African American

Latest Articles

Female poets step up to the mic

Could be verse
While down in Cambridge last August with a team of Portland poets for the semi-finals of the National Poetry Slam, Tricia Henley Pryce says, she never saw more than one woman up on stage at a time.
By MEGAN GRUMBLING | February 08, 2012

Review: Red Tails

The struggles and triumphs of the Tuskegee Airmen
With a title that refers not to squirrels but to plane markings, Red Tails dramatizes the struggles and triumphs of African-American pioneers, the Tuskegee Airmen.
By BETSY SHERMAN | January 24, 2012

Review: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975

A collage of privileged documentary moments
In the era when the Black Panther Party was its most powerful and off-the-pig-threatening and separatist, there was little interest in even conversing with whitey, unless whitey was from somewhere other than the ultra-racist USA.
By GERALD PEARY | September 27, 2011

Is Boardwalk Empire about to enter its golden age?

Easy livin'
Dispel any remaining doubts. The new season (which begins this Sunday at 9 pm on HBO) unfolds with a new leisurely, cinematic grandeur.
By JON GARELICK | September 21, 2011

The new black

Can a new group of leaders help Boston finally shed its reputation as hostile territory for the black professional middle class?
When the Theater District's Cure Lounge ejected a group of black Harvard and Yale alums and grad students last month, many saw it as the latest confirmation of Boston's racist core.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | December 15, 2010

Cowardly new world

Diverse-City
I know that the ancient Mayan calendar indicated the world may end in 2012, but I doubt it. Instead, let me illustrate how bad it might get, starting in that year.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | May 26, 2010

Ask a Black Woman: Harry Reid edition

Diverse City
Just in time for Black History Month, another installment of "Ask a Black Woman," thanks to JT in Portland who in early January asked me: What's your take on the Harry Reid thing?
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | February 03, 2010

Is there 'hope' in Hollywood?

Three controversial (and sure to be Oscar-nominated) films tackle race in the age of Obama
Buoyed by President Barack Obama's campaign slogan, many had hopes for change after his election.
By PETER KEOUGH | January 29, 2010

Who's next?

What the Banner 's closure means for Boston's African-Americans
If Melvin B. Miller has his way, last week's shutdown of the Bay State Banner — the African-American-focused weekly paper Miller ran as editor and publisher for nearly half a century — won't be the end.
By ADAM REILLY | July 21, 2009

In the same boat

Diverse City
It's summertime in Maine, a sweet and all-too-short season that generally makes living here the other nine or 10 months worth it. Except that this year, sun and warmth have apparently decided that, like access to the credit markets, they won't be available to the masses.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | June 24, 2009

Gender balance

LD 1020 and marriage fairness
Diversity isn’t even just about being open-minded. In the end, it’s about fairness.
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | April 29, 2009

Black power

Letters to the Boston editor, March 20, 2009
Brooding about whether Barack Obama would have become president if he had been a more “traditionally black candidate,” i.e., a descendant of slaves, is a self-indulgence that trivializes the enormity of what has occurred.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | March 19, 2009

Is black the new black?

Was new Portland police chief picked because he is black?
Was new Portland police chief picked because he is black?
By SHAY STEWART-BOULEY | March 04, 2009

Black power

Trinity Rep's powerful Raisin In the Sun
The centerpiece of George C. Wolfe's 1986 satire The Colored Museum is a scathing sketch called The Last Mama-on-the-Couch Play . A Raisin in the Sun is the über-mama-on-the-couch play
By CAROLYN CLAY | February 12, 2009

Black like him?

Obama is, apparently, our first African-American president. But is that the identity he touted as a candidate?
Whatever your race — and whatever you think of his résumé, or his politics, or his yen for tax-cheating cabinet nominees — Barack Obama's arrival in the Oval Office is something to celebrate.
By ADAM REILLY | February 11, 2009

Mixed Magic's When Fate Comes Knocking

Living history
It's been said before and it'll be said again: the election of Barack Obama casts a new light on the Civil Rights Movement. Or, in Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's words, "We get to tell the story in a different way."
By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | February 12, 2009