African-American Issues

On Martin Luther King, Junior Day, we devote the show to a look at the present and future of the Civil Rights movement. Terry talks with columnist, radio commentator, and professor Manning Marable. He'll discuss what issues the civil rights movement should address, now that the basic legal rights that Martin Luther King, Junior worked for have largely been secured.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new collection of writings by African-American author Richard Wright.

On the anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, junior, we discus his legacy with Clayborne Carson, the Director and Senior Editor of the Martin Luther King, Junior Papers Project. Next month, they release the first of 14 volumes of Kings's writings. Carson is a professor of history at Stanford University.

Cinematographer Ernest Dickerson. He shot all of Spike Lee's films. He's now making his debut as a film director with the movie, "Juice," for which he also wrote the script.

English professor Arnold Rampersad. He's just edited a new edition of the works of black writer Richard Wright. Wright's novel, "Native Son," was a breakthrough in African American literature when it was published in 1940. It also turns out many scenes dealing with the sexual activities of the main character were removed, to make the novel more palatable to Book Month Club subscribers. Those cuts have been restored in this new edition (by The Library of America).

Writer Jake Lamar. In his new memoir, "Bourgeois Blues," Lamar examines the issue of race in his life, and in American society. (published by Summit Books).

Author and Educator and activist Jonathan Kozol.

Author Shelby Steele. Steele's best-selling book, "The Content of Our Character," is a personal analysis of racism in America. Steele says it's time Blacks in America stopped using racial victimization as a crutch and started to rely on their own efforts to gain access to the mainstream. (It's newly published in paperback by Harper).

Stephen Carter, who's written the book "Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby" (Basic Books) has led a privileged and fortunate life, growing up in a professional black family, attending Ivy League schools and subsequently becoming one of the youngest tenured law professors in Yale University's history. But Carter has also weathered academic and professional experiences in which he was pigeonholed and patronized on account of his race.

Writer Carole Ione. She's written a new memoir of her foremothers, "Pride of the Family: Four Generations of American Women of Color." (Published by Summit Books). It tells the stories of her mother, a journalist, her great-auntie Sistonie, one of the first black women doctors in Washington, D.C., her grandmother Be-Be a vaudeville dancer and later soul food restaurant owner, and her great-grand-mother, Frances Anne "Frank" Rollin Whipper.

First-time film director John Singleton. His new film is "Boyz N the Hood," which is set in South Central L.A. where Singleton grew up. A number of theatres across the country have cancelled the showing of "Boyz N the Hood," because of violent outbreaks at or near theatres where its been shown. Over 30 people have been injured and one killed. But the film itself is plea to stop the violence and killing.

Jazz French horn player Willie Ruff. Ruff's new autobiography, "A Call to Assembly," chronicles his childhood in the South, his enlistment in the army in 1946, his gaining admission to Yale, and his decision to pass on a career in classical music and follow a life in jazz. (It's published by Viking).

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews "The Adventures of Amos and Andy," writer Melvin Patrick Ely's look at the comedy series, and the controversy it caused.

Journalist Alex Kotlowitz won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for a series of articles he wrote for the Wall Street Journal chronicling the lives of two children in a housing project in Chicago. He's expanded those articles into the new book, "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up In the Other America."

Peebles is the son of the legendary director Melvin Van Peebles. His film New Jack City is set in Harlem, and features a grim, gritty, and violent world of crack dealers and users.

National Affairs Director of the National Black Police Association, Officer Ron Hampton, has been a policeman for 19 years. He's gotten a reputation for speaking out against the misuse of power in the police force, which Hampton says is distressingly common. He'll discuss the beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers.

In 1971, writer Lorene Cary was one of the first black female students to be enrolled at St. Paul's, a private prep school in New Hampshire; Cary grew up middle class in Philadelphia. Her memoir about entering the privileged, elite world of the school is called "Black Ice."

Journalist Nicholas Lemann's new book, "The Promised Land," is an account of the American black migration; between the early 1940s and the late 1960s more than five million blacks left the Deep South and headed north, looking for a better life.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews a new biography of the former slave, writer, and abolitionist by Pulitzer Prize-winning author William McFeely. The book fills in the many gaps and silences in all three of Douglass's autobiographies.