Lehigh Valley Black News Network

PennDOT / ProRank Event July 28th 2021

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Tony Todd to star in August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned at Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival in Center Valley, July 1st to July 11th

LV-BNN has (4) Free Pair of tickets for the first four emails to ke@lvbnn.com

Topic: I want my Tony Todd Ticket

How I Learned What I Learned will be performed on the Festival’s indoor Main Stage to a limited capacity, socially distanced audience. The show will preview at 6:30pm on June 29 and 30.

Opening night is Thursday, July 1 at 6:30pm, and the production runs through July 11.

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Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival has announced its re-opening for Summer 2021, with exciting plans for a variety of outdoor, indoor, and virtual performances. The season will run June 25 to August 1 at, and adjacent to, the Labuda Center for the Performing Arts at DeSales University in Center Valley, PA.

Though the full season will be announced soon, the summer season will feature August Wilson’s one-man theatrical memoir How I Learned What I Learned, starring veteran stage, film, and television actor Tony Todd.

With an acting career spanning more than 30 years, Mr. Todd has an extensive list of credits in all genres. His films include Oliver Stone's Academy Award-winning Platoon; Lean On Me with Morgan Freeman; Clint Eastwood’s Bird; and the voice of the Fallen in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen; among many others.

The charismatic six-foot-five actor is perhaps best known for his chilling performances in horror and sci-fi films including the title role in the Candyman franchise, as well as the Hatchet and Final Destination franchise hits, along with Night of the Living Dead, The Crow, and The Rock.

On television, he has had prominent guest starring roles in numerous critically-acclaimed television series including Riverdale for the CW, Room 104 for HBO, Scream for MTV, the villain Zoom on the CW series The Flash, recurring roles on all three incarnations of Star Trek, and many more.

Mr. Todd has received accolades for numerous roles on stage including a coveted Helen Hayes Award for his performance in Athol Fugard’s The Captain’s Tiger at the La Jolla Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club, and The Kennedy Center; and originating the title role in the world premiere of August Wilson’s King Hedley II in Pittsburgh, Boston, and Seattle. (Variety lauded, “Todd’s King Hedley dominates the stage.” His performance “was a memorable tour-de-force.”)

How I Learned What I Learned will be performed on the Festival’s indoor Main Stage to a limited capacity, socially distanced audience. The show will preview at 6:30pm on June 29 and 30. Opening night is Thursday, July 1 at 6:30pm, and the production runs through July 11.

Read more about the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival here

Watch a Never-Before-Aired James Baldwin Interview From 1979

Buried by ABC at the time, the segment reveals a unique glimpse into Baldwin’s private life—as well as his resounding criticism about white fragility, as blisteringly relevant today as it was in 1979.

By Adrienne Westenfeld June 15, 2021

In 1979, up-and-coming television producer Joseph Lovett scored the opportunity of a lifetime. Just a few months into his stint at 20/20, ABC’s upstart television news magazine, Lovett was assigned a profile of James Baldwin, pegged to the publication of Baldwin’s nineteenth book, Just Above My Head. Lovett was “beyond thrilled” to tell the titanic American writer’s story—but it’s taken until 2021 for that interview to see the light of day. Buried by ABC at the time, the segment has resurfaced over four decades later, revealing a unique glimpse into Baldwin’s private life—as well as his resounding criticism about white fragility, as blisteringly relevant today as it was in 1979.

When Lovett received the assignment, he was excited to meet one of his heroes: “I had been reading [Baldwin] since I was a teenager. I thought he was brilliant and brave and speaking to the moment of history that we were all living in. I was thrilled; I was beyond thrilled.”

Watch Video here Counite article here

Coard: Congress patronizes with Juneteenth, ignores lynching

Michael Coard Jun 19, 2021

OK. I’ll give credit where credit is due.

Thank you, 117th Congress, for finally passing Senate Bill 475, officially known as “Juneteenth National Independence Day” and technically known as Public Law No. 117-17. Also, thank you, President Joe Biden, for quickly signing that bill into law June 17.

But, um, I ain’t too impressed because what y’all did is akin to giving starving diners a mere morsel from the massive buffet they already paid extra for. I mean, yeah, they appreciate a few breadcrumbs and all since they’re famished. However, it’s not enough, not nearly enough! You owe ‘em more, much more!

As Brother Malcolm X so profoundly and prophetically stated, “The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and justice.” And as yours truly, Michael X, adds, “They’ll do that rather than provide judicial, educational, and other substantive equity and justice.”

The white man has owed us since Aug. 25, 1619, when he began formally enslaving us in British colonial America. And he continues to owe us since the Redemption Era, the Black Codes, sharecropping, peonage labor, convict-leasing, pervasive lynchings, Jim Crow, the sabotaging of Brown v. Board of Education, legislative voter disenfranchisement, court-sanctioned gerrymandering, redlining, stop and frisk, police brutality/murder, mass incarceration, and all other components of systemic racism in general. read more

Allentown PA Celebrates JUNETEENTH: Saturday June 19th 5:00pm to 10:00pm

JUNETEENTH ALLENTOWN 2021 CELEBRATION

Join us Saturday, June 19th, from 5pm -10pm.

Spread the word! Juneteenth is a holiday in the city of Allentown and Lehigh County. Get ready for a Juneteenth Celebration in downtown Allentown, PA. Event will include local and national live entertainment, vendors, soul food vendors and cuisine, children’s area, and activities, spoken word, art, 5x5 football tournament, Juneteenth pageant crowning ceremony, and a firework show.

DOWNTOWN ALLENTOWN

7TH & HAMILTON ST.

ALLENTOWN, PA