Arthur Hurst and Valerie Hart Credit: Mark Hancock An Oklahoma City landmark that entertained generations of moviegoers in the city’s black community is crumbling, but organizers of an upcoming music festival hope to help. On Saturday, the Jewel Foundation Blues Festival will feature Grammy-winning recording artist Clarence Carter and national blues act Mel Walters, as […]
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Posted inArts & Culture
Some Guy Who Kills People
Corrigan often plays losers and underdogs, but rarely as the lead. Here, he’s ice cream parlor worker Kenny Boyd, sometimes further humiliated by having to don a costume as a mint chocolate chip cone at kids’ birthday parties. But, hey, it beats the loony bin, from which he’s newly sprung. Bullied and tormented since his […]
Posted inNews
Poised for progress
The election of an African-American president to an organization with its roots in slavery is being heralded as a milestone in racial reform. The Southern Baptists broke off from Northern Baptists in 1845 in support of slavery. Having supported Jim Crow and resisted integration for more than a century, the organization officially apologized in 1995. […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Pepe Delgados Mexican Restaurante
Nestled in the center of Norman’s Campus Corner, Pepe Delgados tastes like you could be dining 1,500 miles away in owner Emilio Salinas’ home village of Punta Maldonado, Mexico. “There’s an African-Mexican influence in our recipes, because my mother is African,” he said. “There was a shipwreck and her ancestors stayed right there in the […]
Posted inNews
The color of law
“We were not allowed to sit with our classmates,” Fisher said in an interview recorded before her death in 1995 at the age of 71. “They moved all the white students to the first three rows. They left three or four blank rows. Then behind that last row, a large wooden chair with a big […]
Posted inNews
‘Welfare queens’ a myth
Clearly he thinks either that welfare pays far more than it really does, or that black women are abysmally stupid. Contrary to the “welfare queen” myth, welfare benefits, including both Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and food stamps in 2010, was only 54 percent of the poverty level in Oklahoma. It was 81 percent in […]
Posted inNews
Race and joblessness
Statewide, black workers are unemployed at about twice the rate of white workers; they also stay unemployed longer and are more likely to be working part-time because they couldn’t find a full-time job. Much of the gap is driven by exceptionally high unemployment rates among black men, which is about two and half times that […]
Posted inNews
Race and joblessness
Statewide, black workers are unemployed at about twice the rate of white workers; they also stay unemployed longer and are more likely to be working part-time because they couldn’t find a full-time job. Much of the gap is driven by exceptionally high unemployment rates among black men, which is about two and half times that […]
Posted inMusic
Wylde thing
Few people can claim Ozzy Osbourne as the godfather to their child. Guitar icon Zakk Wylde might be the only one; the 44-year-old leader of Black Label Society and ex-Osbourne guitarist resides in the upper echelon of the metal gods, even if he laughs at the very idea of being voted one. “It’s hysterical. Sure, […]
Posted inMusic
Blues brothers
If together long enough, bands become little families; the fewer the people, the tighter the bond. Duos can become like twins: a tight-knit relationship that becomes more than mere partnership. The men behind blues-rock duo The Black Jack Gypsys does the theory one better: The Oklahoma City boys are brothers by actual blood. “Being close […]