanford.edu/world-house/content/mlk-day2022

Stanford's World House Project is presenting a film festival and other online programs to honor Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday.

Friday, January 14 through Monday, January 17

01/12/2022

How 'A Raisin in the Sun' made Sidney Poitier's Broadway legacy unforgettable

How 'A Raisin in the Sun' made Sidney Poitier's Broadway legacy unforgettable

The late actor will be remembered for his prodigious film legacy, but Poitier's contributions to theater should not go unforgotten.

01/12/2022

Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart Sidney Poitier Excerpt

Thank you to Tracy Heather Strain, director of LORRAINE HANSBERRY: SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART for posting this clip of Sidney Poitier's participation in the documentary.

Director Tracy Heather Strain interviews Sidney Poitier at his home with producer Randall MacLowry, cameraperson Richard Butler and sound recordist Caleb Mose in…

01/05/2022

Archbishop Desmond Tutu in LONG NIGHT'S JOURNEY INTO DAY

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1931-2021)

California Newsreel mourns the passing of Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu. The venerable theologian was a steadfast supporter of human rights and peace, best known for his activism against South African apartheid for which he was awarded the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize. He was a living example of the Southern African notion of Ubuntu “I am, because you are”. Archbishop Tutu was courageously consistent in his views, protesting against racism, war and militarism, opposing the death penalty, supporting LGBT rights, taking issue with governmental corruption and championing accountability, advocating for people with AIDS, being in solidarity with the Palestinian people by acting against Israeli apartheid (backing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign) and standing with young climate justice activists. We miss your optimism and joyful laugh. Rest in peace Archbishop Tutu.

Over the years, California Newsreel has distributed films in which he participated. We offer this brief clip from the award-winning documentary Long Night’s Journey into Day on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which he discusses the concept of restorative justice.

12/20/2021

bell hooks in BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T...

bell hooks (1952-2021)

Pioneering Black feminist activist, theorist and professor bell hooks (Gloria Watkins) died on December 15. In her very insightful and intimate writing and speeches she insisted upon making the connections between gender, race and class - embodying the term "intersectionality" - and broadening the appeal of her ideas much beyond the academy with a particular appeal to Black women. She was the prolific author of 40 books on many subjects (film, cultural criticism, teaching, feminist theory, anti-racism, spiritual practice) and in a variety of genres (essay, memoir, self-recovery, poetry and children’s books).

She participated in the final documentary by Marlon Riggs, BLACK IS...BLACK AIN'T. In this clip, her words in the film’s final moments brilliantly communicate the film’s urgent message. Thank you bell hooks, Rest in Power.

12/06/2021

Human geneticists curb use of the term ‘race’ in their papers

Most scientists have rejected the idea of race as innate biological – or genetic – difference. This is underscored by a new study showing that all but a few human genetics researchers have rejected racial categories when writing about populations and genetic variation. It reaffirms the themes of California Newsreel's pioneering documentary series, Race-The Power of an Illusion. Race is a social not biological category – but race as lived experience has many consequences, health and biology among them.

https://www.science.org/content/article/human-geneticists-curb-use-term-race-their-papers?utm_campaign=news_daily_2021-12-02&et_rid=35072463&et_cid=4019530

Field still struggles with how to accurately describe populations, study finds

11/29/2021

Woodie King Jr. finally gets a Tony Award for bringing color to the stage

Theater pioneer and filmmaker Woodie King is receiving richly reserved acknowledgement. He made the essential documentary BLACK THEATER: THE MAKING OF A MOVEMENT (http://newsreel.org/video/BLACK-THEATER) released by California Newsreel.

Woodie King Jr. always had a gift for teasing talent from unconventional sources. One young playwright was minister of culture for the Black Panther Party. Anot…

11/19/2021

North Dakota Bans Teaching About Structural Racism - Zinn Education Project

Thank you to the Zinn Education Project for posting this about North Dakota banning teaching about structural racism. It would mean that schools could not show this excerpt from RACE - THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION we've entitled "How the Racial Wealth Gap Was Created" (https://vimeo.com/133506632)

North Dakota passed a law to ban teaching "that racism is systemically embedded in American society and the American legal system to facilitate racial inequality." Instead, teachers must say that "racism is merely the product of learned individual bias or prejudice."

10/27/2021

Sonia Sanchez wins Gish Prize for lifetime achievement

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/sonia-sanchez-wins-gish-prize-for-lifetime-achievement

Poet, educator and activist Sonia Sanchez is this year’s winner of the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, a $250,000 lifetime achievement honor previously given to Chinua Achebe, Bob Dylan and Maya Lin among others.

