Noted D.C. journalist dies
Second African American columnist to win Pulitzer
Funeral services are pending for Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist William Raspberry, who died Tuesday from complications of prostate cancer. He was 76.
Raspberry was the second Black columnist to win a Pulitzer. He wrote his opinion column for the Post for more than 40 years, and by the time he retired in 2005, in excess of 200 newspapers carried his column in syndication.
The product of a segregated upbringing in Mississippi, Raspberry began his journalism career as a reporter at the Black weekly, the Indianapolis Recorder. He worked there in positions of increasing importance before moving on to the Post as a teletypist in 1962.
After a few months, Raspberry became a general assignment reporter and eventually developed a wealth of knowledge writing on civil rights issues. He rejected the label “expert” and even initially turned down the opportunity to be a columnist, because he felt he might run out of ideas in three or four weeks. But the ideas flowed for decades, and Raspberry became one of the deans of Black journalism.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Los Angeles based award-winning author and public speaker Lana Reid will debut her uniquely inspirational/motivational talk show “Don’t Box Me In” on TalkZone Internet Radio.
Don’t Box Me In will air every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to noon, starting April 24th, 2013.
“A Black Woman Speaks,” a tribute to author and actress Beah Richards, will be the final presentation of the BFA Summer Theater Festival at the Carmen Zapata Theater Bilingual Foundation of the Arts July 22 at 5 p.m. The theater is located at 421 N. Avenue 19, in Los Angeles.
The presentation is a joint production of the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts, the Inner City Cultural Center (ICCC) and the city of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. Tickets are $15.
Television and movie producer Norman Lear will receive a lifetime achievement award May 22 at the Playboy Mansion for his defense of values embodied by the Bill of Rights, the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation announced today.
The awards, begun in 1979 by Christie Hefner, honor people who help protect and enhance First Amendment rights in journalism, government, book publishing and education.
The 2013 Pulitzer Prizes were announced Monday, April 15, by the Pulitzer Prize board at a ceremony at Columbia University. The nonfiction accounts of two heroes of African descent emerged: Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, born in 1762 in the Caribbean French sugar colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola (the place of his birth now lies in Haiti, which shares the island), and famed civil rights attorney and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
“Devil in the Grove” (Harper) by Gilbert King won in general nonfiction.
The Urban Issues Breakfast Forum will host scholar-activist-author Angela Y. Davis April 19 from 7:30-9:30 a.m. (the program starts promptly at 8 a.m.) at the California African American Museum, 600 State Park Drive, Exposition Park in Los Angeles. Priority admission and seating will be given to those who purchase Dr. Davis’ latest book, “The Meaning of Freedom and Other Difficult Dialogues.” The book must be purchased at Eso Won Bookstore, at which time purchaser’s will be given a priority admission coupon.
