“Commentaries On the Times Radio” with Playthell Benjamin
The Voting Rights Act and the Supreme Court
Playthell discusses the VRA and Section 5 case heard before the Supreme Court on Wednesday with Dr. Gerald Horne John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston and Dr. Basil Wilson, Ph.D., the first Black Provost for John Jay School of Criminal Justice, in New York City and Atlanta businessman, Kaku Saunders.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
10 pm ET LIVE
TruthWorks Network
This weekly program features the best of the writings of Playthell Benjamin with commentary from his renowned virtual magazine, “Commentaries On the Times”http://commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com/
The program will broadcast Thursday, 10 pm ET. “Commentaries On the Times“, a compilation of many years of essays, commentary and analysis of world and domestic issues. They include commentary with carefully researched historical background of the issues of day, including Black history, art, music and current events and people.
Benjamin brings a scope of 40 years of outstanding journalism and broadcasting to TruthWorks. As a former pioneer in the development of Black Studies programs and pundit broadcasting, he comes to a microphone with tremendous knowledge, insight and passion. Of his products, he labels his wordsmith products as, “Praising Saints, Celebrating Heroes, Unmasking Charlatans, Defending the Defenseless and Chastising Scoundrels”. We expect that his show will be no less.
With a lively wit to compliment a broadly learned mind, Playthell is a great guest on television or radio and has shared the mike with some of the biggest host in television, including Geraldo Rivera and Bill Mahr, which can be soon viewed on You Tube. At Present he is completing two books :Quantum shift: Commentaries on the Obama Phenomenon and Jazz at Lincoln Center: Magic Moments In the House Of Swing, a collaboration with the renowned photographer Frank Stewart. Playthell has held a professorship in History/Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts and recently held an adjunct professorship in journalism at Long Island University.
His essays on music criticism have appeared in a wide variety of publications and his interest range from classical music to Jazz to Latin and Hip hop. He writes program notes for Jazz at Lincoln center concerts and is an accomplished Latin percussionist who can be viewed playing with the group Zon Del Barrio on You Tube.
A regular reader of ”Commentaries On the Times” recently commented on one of his essays, “READ the top notch researched work that Brother Playthell George Benjamin is providing for Us. It doesn’t get any better and knowledge is a beautiful thing to share with your family and friends! Several hundred articles await your READING COMPREHENSION and you get what I consider a full PHD worth of knowledge nuggets. Go get that information and become the intelligent person you’ve always wanted to be amongst your crew of friends. Speak with intelligence and knowledge to support your points of view. In spoken and written dialogue, The FACTS tell who you are and as my grandmother used to say, “All Things in Life Change, but Not The TRUTH!” Let’s tell Our Story! I salute YOU Brother Playthell George Benjamin for “Enlightening Us All With Your Knowledge” in so many fields of Interest”.
ABOUT PLAYTHELL BENJAMIN
Playthell George Benjamin is the producer of “Commentaries On the Times”, which he writes and delivers on WBAI radio in New York City, and a producer with The Midnight Ravers, a long running show exploring the world of art and politics which has won several radio awards for excellence in programming. He is an award winning journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in two different categories: Explanatory Journalism, Village Voice 1988, and Distinguished Commentary, New York Daily News1995. As part of the production team for The Midnight Ravers, Mr. Benjamin won a 2011 award for excellence in radio programming, given for The Curtis Mayfield Special.
Playthell has won several prizes ranging from The Unity Award presented by the School of communications at Lincoln University in Missouri for distinguished commentary on race relations; the Griot Prize for excellence in covering a story requiring an exploration of African American history and culture: “Who is Listening to LouisFarrakhan?” It was awarded by the New York chapter of the Association of Black Journalist in December 1989. In 1991 Mr. Benjamin won the NYABJ Magazine Awards for Feature Stories,and in 1996 he won the first Annual Tom Forcade Award “for honesty and accuracy in drug reporting” awarded by High Times magazine for his columns on drug use and abuse in the New York Daily News.
His book, “Witnessing the Motion of History” is expected to publish in the Summer of 2013. His e-magazine covering analysis, commentary and presentation of issues and events is available here: http://commentariesonthetimes.wordpress.com/
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See, quite a few of us feel that President Obama is not obligated to do anything specifically for the Black and Latino community. I’ve heard, “He is not just the President of BLACK people, he is the president of all people,” or “Obama doesn’t control local politics.” And there is my all-time favorite: “So what you gonna do? Vote for Romney?” Yes, these are true statements – well, not the Romney bullsh*t. I would slap box with a bear before voting for Romney, but I do expect some things from my President, especially if he is a P.O.C. (President of Color)
TruthWorks Network 
Courage to Dissent
Apr 4
Posted by TruthWorks Network
Courage to Dissent.
ourage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement—a groundbreaking legal history of the civil rights movement—written from a bottom-up perspective.
In this sweeping history of the Civil Rights movement in Atlanta–the South’s largest and most economically important city–from the 1940s through 1980, Tomiko Brown-Nagin shows that the movement featured a vast array of activists and many sophisticated approaches to activism. Long before “black power” emerged and gave black dissent from the mainstream civil rights agenda a new name, African Americans in Atlanta debated the meaning of equality and the steps necessary to obtain social and economic justice.
This groundbreaking book uncovers the activism of visionaries–both well-known legal figures and unsung citizens–from across the ideological spectrum who sought something different from, or more complicated than, “integration.” Local activists often played leading roles in carrying out the integrationist agenda of the NAACP, but some also pursued goals that differed markedly from those of the venerable civil rights organization. Brown-Nagin discusses debates over politics, housing, public accommodations, and schools. She documents how the bruising battle over school desegregation in the 1970s, which featured opposing camps of African Americans, had its roots in the years before Brown v. Board of Education.
Exploring the complex interplay between the local and national, between lawyers and communities, between elites and grassroots, and between middle-class and working-class African Americans,Courage to Dissent tells gripping stories about the long struggle for equality that speak to the nation’s current urban crisis. This remarkable book will transform our understanding of the Civil Rights era.
Courage to Dissent adds a remarkable array of figures to the pantheon of civil rights lawyers and activists—A.T. Walden, Len Holt, Howard Moore, Jr., Margie Pitts Hames, Ethel Mae Mathews—courageous citizens who complicate our understanding of the movement.
Posted in Commentary, Soul AFIRE with Dr. Matthew V. Johnson, TruthWorks Broadcast News, TWN Program Notes, US Politics
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