07/26/2021

Beacon Press: Collected Poems

Sonia Sanchez is the subject of the documentary BaddDDD Sonia Sanchez (a California Newsreel release) which examines her over 60 years of electrifying poetry and activism. A book of her Collected Poems (http://www.beacon.org/Collected-Poems-P1640.aspx) has recently been released.

A representative collection of the life work of the much-honored poet and a founder of the Black Arts movement, spanning 4 decades of her literary career.

07/23/2021

Saturday marks 12 years since the last federal minimum wage increase, the longest period in U.S. history without an increase. Since 2009, the minimum wage of $7.25/hour has lost 21% of its value, after adjusting for inflation.

It is past time for Congress to do its job and raise the minimum wage to at least $15 per hour.

Learn more: https://www.epi.org/blog/the-minimum-wage-has-lost-21-of-its-value-since-congress-last-raised-the-wage/

07/20/2021

Opinion | How to Raise Kids Who Won’t Be Racist

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/15/opinion/raise-non-racist-children.html?searchResultPosition=2

Research shows that talking openly about race makes children more empathetic and raises their self-esteem.

07/13/2021

Opinion | How the White Press Wrote Off Black America

Brent Staples of the New York Times editorial board implicates white press in the promotion of white supremacy for more than a century and credits the Black press for struggling against it. Stanley Nelson's documentary SOLDIERS WITHOUT SWORDS: THE BLACK PRESS tells the latter story.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/opinion/sunday/white-newspapers-african-americans.html

News organizations are belatedly apologizing for racist journalism that alienated generations of African-Americans

07/13/2021

Richard C. Lewontin, Eminent Geneticist With a Sharp Pen, Dies at 92

Richard Lewontin, "one of the most brilliant geneticists of the modern era," has passed away at age 92. California Newsreel was so very fortunate to have him as a scientific advisor – and on camera – for our documentary series "Race-The Power of an Illusion." His wise counsel insured that the series remained on sure footing. May he rest in peace.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/07/science/richard-c-lewontin-dead.html?searchResultPosition=1

He demonstrated that differences in DNA between groups of people were far smaller than originally believed. He was also a noted opponent of aspects of sociobiology.

07/06/2021

Open Letter from Civil Rights Movement Veterans to Teachers: We’ve Seen This Before and We Stand With You | Zinn Education Project

"Yesterday, their targets were the NAACP, SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. Today they are taking aim at organizations such as the 1619 Project, the Zinn Education Project, Black Lives Matter at School, Learning for Justice, Teaching for Change, and also teachers throughout this nation who want their students to better understand the history behind the economic and social disparities so evident in their communities . . ."

Open letter from Civil Rights Movement veterans in support of teachers who pledge to teach the truth despite the new wave of teacher-intimidation and thought-suppression laws.

07/02/2021

GOP critical race theory attack is straight from Reagan's school privatization playbook

GOP critical race theory attack is straight from Reagan's school privatization playbook

Bills opposing the theory mirror the 1967 gutting of California’s public universities.

06/29/2021

The Roots of Structural Racism Project

More than 80% of U.S. metropolitan areas were more segregated in 2019 than they were in 1990, according to a new report from the Othering & Belonging Institute. What is most salient, says lead author Stephen Menendian, is that segregation is not about separating people on the basis of skin color, it's about separating people from resources and opportunity structures based on their skin color.

https://belonging.berkeley.edu/roots-structural-racism

By Stephen Menendian, Arthur Gailes, and Samir GambhirThis project has been in development for many years, and the authors would like to thank Lindsey Burnside, Peter Mattingly, Karina French, and Ruqayah Ghaus for their research support and contributions to this project. The authors would also like...

06/07/2021

Surreal Encounters in Ralph Ellison’s ‘Invisible Man’

Read literary critic and scholar Adam Bradley’s article on Ralph Ellison and his classic novel Invisible Man. There will be a virtual conversation about the book on June 17 lead by Mr. Bradley. Avon Kirkland’s documentary Ralph Ellison: An American Journey is a California Newsreel release.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/03/t-magazine/ralph-ellison-invisible-man.html

Breaking with the dominant literary styles among Black writers at the time, the author expanded the limits of realism to create a world that was, and remains, all too familiar.

05/14/2021

Richard Wright’s Newly Restored Novel Is a Tale for Today

After nearly 80 years, Richard’s Wright’s novel The Man Who Lived Underground is finally published. For more background on Wright’s’ life and work check out the California Newsreel release Richard Wright: Black Boy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/20/books/review/richard-wright-man-who-lived-underground.html?searchResultPosition=1

Some 80 years after Wright finished it, “The Man Who Lived Underground” is still an urgent chronicle of the Black experience in America.

