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Why did images of white, nuclear families dominate television in the 1950s? Why has it taken nearly 70 years for images of a diverse America—featuring people of color, immigrants, women as independent social beings—to appear on prime time television?  Challenging the longstanding belief that what appeared on television screens in the 1950s and after resulted from some social consensus, The Broadcast 41 addresses these and other questions by telling two intersecting stories. The first story documents the heterogeneous perspectives of a generation of progressive women who had been…

Just sharing a great article for Women's HIstory Month about the invisible history of Black women's contributions to classical music, including Shirley Graham Du Bois, whose Tom Tom was the first opera produced by a Black woman when it premiered in 1932.

I just stumbled across this article, which combines three wonderful items: Langston Hughes, the Chicago Defender, and ghosts. Hughes was a poet and writer who was blacklisted in the 1950s and the subject of much government and anti-communist organization concern because of his powerful voice and the respect he commanded. The Chicago Defender was one of the most important African American newspapers. Founded in 1905, its coverage of police violence, civil rights, entertainment, everyday life, and so much more is an important…