05/10/2021

Black Lives Are Shorter in Chicago. My Family’s History Shows Why.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/magazine/life-expectancy-racial-gap.html?searchResultPosition=1

Linda Villarosa writes about continuing health and wealth disparities in Chicago through the lens of her family's experiences. She also reveals that her mother Clara was a childhood friend of writer Lorraine Hansberry.

How did a Promised Land to generations of Black families become a community of lost lives?

04/15/2021

The Brief, Brilliant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry

In “Radical Visions: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry” author Soyica Diggs Colbert contributes to the renaissance as did the California Newsreel release LORRAINE HANSBERRY: SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART by Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/14/books/review-radical-vision-lorraine-hansberry-biography-soyica-diggs-colbert.html

Soyica Diggs Colbert’s “Radical Vision” situates the playwright of “A Raisin in the Sun” as a writer who offered “a road map to negotiate Black suffering in the past and present.”

04/02/2021

Tongues Untied and Accessing Archives with Steven Fullwood | Scribe

Tongues Untied and Accessing Archives with Steven Fullwood | Scribe

Marlon Riggs’ (1957 – 1994) groundbreaking film, Tongues Untied, is a cornerstone within LGBTQ documentary cinema, its timeless articulation of the black gay male experience has inspired a generation of q***r identified artists and filmmakers.Through poetry, personal testimony, rap, and performa...

04/02/2021

Opinion | Your Home’s Value Is Based on Racism

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/20/opinion/home-value-race-taxes.html?searchResultPosition=1

Also as explored in the third episode of California Newsreel's RACE- THE POWER OF AN ILLUSION.

Wherever they choose to buy, Black people are penalized by white preferences.

03/06/2021

SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART: Art & Activism of an American Icon - HB Studio

SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART: Art & Activism of an American Icon - HB Studio

An HB Public Conversation of the film SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART with Executive Producer Chiz Schultz & Mario Sprouse of Marble Collegiate Church HB

02/22/2021

KweliTV & California Newsreel Ally to Boost Streams – EURweb

Many African films released by California Newsreel will now stream on Kweli TV.

California Newsreel Colabs with kweliTV to stream robust African content.

02/22/2021

W.E.B. Du Bois - A Biography in Four Voices | Scribe

Tuesday, February 23, 7pm ET. A special screening of W.E.B. DuBois: A Biography in Four Voices to commemorate his 153rd birthday in a program with director Louis Massiah, writers Thulani Davis, Wesley Brown and with an introduction by Sonia Sanchez. Also on the program will be the short film We Are Free Because of Harriet Tubman by Nadine Patterson.

Join us for a special screening in commemoration of W.E.B. Du Bois’ 153rd birthday. The long and remarkable life of Dr. William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B) Du Bois (1868-1963) offers unique insights into a momentous century in African American history. In the first film biography to document the pion...

02/02/2021

Join our Cloud HD Video Meeting

Today Tuesday, February 2, 2:10-3 PT, the directors of AGENTS OF CHANGE, Frank Dawson and Abby Ginzberg will be discussing their film after a screening at the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. The conversation is on Zoom (https://zoom.us/j/8867892209)

http://newsreel.org/video/AGENTS-OF-CHANGE

Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, confer...

12/22/2020

Lorraine Hansberry Was an Unapologetic Radical

Yes. As presented in the award-winning documentary, LORRAINE HANSBERRY: SIGHTED EYES/FEELING HEART.

Lorraine Hansberry is best known for her classic play A Raisin in the Sun. But she was also a committed radical who insisted that black workers must be at the heart of the struggle for liberation.

11/06/2020

Marlon Riggs, Ancestor

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/7153-marlon-riggs-ancestor
“Marlon Riggs, Ancestor”

Pulitzer Prize winning poet and professor Jericho Brown’s tribute to Marlon Riggs upon the release of a retrospective on the Criterion Channel.

A Pulitzer Prize–winning poet pays tribute to the liberating power of the pioneering filmmaker and his truth-telling body of work.

10/21/2020

JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF THE TICKET streaming now at The Public Theater.

The Public Theater's Virtual Gala 2020 - 2021 ...

Premiere on Tuesday, Oct 20 - 8:00 pm
Available for Streaming Thru Oct 24th

Includes a Powerful Statement from James Baldwin ...

Register Here to RSVP, Contribute & Attend Auction: https://publictheater.org/support-us/events-benefits/virtual-event-2020/virtualevent2020/?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=21Forward.Together.Daybeforenogift%2Frsvp&utm_content=version_A&source_no=99633